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Ascribed Economic Inequality and Homicide Among Modern Societies

Toward the Development of a Cross-National Theory

University of Cincinnati

John K. Cochran

University of South Florida

Although a great number of studies have established, through a variety ofmethodologies, the existence of a positive association between economic inequality and homicide rates cross-culturally, none, in our view, have offered a sound theoretical explanation for this association. Almost all of these accounts suffer from problems of reductionism in that they offer social-psychological explanations for macro-social phenomena. They also provide explanations that cannot be logically extended to the crime of homicide, which cannot be falsified due to the lack of the data necessary to critically test them and/or are limited to the United States but cannot logically be extended cross-nationally. In this article, the authors offer a solution to this problem that avoids invoking reductionist explanations. This macro-social approach distinguishes between achieved and ascribed bases of economic inequality, arguing that variations in cross-national rates of homicide among modern societies are best explained by high levels of ascribed economic inequality.

Key Words: economic inequality • macro-theory • homicide • legitimacy

Homicide Studies, Vol. 9, No. 1, 3-29 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/1088767904271432


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