How the State Discourages Vigilantism—Evidence From a Field Experiment in South Africa

The forthcoming article “How the State Discourages Vigilantism—Evidence From a Field Experiment in South Africa” by Anna M. Wilke is summarized by the author below.

Throughout the developing world citizens often hesitate to bring crimes to the attention of the state. In many contexts, victims of crime instead turn to their community – family, friends, and neighbors – who brutally punish criminal suspects. Mob vigilantism of this kind results in gruesome assaults or even murder. Moreover, citizens’ tendency to bypass the state has the potential to weaken institutions like the police and courts, which rely on citizen-provided information to function effectively.

This study is set in South Africa, where mob vigilantism causes an average of two deaths every day. Many accounts attribute citizens’ reluctance to cooperate with state institutions to the ineffectiveness of these institutions themselves. Crime rates are high and police presence low in South Africa’s low-income townships. How would citizens’ behavior change if police became more effective?

To answer this question, I collaborated with a South African non-profit organization that works closely with the South African Police Service. We randomly assigned 100 out of 250 homes in one police precinct to receive an alarm system that increases the ability of police to locate households. The alarm consists of an electronic device that gets installed in the home. When triggered through the press of a button, the alarm sends text messages to the officers on duty at the local police station. Names, contact information and location details of alarm-protected households are on file at the police station.  I measure outcomes using two waves of household surveys that were conducted, respectively, one and eight months after the installation of the alarms.

I found that respondents from households assigned to receive a police alarm became more inclined to cooperate with the police and less willing to resort to vigilantism. I conducted an additional information experiment to understand the mechanisms that drive these changes. The results speak against the interpretation that alarm owners refrained from vigilantism because they perceived the police as more attractive. Instead, the reluctance to resort to vigilantism seems to arise because alarm owners are more convinced that participation in vigilantism could result in a prison sentence.

The broader take-away is that citizens’ willingness to cooperate with capable state institutions does not necessarily reflect that citizens are satisfied with state services. Instead, citizens may draw on state institutions because states limit citizens’ choices by sanctioning those who participate in informal practices such as vigilantism that the state deems illegal.

About the Author: Anna M. Wilke is an Assistant Professor in the Wilf Family Department of Politics at New York University. Their research “How the State Discourages Vigilantism—Evidence From a Field Experiment in South Africa” is now available in Early View and will appear in a forthcoming issue of the American Journal of Political Science.