This Land Is Mine Land: Extractive Projects and Coercive Benefits in India

• In Event: The Politics of Land and Natural Resource Conflict

Abstract

Can extractive industries promote development? Prevailing theory claims that extractive industries hinder development by reducing the need for revenue from sources like taxation. This underdevelopment is also linked to greater rates of conflict. In contrast, we theorize that extractive industries can yield a greater investment in development initiatives, because extraction requires labor. To attract labor to often undesirable places, states can use public goods as incentives to attract workers to otherwise unfavorable conditions. To test this theory, we construct a village-level, panel dataset tracking extractive project announcements across all of India from 1995 to 2020. Using a difference-in-difference analysis, we find that villages in which extractive projects are announced feature both greater public goods provision and coercion in the period after projects are announced. We show that both changes are due to increased in-migration. This project makes specific under what conditions extractive industries can generate local development, often for the benefit of incoming, migrant working populations instead of existing communities. By homing in on population-level effects, we uncover the mechanism behind this puzzling rate of public goods provision and show that it can exist in simultaneity with related patterns of conflict.

Authors

• Aliz Toth, London School of Economics

• Emily Russell, Stanford University