ABSTRACT
Drawing on anomie theory as established by Emile Durkheim and Robert K. Merton, this chapter attempts to show that relative exclusion is an essential cause of disintegrative phenomena such as delinquency rising beyond the limits conceived as “normal” in society and has become a widespread phenomenon in contemporary welfare states. It has long been a characteristic feature of the American society, which represents the liberal welfare regime. More recently, it has also considerably hit the European societies representing the conservative and social democratic types of welfare regimes. It is a point of convergence and challenge of societies pertaining to different families of welfare regimes in the paradigm of liberal governmentality in the new competition state (Cerny 1997, 2010; Foucault 2008).
