<p>Research from advanced democracies shows that political affiliations and contextual factors shape public justification of political violence, yet little is known about whether these patterns extend to developing democracies where institutional weakness and identity cleavages are more pronounced. This paper examines the cognitive foundations of citizens’ evaluations of political vigilantism in Ghana, drawing on social identity theory and the logic of public goods provision. Employing a preregistered survey experiment administered to social media users, I test how the nature of vigilante activity and political alignment jointly structure individuals’ justification of extralegal political action. The results show that citizens justify vigilantism when it is perceived to advance societal welfare. While support for vigilantism is influenced by political affiliation, this bias is conditional on its perceived consequences on collective welfare. Notably, even out-group vigilantism receives public support when the action is perceived to protect electoral integrity, whereas in-group favoritism diminishes when the act is deemed harmful to the electoral process. These findings reveal that in developing democracies such as Ghana, political identity shapes attitudes toward vigilante violence, but perceptions of social threat bound this effect.</p>