Replication Data for: Why Do Citizens Support Ineffective Military Policing Policies? Evidence from Field and Survey Experiments in Colombia

Governments across the Global South increasingly rely on their militaries to conduct domestic policing operations. Despite recent evidence that military policing does not reduce crime, most Latin Americans still endorse it. What explains persistent support for this apparently ineffective practice? We propose two mechanisms — blame misattribution and disconfirmation bias — that could account for these patterns. Results from a survey experiment of 7,858 respondents in Cali, Colombia, support the blame misattribution but not the disconfirmation bias mechanism. We complement the survey experiment with evidence from a real-world, randomized military policing intervention that did not reduce crime. In line with our survey experimental results, civilians living on or near blocks randomly assigned to military patrols in 2019 support the practice less than those living on control blocks even three years later. We discuss the implications of our findings for policing and democratic responsiveness in countries beset by crime.

全球南方国家的政府日益依赖本国军队开展国内警务行动。尽管已有证据显示军事警务（military policing）无法降低犯罪率，但大多数拉丁美洲民众仍对其表示支持。究竟是什么原因导致民众对这一显然低效的举措始终持支持态度？我们提出两种机制可解释这一现象：责任误归因（blame misattribution）与证伪偏差（disconfirmation bias）。针对哥伦比亚卡利市7858名受访者开展的调查实验结果，验证了责任误归因机制，却未支持证伪偏差机制。我们还结合一项真实世界随机军事警务干预实验的证据对该调查实验进行补充，该干预并未降低犯罪率。与我们的调查实验结果一致，2019年被随机分配至军事巡逻街区及其周边居住的民众，即便在三年后，对该举措的支持率仍低于对照组街区的居民。我们探讨了本研究结论对受犯罪问题困扰国家的警务工作与民主回应性的启示意义。