Land Redistribution and coercive violence

In a post land reform environment, violence and redistribution are substitutes for an opportunisticincumbent attempting industrialization. We setup a theoretical model to explorethis relationship for individual and group level violence across two types of policy driven postland-reform industrialization (PLRI)—small and large-scale, in the Indian state of West Bengal.We find strong evidence for our theoretical prediction of an inverse relationship betweenland redistribution and both types of violence during the period of small scale industrializationafter an industrial policy was announced in 1994-95 by the incumbent. This relationshiphowever breaks down for individual level violence during attempts at large-scale industrializationbetween 2006-2011, even though both types of violence increase in this phase.