Determinants of public support for vigilantism in pre-war and wartime Ukraine

This study contributes to the field of ‘conflict policing’ by discussing police legitimacy and the public perception of vigilantism in wartime Ukraine. Employing a cross-sectional sample (N = 15,127) of the residents of the Kharkiv region of Ukraine, we test Bottoms and Tankebe’s (2012) police legitimacy model and analyse the determinants of public support for vigilantism in pre-war and wartime Ukraine. Our results show that the Bottoms–Tankebe model proves adequate for both time periods. Our study shows that the impact of the war has led to an increase in support for vigilantism and that a higher level of support for vigilantism has been positively associated with the perception of police fairness. Policing during conflict requires a strong presence in terms of officers and may indicate a double standard amongst the general public regarding police corruption in the sense of making it seem more understandable.