U.S. Intervention and Coercion-Enabling Capital: Evidence from El Salvador

Abstract

Many governments transfer physical and human capital to other governments as military assistance with the goals of enhancing recipient’s governing capabilities and achieve foreign policy goals. These transfers, however, are also “coercion-enabling” as they lower the cost of engaging in predatory behavior, are associated with multiple principal-agent problems, and result in system effects. We provide a framework of coercion-enabling capital and suggest such transfers are likely to lead to predation in many cases. To illustrate these dynamics, we examine the case of U.S. transfers to El Salvador during the Cold War and the Salvadoran Civil War of 1979–1992.