Lynching and the State in Mexico

• In Event: The Intersection of Gender, Criminal Violence, and Politics in Latin America

Abstract

Lethal and non-lethal lynchings are strikingly common in contemporary Mexico and other high crime and weak rule of law contexts. When do state authorities intervene in lynching events, and how? What explains why perpetrators of lynchings go unpunished, while victims of attempted lynchings are often arrested for alleged crimes? This paper draws on an original dataset of lynchings in Mexico constructed from newspaper data on events between 2009-2019, as well as in-depth qualitative interviews of former authorities and current journalists working in lynching hotspots. In contrast to the conventional wisdom that contemporary lynchings are a threat to state authority, I find that lynchings often uphold the legitimacy of the state as the ultimate arbiter over crime and violence. I show that in a large proportion of cases, lynching engages the state to make arrests and in some cases individuals use events to negotiate broader security claims. I also show that lynching is rarely punished, and in contrast, victims of attempted lynchings are frequently arrested and explore the reasons behind these distinct outcomes of state intervention. The mixed-methods analysis reveals that even among the most extreme extralegal methods of attempted crime control, citizen demand for legal, state-provided security persists, alongside a sense that citizens often must combine legal behavior with lynching to achieve security, and even force state authorities into action. This paper contributes to our understanding of vigilantism, policing, and the rule of law by examining the microdynamics surrounding state-citizen negotiations in extralegal crime control.

Author

• Hannah Baron, Tulane University