System-aligned Violence: Support for Vigilantism and System Justification in South Africa

We examine the psychological foundations of public support for vigilantism in South Africa. According to system justification theory, people are motivated to defend and legitimise the status quo, especially when they are psychologically or materially dependent on it. System-justifying individuals uphold the state’s authority in part by recognising the legitimacy of institutions to resolve conflict and impose legal punishment. Logically, people who justify the system should oppose vigilante violence because it threatens the state’s monopoly on legitimate force. Yet, does this hold in South Africa, a context in which crime is politicised and foreignness is frequently framed as a societal threat? Using nationally representative survey data, we show that system justification is positively associated with support for vigilantism against criminals, and that this association is stronger among respondents who report prior participation in anti-immigrant violence. Our findings complicate the standard view of system justification as inherently stabilising: they suggest that when perceived threats are symbolically tied to outsiders, defending “the system” may involve endorsing exclusionary rather than restraining violence.