Rule by Violence, Rule by Law: Lynching, Jim Crow, and the Continuing Evolution of Voter Suppression in the U.S.

2019/03/25 by Brad Epperly, Christopher Witko, Ryan Strickler +2 · 94 citations
Social Sciences · #Computer science #Context (archaeology) #Economics #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Geography #Law #Law and economics #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Politics and Society in Latin America #Race, History, and American Society #State (computer science) #Voting

paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s1537592718003584

published in Perspectives on Politics 18(3), 756-769 (Cambridge University Press)

openalex publication_date 2019/03/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

Although restricting formal voting rights—voter suppression—is not uncommon in democracies, its incidence and form vary widely. Intuitively, when competing elites believe that the benefits of reducing voting by opponents outweigh the costs of voter suppression, it is more likely to occur. Internal political and state capacity and external actors, however, influence the form that voter suppression takes. When elites competing for office lack the ability to enact laws restricting voting due to limited internal capacity, or external actors are able to limit the ability of governments to use laws to suppress voting, suppression is likely to be ad hoc, decentralized, and potentially violent. As political and state capacity increase and external constraints decrease, voter suppression will shift from decentralized and potentially violent to centralized and mostly non-violent. We illustrate our arguments by analyzing the transition from decentralized, violent voter suppression through the use of lynchings (and associated violence) to the centralized, less violent suppression of black voting in the post-Reconstruction South. We also place the most recent wave of U.S. state voter suppression laws into broader context using our theoretical framework.

Citations

• Jim Crow 2.0? Why States Consider and Adopt Restrictive Voter Access Policies

Cited by

• Electoral violence: An introduction
• Policing the police: Why it is so hard to reform police departments in the United States?
• On Fertile Ground: How Racial Resentment Primes White Americans To Believe Fraud Accusations
• Political Foundations of Racial Violence in the Post-Reconstruction South
• “Restoration” and representation: Legislative consequences of Black disfranchisement in the American South, 1879–1916
• The Spread of Symbolic Policies: Juneteenth, Interests, and Representation in the U.S. States
• Black Troops, White Rage, and Political Violence in the Postbellum American South
• The lessons of the hour: the anti-democratic republican MAGA movement and systemic white racism
• Lynching in the United States [wikipedia]
• Misperceptions about out-partisans' democratic values may erode democracy. [europepmc]

Related

• Jim Crow 2.0? Why States Consider and Adopt Restrictive Voter Access Policies
• Suppressing Black Votes: A Historical Case Study of Voting Restrictions in Louisiana
• The suppression of the Black vote: Resisting today on the shoulders of the Original 33
• Political Foundations of Racial Violence in the Post-Reconstruction South
• The Influence of Political Dynamics on Southern Lynch Mob Formation and Lethality