Durkheim

1
DurkheimMerton

• Anomie or Strain Theories

2
Emile Durkheim

• French Sociologist
• Suicide
• Crime is Functional
• Mechanical vs. Organic Solidarity
• Altruistic vs. Common Criminal

3
Durkheim as the Root of all Sociological Theory

• Durkheim emphasized several different themes
• Social Integration
• Humans as greedy, self-interested
• Insatiable Desires
• Anomie

4
Two Main Traditions in Sociolgoy

• Chicago School of Crime/Social Disorganization
• Social Integration
• Capping Human Desires
• Differential Association
• Informal Social Control (Control Theories)
• Anomie/Strain
• Industrial Prosperity
• Anomie

5
Robert K. Merton

• Social Structure and Anomie (1938)
• From Durkheim Institutionalized norms are
  weakened in societies that place an intense value
  on economic success
• Applied this to the United States
• The American Dream as a virtue and VICE

6
Anomie -- Macro Level

• The road not taken
• Explanation of high crime rates in the United
  States?
• Follows close to Durkheim
• Gist Unrestrained American capitalism and
  fetish with money creates anomie
• Picked up by Messner and Rosenfeld

7
Strain Theory--Anomie at the Micro Level

• Cultural Goals in U.S.?
• The American Dream Universal
• Institutionalized Means?
• Given social structure in the U.S., the means are
  to achieve are unequally distributed
• Segment of society with no way to attain goal b/c
  they lack means

8
Strain Theory (Micro)
9
Support for Micro Strain Theory

• First tested as the disjuncture between
  educational or economic aspirations and
  expectations
• Little empirical support for this
• Delinquents tend to have low expectations and
  aspirations
• BUTis this really a great measure of strain?

10
More recent empirical studies

• Blocked Opportunities
• 50/50 odds study finds a relationship
• Even here, weak association
• Disappointment with current financial status
• One study, but found moderate relationship, even
  after controlling for other theories

11
Criticisms of Merton and Strain Theory

• Is crime a lower class phenomena?
• Cannot explain expressive crimes
• In Mertons defense, this was a mid-range
  theory of crime
• Why ritualist vs. innovator?
• Weak empirical support
• Hirschi Oversocialized Man

12
ANOMIEThe Legacy

• 1950s-1960s Subcultrual theories
• Mix anomie tradition with differential
  association
• 1990s Revisions of Mertons theory
• Individual Level General Strain Theory
• Macro Level Institutional Anomie