ABSTRACT
Anomie is the central concept in Emile Durkheim account of the consequences of a breakdown in cultural regulation and institutional structure, resulting in a sense of futility, emptiness and dislocation among members of a society experiencing such a collapse of normative order. Based on his empirical work, Durkheim argued that variations in suicide rates among Protestant and Catholic countries could be explained by differences in the levels of social integration and regulation they displayed. Durkheim's ideas were developed by Robert Merton, who became one of the most instrumental North American sociologists of the twentieth century. His thinking was steeped in the classical sociological tradition of the nineteenth century, which he innovatively fused and enlarged to address contemporary concerns. Merton described four very different individual responses to such structural strain: 'innovation', 'ritualism', 'retreatism' and 'rebellion' – each depending on the wider context.
