Economic Development, Political Extremism and Crime in Italy

Abstract

MPIRICAL investigations into the social and political consequences of economic development over time, across, and within national political systems-have come to represent an important segment of the literature on comparative sociological inquiry.l Traditionally, scholars had focused their attention on those conditions of economic development which were deemed to be requisite for the maintenance of social order and political stability. In particular, considerable emphasis was placed on locating those economic and structural factors of society supportive of democratic norms and procedures.2 More recently, as an outgrowth of the contemporary turbulence in many Western nations, where increasing levels of economic development were assumed to be positively associated with higher levels of social satisfaction and political stability, scholarly attention in this area has been redirected toward a more detailed exploration of the various individual and structural determinants of social and political tensions.3 Few attempts have been made at theoretical integration within this expanding body of literature, and thus we are faced with a series of loosely connected hypotheses and a patchwork of partial theories. Throughout the decade of the 1960s many of the Western democracies faced substantial challenges in attempting to cope with the destabilizing effects of extremist political groups, electoral and otherwise, in their respective societies, and the growing problem of social disorder as manifested in spiraling crime rates. For some, the problems of maintaining social and political order have spilled over into the decade of the 1970s.