ABSTRACT
This article traces the impact of economic and cultural globalization pointing to the consequent rise of widespread resentment and tension both within the First World and internationally. Globalization exacerbates both relative deprivation and crises of identity: such a combination is experienced as unfair, humiliating and threatening and results in behaviour which is transgressive rather than instrumental. Tension is also experienced among the better off because of insecurities of identity, position and the level of sacrifices demanded in their daily life. Punishment becomes vindictive rather than instrumental and rational. Further, ‘criminal’ violence and the violence of war and terrorism have similar aetiologies and characteristics. The article seeks to establish a cultural criminology which puts the transgressive in a structural context, which critiques the insipid rationalistic nature of current neo-liberal discourses while reformulating Mertonian notions of anomie in terms of energy, resentment and tension.
