Arguments on Lynching
| Argument | Problem | Evidence | Solution |
|---|---|---|---|
| It's just a manifestation of the savagery of uncivilized Indians and peasants | Ancient barbaric customs that still survive | They happen in remote locations; among indigenous and peasant communities; or in urban locations among the less educated | Education, "civilization", modernization |
| The population is overcome with crime and fed up with the failure of the state to address it adequately | Crime, weak state, weak legal system | They target (mostly) criminals; there is a high crime rate in the countries where it happens; there are weak states and legal systems where it happens | More courts, more police, more justice |
| Excluded populations are asserting control over their own lives, sending a message to the state | Not ancient customs, not (just) crime, not (just) the absence of state legality, more a problem of denial of agency: the state has always turned them into victims, and now they are sending a message back | It happens in certain places and not in others. There is social and economic dislocation in these places. The killings are highly ritualized and copy state proceedings. | The solution is to address socio-economic conditions that disempower these populations, so they can once again rely on the state to supply justice; and to reform the state so that it is responding. Maybe permit alternative legal systems (indigenous law and other informal legal systems) |
| Outcomes | Formal institutions are present | Formal institutions are absent |
|---|---|---|
| Similar | Complementary: When the state is present but delegates certain conflicts to indigenous courts |
Substitutive: When indigenous groups create their own system because the state is missing, adopting or mirroring formal norms (holding people for theft, etc.) |
| Different | Accommodating: When the state is present, but people create an alternate system to ensure that the outcomes are different (e.g. resolve land disputes in accordance with traditional norms rather than formal laws) |
Competing: When state is absent, and the norms involve contradict formal norms (death penalty for rape, for example) |