Lynchings in Guatemala

Matt Klick has a brief post on The challenge among us: getting to grips with lynchings in Guatemala for Insight on Conflict.

As I have noted elsewhere, the drivers underlying lynchings in Guatemala are poorly understood, and conflicting information persists. It was assumed that war-torn indigenous communities were most susceptible; lynchings being borne out of frustration with state authorities, or an effort to assert greater cultural autonomy. Warranted frustration does persist, but indigenous-dominated municipalities in Guatemala are among the least violent in Central America by homicide rates.

Instead, I argue, lynchings are in some part a function of seemingly immovable rates of inequality, and the bitterness of rural poverty and frustrated ambitions. Despite recent gains against corruption, the Guatemalan state has been remarkably unwilling, criminally so, to invest in basic social services and essential human development programs. But lynchings create new problems: they deepen insecurity, sow new social cleavages where none should exist, and make community action over other challenges – from education to climate change adaptation – more difficult to accomplish.

I wonder if there's such a thing as lynching entrepreneurs. Is there one leader that pushes a group over the top to take the law into their own hands. What is the causal mechanisms? Are leaders or followers more important? Are some crimes more likely to lead to lynchings than others (crime itself, reputation of alleged criminal, characteristics of the victim)?

At the same time, how do aborted lynchings occur? Is it simply a matter of numbers or do specific individuals (women, community leaders, elders, organized crime leaders?) have the power to put a stop to what has begun?

I wrote about Matt's work here previously - number 14 on last year's most read blog posts.