Vigilantism and the State

• In Event: Comparative Perspectives on Responses to Crime and Insecurity

Abstract

Drawing on qualitative and quantitative evidence from Guatemala, this paper challenges the notion that state absence is a proximate cause of vigilantism. Instead, I contend that it is more productive to investigate how the state affects processes of vigilantism, and vice versa. Just as Trejo and Ley (2018) have identified a "gray zone of interaction" between criminals and the state, there exists a "gray zone" of interaction between vigilantes and the state. The paper explores these relationships in two parts. First, I argue that the state plays an important role in vigilantism. Sometimes state agents are complicit in vigilantism; other times, vigilantism entails direct conflict with the state. Indeed, in Guatemala, individuals engaged in vigilantism often intentionally engage with the state, seizing police stations, attacking government officials, and choosing to carry out lynchings near government buildings. Then, in the second part of the chapter, I argue that vigilantism undermines the Weberian state, and I investigate why the Guatemalan state does not act more forcefully to reassert its monopoly on the use of force. This chapter draws on participant-observation with the Guatemalan federal civil police, and interviews with high-ranking police commanders and officials in the Interior Ministry. I conclude that the Guatemalan state's inaction is due not only to its ties to organized crime and resource constraints, but also because of Guatemala’s long history of racism, severe inequality, and state repression. The Guatemalan state still does not view all its citizens as equally deserving of protection, and as a result, the state does not necessarily try to assert its authority across its entire territory.

Author

• Regina A. Bateson, University of Ottawa