Social Disorganization Theory in Contemporary China: a Review of the Evidence and Directions for Future Research

This paper assesses and synthesizes the cumulative results from the empirical research on social disorganization and crime-related phenomena at the neighborhood level in China. Our review identified 17 relevant quantitative, qualitative, and mixed method studies published in journals and books from the late-1990s to date. Our goal is to take stock of the cumulative knowledge to inspire future research in China, thereby advancing social disorganization theory. We synthesize the main findings about the effects of structural factors and intervening mechanisms from quantitative studies, summarize briefly conclusions from qualitative and mixed methods research to crosscheck our synthesis, and identify methodological and theoretical limitations. Our conclusions point to promising directions for future research with special attention to prospects for theory development through comparative criminological inquiry.