The Dark Side of Infrastructure: Roads, Repression and Land in Authoritarian Paraguay

Abstract

Transportation infrastructure is associated with economic development, but it can also be used for social control and to benefit the governing elite. We explore the connection between the construction of road networks, state-led repression and illegal land allocations in the longest dictatorship in South America: Alfredo Stroessner’s military regime in Paraguay. Using novel panel data from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, we show that proximity to newly constructed roads facilitated state-led repression, illegal allocation of agricultural plots to dictatorship allies and hindered sustainable economic development in the following decades.