Digital Commons Network^™

State Dominance And Political Corruption: Testing The Efficacy Of An Alternate Configuration Of Institutional-Anomie Theory Cross-Nationally, Carol L. S. Trent

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Extant assessments of Messner and Rosenfeld's institutional-anomie theory (1994) have generally supported the thesis that, in social collectives where the economy dominates, non-economic institutions (i.e. the family, education, polity) are rendered feeble, unable to exert their normative controls. The cultural values of these societies place primacy on "making it" (monetary success), while at the same time placing a much weaker emphasis on the licit means of achieving these goals. The resultant state is one of anomie, conducive to crime. Messner and Rosenfeld have extended their argument stating that it is not economic dominance per se that contributes to high crime …