Understanding Majoritarian Violence

Evidence from Hate Crimes and Crowd Violence in India

Aidan Milliff & Blair Read

ISA 2023

Vigilantism and Hate Crime Violence

A Global (growing?) Problem

Between 1976–2013:

  • 100 + countries report “lynching” violence
  • 46 countries report large-scale lynching campaigns

Global prevalence of collective vigilantism 1976–2013. Reproduced from Jung and Cohen (2020).

Hate Crime Violence in India is on the Rise

Hate Crime events in India, 2009–2018. Data from Citizen’s Religious Hate Crime Watch.

  • 281 incidents between 2009–2018
  • 75% of victims are Muslim
  • Most attacks related to “majoritarian” Hindutva norms

… with enormous spatial variation

Hate Crime incidents by subdistrict, 2009–2018

What Causes Hate Crimes and Lynching?

Existing literature says:

  • Lynching occurs in weak states.1
  • Misinformation causes lynching.2
  • Status threats motivate lynching.3
  • Lynching is a response to criminal mis-governance.4

What Explains Variation in Hate Crime Violence in India?

Correlates of Hate Crimes

Spatial variation is not explained by variables from previous quantitative literature

  • Status Threat
  • State Capacity

Strength of majoritarian networks account for more variation

  • Local Hindutva Organizations

Data

Variable Source
State Capacity (Roads, etc.) AidData
State Capacity (Justice) Ash et al. 2022
Hindutva Strength Vidhya Bharati Alumni
Lynchings Citizen’s Religious Hate Crime Watch

Hate Crime Watch Vidhya Bharati Alumni Network

Majoritarian Networks –> Hate Crime Violence

OLS model with controls for state capacity, population, previous communal violence, econ. development. HC2 standard errors, clustered at district level, with state FEs.

Hate Crimes in India - Grassroots or Organized?

  • Many attacks look like spontaneous, popular upwellings
  • But: Attacks strongly correlated with “durable” Hindutva organizations

Core group creates spectacle, recruits peripheral participants

A “core” group: Vigilantes affiliated with the Bajrang Dal

Preventing Majoritarian Violence

Now What?

Implications

  • More state capacity may actually backfire
  • Danger that “hybrid” type encourages state to get involved in majoritarian norm enforcement
  • Peripheral participants are key to majoritarian success

Next Steps

  • “De-endorsement” experiment
  • Mapping VHP/BD networks with a respondent-driven sampling survey
  • Make this paper better :)

Thank you!

Aidan Milliff

milliff@stanford.edu

Blair Read

bmread@mit.edu