Political Violence and Public Attitudes Toward Justice

• In Event: Experimental Research About Attitudes Toward Pluralism and Discrimination

Abstract

Do members of different social groups prefer different types of justice to address the same episodes of political violence? We conduct two novel survey experiments to understand preferences for justice for historical and contemporary racial violence in the United States. In Study 1, we examine attitudes toward justice for the historical crime of lynchings in the U.S. South, drawing on a statewide survey. In Study 2, we examine attitudes toward justice for the ongoing crime of police brutality, drawing on a national survey. In both studies, we evaluate the influence of respondents' social location, specifically their race, consistent with the scholarship on community and intergenerational experiences of harm. We supplement the quantitative results with qualitative evidence from life histories of victims and victims’ relatives. Our results are important because they describe the conditions under which Americans support restitution for historical wrongdoing.

Authors

• Jamil Shatema Scott, Georgetown University

• Daniel Solomon, Georgetown University

• Kelebogile Zvobgo, College of William & Mary