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17 Homicide Stud. 3 (2013)

handle is hein.journals/homcst17 and id is 1 raw text is: Articles Homicide Studies 17(1) 3-26 Do legitimate polities @2013 SAGE Publications Reprints and permission: have fewve r homicides? sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1088767912452131 A cross-national analysis http://hs.sagepub.com $SAGE Amy E. Nivette' and Manuel Eisner' Abstract This research is concerned with developing and testing models of political legitimacy as a predictor of homicide on the cross-national level. Specifically, we used Bruce Gilley's (2006) theoretically driven indicator of political legitimacy to examine its direct and moderating effects on homicide. This measure is available for 65 nations, and is composed of indicators representing a state's capacity to obey its own laws (legality), the degree to which civil and political values coincide (justification), and the level of behavioral consent of the people (consent).After controlling for a number of widely acknowledged predictors, legitimacy was found to be significantly negatively related to homicide. Keywords comparative methodology, structural causes, inequality structural causes, cross- cultural methodology, correlates Introduction More than a decade ago, Gary LaFree (1998) proposed that the dramatic rise in street crime in postwar United States was due to the declining legitimacy of political, eco- nomic, and family institutions. He argued that as perceived illegitimacy grew, social controls failed and crime increased. This problem of losing legitimacy is familiar to researchers of civil conflict, war, and political violence. Scholars in Latin America (Huggins, 1991; Kruijt & Koonings, 1999; Palacios, 2006; Prez, 2003/2004), Africa (Englebert, 2002; Fanon, 1965) and Eastern Europe (Karstedt, 2003; Sergeyev, 1998) have been investigating the problem of legitimacy and violence for years. Historical 'University of Cambridge, CB, UK Corresponding Author: Amy E. Nivette, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 9DA, UK Email: aen34@cam.ac.uk

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