Paving the Way for Violence

Can road construction fuel violence? Governments across the developing world invest heavily in road infrastructure to promote economic integration and extend infrastructural power. This study identifies an unintended consequence: new roads increase lethal violence by raising the strategic value of newly connected territories for organized criminal groups. I argue that road construction creates a “logistical violence premium”. Infrastructure lowers barriers to mobility and trade, simultaneously opening corridors for criminal expansion, triggering violent territorial competition where institutional capacity remains weak. Using difference-in-differences estimates with municipal panel data, administrative records of federal road construction, and fieldwork in Ceará, Northeast Brazil, I find that new roads led to approximately a 15 percent increase in homicide rates in affected municipalities. These findings challenge the assumption that infrastructure investment uniformly strengthens the state, revealing instead that connectivity can empower non-state coercive actors when it outpaces the development of enforcement and judicial institutions. The results carry implications for infrastructure planning in contexts of weak governance, suggesting that sequencing institutional capacity alongside physical connectivity is critical to avoiding the violent side effects of development.

Recommended citation: Ribeiro, Felipe. "Paving the Way for Violence." Revise and resubmit, Latin American Politics and Society.