Institutional Imbalance as a Force of Direction: The Implication of Institutional Anomie Theory in Stream Analogy of Lethal Violence

ABSTRACT

The current article explores the relationship between institutional imbalance (Institutional Anomie Theory) and the Stream Analogy of Lethal Violence (SALV). The stream analogy proposes that both homicide and suicide are generated by the same force of production while different structural and cultural factors serve as the force of direction. Using various cross-national sources, we hypothesize that institutional imbalance is a force of direction, with stronger institutional imbalance leading to more individuals committing homicide than suicide. In addition, for exploratory purpose, we examine whether the institutional imbalance is related to the force of production. Our findings support neither of these hypotheses.

KEYWORDS:

• Institutional anomie theory
• stream analogy
• culture
• lethal violence
• suicide
• homicide

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The original sample size was 123 countries with data from 2010-2014. Eighty-four countries were removed due to missingness on the dependent variable [lack of homicide or suicide data (20 countries)] and missingness for institutional values [lack of WVS measures (64 countries)].

2. The marriage-divorce ratio from the United Nations was created using 2008 crude marriage and divorce rates.

3. The Suicide-Homicide Ratio (SHR) as explained by Unnithan et al. (1994) is not a ratio but rather the amount of lethal violence expressed as suicide. We understand that this terminology can be confusing but continue to uphold the integrity of these authors’ work and its usage in its original form.

4. Data on literacy is available from both the WVS and World Bank. The WVS obtains literacy by asking the respondent if they were literate. On the other hand, the World Bank uses governmental data and estimation methods to approach country-wide literacy. These data are similar in their estimates but we chose to use the WVS because of less missingness in our sample of study.

5. Voter participation is a common measure of political interest. However, we believe that this measure has several problems, such as its false assumptions that all nations are equally democratic, and elections are equally important to all citizens across countries. Thus, we choose other measures to construct the political institution that better capture varying forms of political importance.

6. The scales between measures are dramatically different in their original form. For example, one measure from the WVS consists of a 1–10 Likert scale while the Gini coefficient is a continuous variable with a standard deviation of 9.38. Comparing factors on different scales is meaningless as the disparities between scale ranges may create arbitrary relationships.

7. z-standardization did not occur until the final sample was constructed. For the WVS values, z-standardization takes place at the country-level after aggregation.

8. We acknowledge that VIF scores above 2.5 can indicate multicollinearity (Allison 2012).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jingyi Fei

Jingyi Fei is a Ph.D. candidate of the School of Criminal Justice at the University at Albany, SUNY. Her research interests include cross-national suicide and homicide, bail and pretrial detention. She is currently completing her dissertation research which examines the impact of New York 2020 bail reform on town and village court arraignment decisions.

William J. Zakrzewski

William J. Zakrzewski Jr. is a Ph.D. student in the School of Criminal Justice at the University at Albany, SUNY. He received his master’s degree from Radford University in Criminal Justice with a certificate in Crime Analysis. His research focuses on three primary areas: cross-national homicide and suicide, drugs and drug courts, and green criminology-examining perceptions of seriousness and punishment for environmental crimes.