We Don’t Need No Fortification : Analyzing the Effects of Border Walls on Violence Committed by Rebel Groups Engaged in Smuggling

In recent decades, a rapid acceleration of border wall construction has coincided with the widespread use of smuggling as a key funding strategy for rebel groups. While scholars have argued that border fortification may reduce rebel violence by interdicting smuggling routes, no study has systematically tested this theoretical argument. This study addresses this gap by answering the question: How does border fortification affect the violence of non-state armed groups engaged in smuggling? Here, it employs fixed effects models to analyze a global sample of border walls built from 1990 to 2015, comparing their impact on violence committed by smuggling and non-smuggling rebel groups. It provides an innovative operationalization, using spatial matching to examine geographic disaggregations in walls’ effects, and integrating novel data on infrastructure development at international border crossing points. Contrary to its hypotheses, this study finds consistent evidence against the argument that walls reduce rebel violence by interdicting smuggling routes. While these findings are preliminary and subject to limitations in the data and methodology, they challenge widely held assumptions about the security benefits of walls and highlight the need for nuanced, evidence-based border policy.