When Being Bad is Good? Bringing Neutralization Theory to Subcultural Narratives of Right-Wing Violence

Sarah Colvin and Daniela Pisoiu

Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 2020, vol. 43, issue 6, 493-508

Abstract: Bringing together terrorism studies, subcultural theory, and narrative criminology, we here test the thesis that neutralization theory might be (further) developed to provide a framework for understanding stories of ideologically informed subcultural violence. Beginning with Gresham Sykes's and David Matza's original five neutralizations, we illustrate how actors engage them in three modes: the encultured, the subcultural, and (tentatively) the postnarrative mode. We test the first two modes in particular against narratives and narrative fragments from interviews with men convicted of right-wing violence in Germany. Our findings provide a preliminary illustration of what neutralization theory might bring to research into political violence.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/1057610X.2018.1452754 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:uterxx:v:43:y:2020:i:6:p:493-508

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/uter20

DOI: 10.1080/1057610X.2018.1452754

Access Statistics for this article

Studies in Conflict and Terrorism is currently edited by Bruce Hoffman

More articles in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().