Supporting Violence in a Violent Land: Condonation of Political Violence in South Africa

Research on public support for political violence has focused on three types of support: violence in the abstract, in the context of specific, contextualized events, and behavioral support. Most research uses abstract measures to indicate support, more limited research focuses on attitudes toward actual violent events, and little research addresses behavioral support. In this analysis, we examine the interrelationships of these three types of measures, based on a 2024 survey in a South African province with a long and recent history of widespread political violence. We draw three specific conclusions from our analyses: abstract attitudes are not entirely irrelevant, but some indicators are more useful than others. Abstract attitudes have some value for predicting how people judge realistic acts of political violence, just as these attitudes are to some degree connected to actual violent behavior. Our most important overall conclusion is that much more attention must be paid to measurement issues if scholars want valid and reliable evidence of popular support for political violence.