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Key Themes - Chapter 9

Social Control

Since the 1970s sociologists have linked the concept of social control to the study of deviant behaviour in imaginative ways. Social control is now used to refer to more general pressures to induce conformity, pressures that become more insistent from time to time. Stanley Cohen (1972) described these moments as ‘moral panics’, when the official agents of social control like the police and the courts swing into action against drugs takers or youth gangs. Their interventions are, to some extent, conditioned by the negative labels that are used by the media, who take up the cudgels of middle-class respectability to label negatively groups that have became ‘folk devils’ in the public imagination. Michael Foucault made other major conceptual breakthroughs. In his Discipline and Punish (1977) he sees the ‘Great Incarcerations’ of the nineteenth century as part of a common design: for example thieves into prisons, workers into factories, lunatics into asylums, and children into schools. However, Foucault is also interested in more subtle forms of surveillance and discipline like the panopticon designed by Bentham (an all-seeing tower in a prison) engaged in unobtrusive but unremitting surveillance. Discipline was not merely exemplary and demonstrative, but good for you. These ideas are deployed in relation to white collar crime and corporate crime.

 

Crime, Social Inequality and Globalization

The authors discuss how far crime can be explained by global patterns whilst also engaging with the debate about the link between crime and social inequality: while some argue that neo-liberal economic policies has enhanced criminal activity, there are also extreme advocates of the free market ideology who would argue that the drugs trade is simply an example of the so-called ‘law’ of supply and demand. Overall the authors argue that the failure to control crime, drugs and terrorism points to the need at the very least for more effective bilateral agreements, stronger transnational agencies and, perhaps something like a world government.

 

Terrorism and Globalization

The chapter addresses the nature of terrorism and suggests ways of understanding these phenomena. Here one argument discussed is that terrorism and successive phases of globalization are causally linked. In this context terrorism could be a defensive reaction to the changes unleashed by hegemonic empires: the historical precedents also suggest that terrorism arises and increases as the empire/hegemonic power is declining. This is because the empire is no longer able to enforce its will by economic power and consent alone. Instead, it is impelled to use military force to maintain its position. This provokes the terrorists, who are further encouraged when the empire shows signs of being overstretched in military terms. The authors argue that ineffective military intervention against terrorism may actually signify the relative decline of a hegemonic power and provoke further acts of terrorism.