Managing Protest in Weak Democracies. Conflict Prevention Agencies and Civil Society Organizations in Peru

My dissertation seeks to explain why, in democracies with weak institutions, some subnational regions are more capable to prevent violent protests than others. I argue that the robustness of conflict prevention agencies and the institutionalization of civil society organizations are key to reduce information asymmetries and credible commitment problems between the state and protesters, minimizing the likeliness of the former using repression or the latter choosing violent strategies. Last year, I did fieldwork in Peru conducting extensive interviews in four subnational cases (Puno, Arequipa, Cajamarca and Lambayeque). However, I still need to interview former police officers and security experts to explore the mechanisms how conflict prevention agencies contain police repression, a central part of my argument. I would use the Kellogg Graduate Student Grant to fund this last stage of my fieldwork.