Vol. 2 (2) 2008 Editorial (p. 159) Focus: Guest Editorial Steven F. Messner / Helmut Thome (pp. 160 – 162) Anomie / Anomia Institutions, Anomie, and Violent Crime: Clarifying and Elaborating Institutional-Anomie Theory Steven F. Messner / Helmut Thome / Richard Rosenfeld (pp. 163 – 181) Want Amid Plenty: Developing and Testing a Cross-National Measure of Anomie Beth Bjerregaard / John K. Cochran (pp. 182 – 193) Anomic Crime in Post-Welfarist Societies: Cult of the Individual, Integration Patterns and Delinquency Sabine Frerichs / Richard Münch / Monika Sander (pp. 194 –214) Assessing the Relevance of Anomie Theory for Explaining Spatial Variation in Lethal Criminal Violence: An Aggregate-Level Analysis of Homicide within the United States Brian J. Stults / Eric P. Baumer (pp. 215 – 247) Social Structural Effects on the Level and Development of the Individual Experience of Anomie in the German Population Sandra Legge / Eldad Davidov / Peter Schmidt (pp. 248 – 267) Is the Market Eroding Moral Norms? A Micro-Analytical Validation of Some Ideas of Anomie Theory Eckhard Burkatzki (pp. 268 – 287) Open Section Modernity Strikes Back? A Historical Perspective on the Latest Increase in Interpersonal Violence (1960–1990) Manuel Eisner (pp. 288 – 316) Deprivation, Violence, and Conflict: An Analysis of “Naxalite” Activity in the Districts of India Vani K. Borooah (pp. 317 – 333) urn:nbn:de:0070-ijcv-2008207 ISSN: 1864-1385 IJCV : Vol. 2 (2) 2008, p. 158 158 International Journal of Conflict and Violence – IJCV The International Journal of Conflict and Violence (IJCV) is a peer-reviewed periodical for scientific exchange and public dissemination of the latest academic research on conflict and violence. The subjects on which the IJCV concentrates have always been the subject of interest in many different areas of academic life. Consequently, the journal encompasses contributions from a wide range of disciplines including sociology, political science, education, social psychology, criminology, ethnology, history, political philosophy, urban studies, economics, and the study of religions. The IJCV is open-access: All text of the IJCV is subject to the terms of the Digital Peer Publishing Licence. The IJCV is published twice a year, in spring and in fall. Each issue will focus on one specific topic while also including articles on other issues. Editors Editorial Staff (University of Bielefeld) Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Heitmeyer (Editor-in-Chief), University of Bielefeld Stefan Malthaner, M.A. Prof. Douglas S. Massey, Ph.D., Princeton University Dipl.-Soz. Julia Marth Prof. Steven F. Messner, Ph.D., University of Albany, NY Dr. Kurt Salentin Prof. Dr. James Sidanius, Harvard University Dr. Peter Sitzer Prof. Dr. Michel Wieviorka, École des Hautes Étuedes en Sciences Sociales, Paris Advisory Board Editorial Office Prof. Daniel Bar-Tal, Ph.D. (Tel Aviv University) Julia Marth Prof. Tore Bjørgo, Ph.D. (Norwegian Police University College, Oslo) University of Bielefeld Prof. Ronald Crelinsten, Ph.D. (University of Victoria) Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence Prof. Robert D. Crutchfield, Ph.D. (University of Washington, Seattle) P.O. Box 100131 Prof.ssa Donatella della Porta, Ph.D. (European University Institute, Firenze) 33615 Bielefeld Julia Eckert, Ph.D. (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale) Germany Manuel Eisner, Ph.D. (University of Cambridge) [email protected] Prof. Richard B. Felson, Ph.D. (Pennsylvania State University) www.ijcv.org Prof. Gideon Fishman, Ph.D. (University of Haifa) Prof. Ted Robert Gurr, Ph.D. (University of Maryland) Copy-Editing Prof. Dr. Heinz-Gerhard Haupt (University of Bielefeld) Meredith Dale, Berlin Prof. Miles Hewstone, Ph.D. (University of Oxford) [email protected] Prof. Mark Juergensmeyer, Ph.D. (University of California, Santa Barbara) Prof. Dr. Barbara Krahé (University of Potsdam) Design by Prof. Gary LaFree, Ph.D. (University of Maryland) meier stracke gbr, büro für gestaltung Prof. Didier Lapeyronnie (Université Victor Segalen, Bordeaux) Ernst-Rein-Str. 40 Dr. Nonna Mayer (Centre de Recherches Politiques de Sciences Po, Paris) 33613 Bielefeld Prof. Dr. Herfried Münkler (Humboldt University of Berlin) Germany Prof. Dr. Friedhelm Neidhardt (Social Science Research Center Berlin) [email protected] Prof. Thomas Pettigrew, Ph.D. (University of California Santa Cruz, CA) www.meier-stracke.de Prof. Leung Ping-kwan, Ph.D. (University of Hong Kong) Prof. Gonzalo Sánchez Gómez, Ph.D. (Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota) Typesetting Prof. Peer Scheepers, Ph.D. (Radbould University Nijmegen) Florian Rudt Prof. Dr. Helmut Thome (Martin-Luther-University of Halle-Wittenberg) [email protected] Prof. Jorge Vala (Universidade de Lisboa) Prof. Dr. Loïc Wacquant (University of California, Berkeley) Prof. Dr. Ulrich Wagner (Philipps-University of Marburg) Prof. Dr. Andreas Zick (University of Bielefeld) IJCV : Vol. 2 (2) 2008, p. 159 Letter from the editors: Editorial 159 Editorial Letter from the editors We are pleased to announce a number of additions to the Journal’s Advisory Board. We warmly welcome Julia Eckert (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale), Barbara Krahé (University of Potsdam), Gary LaFree (University of Maryland), and Loïc Wacquant (University of California, Berkeley). We are sure their expertise will provide valuable inputs for the journal’s future work and interdisciplinary approach. This time—as advertised in the spring issue—the focus section is on the topic of anomie/anomia. We would like to thank the guest editors, Steven F. Messner (University of Albany, New York) and Helmut Thome (Martin Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg) for the very fruitful and productive collaboration, and the impressive collection of papers they have put together. October 2008 Wilhelm Heitmeyer Douglas S. Massey Steven F. Messner James Sidanius Michel Wieviorka IJCV : Vol. 2 (2) 2008, pp. 160 – 162 Guest Editorial 160 Guest Editorial Steven F. Messner, University at Albany, State University of New York, United States Helmut Thome, Martin-Luther-University, Halle-Wittenberg, Germany It is surely no overstatement to claim that the concepts of “anomie” and “anomia” permeate much contemporary scholarly and public discourse about crime, violence, and other forms of problematic behavior. At the time of writing (late September 2008), a Google search of “anomie” yielded about 590,000 entries. The results for its individual-level counterpart, “anomia,” were close behind at about 537,000 entries. This special issue of the International Journal of Conflict and Violence features efforts to apply these concepts in novel and creative ways to understand the social sources of crime and violence at multiple levels of analysis. The first paper, by Messner, Thome, and Rosenfeld, is a theoretical essay focused on a relatively recent representative of the anomie perspective— “institutional-anomie theory” (IAT). The authors set out to hone this theoretical approach by clarifying the formal conceptualization of “institutions” and explicating more fully the interconnections among institutional structures, fundamental cultural and normative orientations in a society, and levels of crimi- nal offending, with a particular focus on violent crimes. They argue that modern societies with high levels of criminal violence are likely to be characterized by a disintegrative form of individualism, economic dominance in the institutional order, and tenuous moral authority of the norms. The authors also seek to integrate the macro-level arguments of the theory with processes at the level of individual action. They theorize that the risks of committing acts of criminal violence (as well as other forms of criminal offenses) will be high for actors who prioritize economic roles over non-economic roles, who are relatively insensitive to the moral status of the means of action, and whose performance of economic roles tends to be “disembedded” from social relationships more generally. The authors conclude by highlighting issues in need of further theoretical elaboration, including the formulation of an institutional account for distinctive punishment practices in societies with varying cultural and structural characteristics. The paper by Bjerregaard and Cochran addresses a vexing problem confronting researchers who attempt to conduct empirical analyses informed by institutional-anomie theory, namely, how to operationalize the core concept of “anomie.” The authors argue that the distinctive prediction of the theory is that high levels of anomie should be generated when the economy allows for the accumulation of great wealth, open competition is emphasized, and yet for many people the social structure restricts access to the legitimate means of accumulating wealth. They propose that gross domestic product (capacity to accumulate wealth), an index of economic freedom (emphasis on open competition), and the Gini coefficient of income inequality (obstacles to legitimate means) can serve as measures of these conditions, and they hypothesize that homicide rates should be predicted by the combination of these factors—a three-way statistical interaction. The results of their multivariate regression analyses based on a cross-national sample are consistent with their hypothesis. The three-way product terms yields the expected positive effect on homicide rates net of control variables, indicating the promise of their methodological approach for cross-national study of anomie. The