We think that this conception of a constantly shifting topography of state capacity is potentially useful for a range of questions about the state and political violence.

We find that these negative shocks to state repressive capacity increased the likelihood of insurgent-state clashes. But this effect did not hold when local communities harbored strongly anti-insurgent attitudes, suggesting that state capacity and civilian behavior jointly shape rebel strategy.

We assess this idea in the context of the Colombian civil war. To identify exogenous variation in the repressive capacity of the Colombian state, we study road closures induced by natural landslides, which temporarily hindered the delivery of support and reinforcements to local security forces.