Perceptions of State (il)legitimacy, the Provision of Security, and Vigilante Violence in South Africa

• In Event: 562 - Regular Session. Law, Society, and Violence

Abstract

Traditionally, scholars have argued that vigilante violence is primarily the product of weak or failed states and their incapacity to control crime in their borders. This weak/failed state hypothesis has come under scrutiny, with scholars instead advancing theories of the geographically unequal distribution of state capacities for crime control, or what have been termed “frontier zones” or “brown areas.” In this paper, I use large-scale survey data that is representative at the ward-level and an independently compiled database of newspaper articles detailing incidents of vigilante violence in the province of Gauteng, South Africa (the country’s most populous province that includes the city of Johannesburg) to extend this body of research. I test the relationships between perceptions of state legitimacy and the provision of state security on incidents of vigilante violence in the South Africa, as well as mapping “frontier zones” or concentrations of state illegitimacy and incapacity. I find that while dissatisfaction with state security is associated with increases in vigilante violence, negative perceptions of government performance are actually associated with decreases.

Author

• Mark Gross, Brown University