Outsourcing Repression

• In Event: Political Violence in Democracies

Abstract

While a large body of research investigates the circumstances that lead governments to repress their citizens, violence perpetrated by citizens against other citizens remains underexplored by political scientists. Governments vary (cross-sectionally and temporally) in the degree to which they permit or even sanction this type of violence. In practice, though, it is common in all types of states: authorities allow or encourage riots or other sorts of civilian on civilian violence when said authorities would have liked to repress the victims directly. In this paper, we begin to explore this phenomenon, asking when do democratic leaders allow citizens to engage in violence against other citizens in lieu of government repression? We argue that leaders are more likely to allow or encourage private repression—violence against one group of citizens by other groups of citizens with the approval of the government—when the material benefits for the dominant population are high, costs of repression are high for authorities, and authorities can expect civilians to take action with little support from government actors. We test our expectations about private repression by investigating the development and effect of racial equality legislation on lynching in the United States from 1883 to 1941.

Authors

• Courtenay R. Conrad, University of California, Merced

• Emily Hencken Ritter, Vanderbilt University

• Jessica Luce Trounstine, University of California, Merced