Political restraint of the market and levels of criminal homicide: A cross-national application of institutional-anomie theory

This article examines the effects on national homicide rates of political efforts to insulate personal well-being from market forces. Drawing upon recent work by Esping-Andersen and the institutional-anomie theory of crime, we hypothesize that levels of homicide will vary inversely with the ''decommodification of labor.'' We develop a measure of decommodification based on levels and patterns of welfare expenditures and include this measure in a multivariate, cross-national analysis of homicide rates. The results Its support our hypothesis and lend credibility to the institutionan-anomie perspective. The degree of decommodification is negatively related to homicide rates, net of controls for other characteristics of nations.