ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how Institutional-Anomie theory departs from Merton's Social Structure and Anomie. It also discusses how Institutional-Anomie theory relates to some profound critiques of modern social organization–in particular to E. Durkheim's discussion of anomic suicide, but also to K. Polanyi's notion of the disembedded market economy. The chapter examines how the shift to the institutional level reflects social change. It suggests that bringing back in the notion of the disembedded economy, highlighted by Durkheim and Polanyi, reflect societal changes taking place. The chapter looks at some of the implications of Institutional-Anomie theory vis-a-vis Merton by identifying some limitations of linking crime with societal level processes in a Durkheimian rather than Mertonian manner. Institutional-Anomie theory stipulates a reciprocal causal relationship between the culture and the institutional structure. In Institutional-Anomie theory, anomic pressures arise when a nexus of reinforcing cultural patterns develops, producing an overemphasis on the market ethic and undermining the regulatory power of social norms.
