ABSTRACT
The authors present analytical criminology’s solution to criminology’s fragmentation problem and assess its ability to facilitate scientific progress in terms of the six criteria they identified in Part II that must be met if criminology is to operate effectively as a scientific field. The authors ultimately conclude that analytical sociology, in its current form, is of limited value in improving criminology as a science due to its failure to meet these criteria. First, analytical criminology’s main theoretical contribution, situational action theory, is constructed as just another entrant into criminology’s oppositional tradition of theorizing. Second, analytical criminology does not articulate a theoretical method and therefore is of limited value to those who do not wish to join its school and prefer existing explanations of crime. Third, analytical criminology’s theoretical methodology does not promote systemicity between scientific fields. Ultimately, the authors conclude that the mechanistic philosophy of science presented in Chapters 5 and 6 provides a far more robust framework for developing mechanistic explanations of criminological phenomena than offered by analytical sociology.
