Anomie Among European Adolescents: Conceptual and Empirical Clarification of a Multilevel...

Anomie Among European Adolescents: Conceptual

and Empirical Clarification of a Multilevel

Sociological Concept1

Thoroddur Bjarnason2

Anomie is a complex, dynamic concept that refers simultaneously to a social state and an indi-

vidual state of mind. Generations of sociologists have attempted to clarify, extend, and measure

the concept at various levels of analysis. This article summarizes these developments around the

twin concepts of exteriority and constraint. Exteriority refers to experiencing the social world

as an objective, predictable reality, while constraint refers to the extent to which one experi-

ences a personal commitment to the demands and expectations of society. The Anomie Scale of

Exteriority and Constraint (ASEC) is presented and tested across various psychological and

social outcomes among adolescents in 18 European countries. Exteriority is found to be primar-

ily associated with more depression and less self-esteem, while constraint is associated with a

lower probability of daily smoking, illicit drug use, truancy, and suicide attempts. Societal ano-

mie is higher in eastern European countries and it has a strong negative correlation with GDP

per capita and a marginally positive correlation with GDP growth. Societal anomie is also asso-

ciated with higher baseline levels of depression, self-esteem, and illicit drug use. These results

lend strong support to the theoretical construct of anomie as exteriority and constraint.

KEY WORDS: adolescents; anomie; constraint; deviance; exteriority; self-esteem.

1 The author thanks the principal investigators in the 18 participating countries for makingtheir national data available for this analysis. The ESPAD project is coordinated by theSwedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs. Information about theresearchers and funding agencies in each country can be found in Hibell et al. (2004). Thisarticle has benefited considerably from extended discussions with Thorolfur Thorlindssonand the perceptive comments and helpful suggestions provided by Brynhildur Thorarins-dottir and three anonymous reviewers.

2 Department of Social Sciences, University of Akureyri, 600 Akureyri, Iceland; e-mail:[email protected].

Sociological Forum, Vol. 24, No. 1, March 2009 (� 2009)

DOI: 10.1111/j.1573-7861.2008.01089.x

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0884-8971/09/0300-0031/0 � 2009 Eastern Sociological Society

INTRODUCTION

Like many of us who have tried to follow in his large footsteps and consequentlywobble a bit in these excessively spacious areas, Durkheim did not afford explicitand methodological guidance to the various signs of anomie, to the observables ofnormlessness and deteriorated social relationships. Yet it is plain that indicatorsmust be developed if the concept of anomie is to be utilized in empirical research.

Robert Merton (1957:164)

Durkheim’s complex sociological concept of anomie denotes socialdissolution in the widest sense, both as an objective social condition andas a subjective individual perception. It is a multidimensional, multilevelconcept that refers simultaneously to individuals, interactions, social struc-ture, and cultural representations. Generations of sociologists have strug-gled with the task of interpreting and expanding the concept, leavingvarious related meanings in their wake.

Forty years ago Lukes (1967) warned that the concept of anomie hadalready been extended too far and urged scholars to return to its originfor guidance. Two decades later, Mestrovic and Brown (1985:94) claimedthat the bulk of the anomie literature was flawed by an ‘‘etymologically,historically and contextually incorrect reading of the term anomie’’ andBesnard (1986) called for recovering Durkheim’s original concept fromsecondary and parasite connotations. In sharp contrast, Tiryakian (1982)defended such theoretical elaborations, arguing that sociologists shoulddraw insights from Durkheim rather than dispute the orthodoxy of vari-ous interpretations of his work. Passas (1995), in a similar vein, suggestedthat the concept of anomie is useful precisely because of its potential forelaboration and extension to various domains and levels of analysis.

Such debates over the appropriate role of classical sociological think-ers and their vintage concepts are common and necessary in contemporarysociology. On one hand, the theories and concepts developed by variousearly intellectual entrepreneurs serve as an important center of gravity inthe growing and increasingly fragmented discipline of sociology. Conceptssuch as anomie trace an intellectual lineage of scholars from the nine-teenth to the twenty-first century, provide a common frame of referencefor sociologists on different continents, and bring together a dizzyingarray of topics for sociological inquiry. At the same time, these earlysociological insights are almost by definition tentative, ambiguous, andincomplete. It is impossible to account for the vast societal changes of thepast century or the massive accumulation of contemporary sociologicalevidence solely by extracting hidden meaning from the original texts ofearly sociologists. Striking a balance between legacy and innovation istherefore a vital aspect of the advancement of the discipline of sociology.

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In the contemporary sociological literature, the concept of anomie isused in at least three distinct ways. First, anomie is commonly and ratherloosely used as a general theoretical concept to denote social andnormative dissolution, such as during the genocide in Rwanda (Taylor,2003) or in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union (Pridemore andKim, 2006). Second, the concept of institutional anomie (Messner andRosenfeld, 1994) has been used to describe a strictly macro-sociologicalcondition of the market economy and its ideology dominating other socialinstitutions (e.g., Karstedt and Farrall, 2006; Schoeffer and Piquero, 2006;Stucky et al., 2007). Finally, anomie has been conceptualized as a socialpsychological condition and various psychometric anomie scales (e.g.,Dean, 1961; McClosky and Schaar, 1965; Srole, 1956) have been usedover the past half-century to study such diverse subjects as bullying(Delfabbro et al., 2006), TV watching (Van Mierlo and Van den Bulck,2004), unethical business practices (Rosenbaum and Kuntze, 2003),national identity (Blank, 2003), substance use (Peltzer et al., 2001), andsuicide ideation (De Man et al., 1993).

The current study contributes to the sharpening of anomie as a socio-logical tool by recasting the concept as an emergent social property withboth individual-level and social-level manifestations. This calls for somereorganization of the anomie literature and clarification of the social-psychological assumptions of Durkheimian social theory. Anomie canbe operationalized on the individual level as a lack of exteriority andconstraint, and as the aggregation of such individual sentiments on thecollective level. These constructs will be used to demonstrate the relationbetween anomie and social and political upheaval, and to model theeffects of individual and societal anomie on psychological well-being andproblem behaviors among adolescents in 18 European countries.

INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL ANOMIE

In sociological textbooks, Durkheim’s concept of anomie is frequentlypresented in the context of social integration and social regulation asanalytically independent social processes (e.g., Bradshaw et al., 2001;Gislason, 2007). In this formulation, too little integration will lead to astate of egoism, an ‘‘ailment of the intelligence, radically separated fromother beings and reflecting upon its own wretched misery,’’ while toomuch integration will lead to altruism when the perceived interest of thesocial group is set above personal interests and individual well-being.Underregulation causes anomie as individuals succumb to the unregulatedthirst for nameless sensations and they are continuously frustrated by the

Anomie Among European Adolescents 137

inability to reach infinite goals. Finally, overregulation leaves the individ-ual in a fatalistic, zombie-like state by ‘‘choking passions and pitilesslyblocking futures.’’ According to this textbook formulation, the balancebetween individuality and society lies in between these four extremes.

Although this neat classification has some grounding in Durkheim’s([1897] 1951) attempts to systemize his insights, it forces thought into cate-gories that obscure the complex processes involved. In Durkheim’s presen-tation, the altruist is attached to society and disciplined to the extent ofopting for life or for death according to the perceived demands of society.Altruism is therefore not a social pathology from the perspective of soci-ety as a whole. On the contrary, society can be considered to be strength-ened when individuals enthusiastically and dutifully put collective interestsabove their individual well-being. Egoism, anomie, and fatalism, on theother hand, each represent individuals slipping from the grip of society inspecific ways. Durkheim does not present these concepts as a mutuallyexclusive system of classification, and in fact he discusses their variouscombinations and processes of mutual reinforcement at length (1951:287–294). In particular, he contends that egoism and anomie ‘‘are usuallymerely two different aspects of one social state; thus it is not surprisingthat they should be found in the same individual’’ (Durkheim, 1951:288).

Integration and regulation as the determinants of social and struc-tural cohesion have their counterparts in the individual feelings of attach-ment and duty that determine the balance crucial to individual well-being.When society becomes less cohesive, individuals experience it as less of anexterior reality and it imposes less constraint on their behaviors. Anomiecan therefore neither be adequately conceptualized as an exclusively socialstate nor as an exclusively individual state of mind. Although Durkheimabandoned the concept of anomie altogether after the publication ofSuicide in 1897, he devoted the better part of his remaining career to theenigma of individual ideas and behaviors shaped by society in turn becom-ing the building blocks of that very society through rituals and symbolicrepresentations (Durkheim, [1912] 1995).

Talcott Parsons’s much maligned interpretation of Durkheim pro-vides one of the earliest attempts at developing a modernist Durkheimiantheory of individual and society. Parsons (1937) argues that society is fun-damentally based on a normative structure that guides individual actioninto channels that in turn reproduce the social structure. The lack of acoherent normative structure leaves individuals lost in a void of meaning-less activities and undermines the vitality and smooth functioning of thesocial system. A year later, Merton (1938) used the term ‘‘anomie’’ todescribe such a lack of coherence in the normative structure of society. Heargued that social relations can become chronically deregulated because of

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strong, but contradictory regulative directives. Such social structural andcultural inconsistencies can lead to various negative social outcomes forindividuals attempting to attain culturally prescribed goals without accessto the necessary structural means. As several authors have noted (e.g.,Besnard, 1990; Hilbert, 1989; Orru, 1990), this formulation represents asignificant break from Durkheim’s perspective on anomie as a fickle,unpredictable social state and has led to various conceptual ambiguitiesand some degree of miscommunication in the anomie literature.

Most attempts at clarifying the concept of anomie have been based onthe assumption that it must either be developed as a purely social structuralcondition of society or as a purely social psychological condition of individ-uals. Merton (1957:165), for instance, referred to Bernard Lander’s study ofjuvenile delinquency as a ‘‘symptomatic advance’’ toward the measure ofanomie as an objective condition of group life. However, Lander (1954)does not actually measure anomie but, rather, applies the label ‘‘anomic’’to racially heterogeneous, economically depressed areas with high delin-quency rates. He then contends that anomie explains this spatial clusteringof sociodemographic, economic, and behavioral characteristics.

The theoretical sophistication of institutional anomie theory developedby Messner and Rosenfeld (1994) provides a strong contrast to Lander’searly study. They argue that the dominance of the market economy overother social institutions has created an anomic social structure where tradi-tional mechanisms of social control are unable to counteract a rising tide ofcrime and deviance. However, it has also proven difficult to measureinstitutional anomie independently of its causes and consequences. Chamlinand Cochran (1995), for instance, contend that in the absence of observableindicators of institutional anomie, the construct must be assessed by itsstructural antecedents. Employing a research strategy heavily reminiscent ofDurkheim’s operationalization of regulation, they use church membership,the ratio of divorces to marriages, and voting behavior as structural proxiesfor the capacity of religious, family, and political institutions to reduceanomie. Recent attempts to solve this problem within the framework ofinstitutional anomie theory have returned to the individual level, using theterm microanomie to denote an individual emphasis on self-enhancement(Konty, 2005) and the willingness to cheat to achieve goals (Muftic, 2006).

On the individual level, anomie has for decades been associated withvarious psychological and psychosomatic problems without a clear, over-arching causal structure. Some scholars have, for instance, conceptualizedanomie as a cause of psychological disturbances (De Grazia, 1948) andphysical pain (Mestrovic, 1987), while others maintain that anomie can bethe consequence of a personality disorder (McClosky and Schaar, 1965) orchronic physical pain (Hilbert, 1986). In the earliest attempt to measure


anomie as a psychological condition, Srole (1956) used the term anomia toavoid theoretical confusion with structural aspects of anomie. Several otheranomie scales were proposed in the following years, including Dean’s(1961) subscale of normlessness and McClosky and Schaar’s (1965) scale ofanomy. Despite various flaws, Srole’s scale of anomia has remained theleading brand in what he later referred to as the ‘‘academic market place’’of anomie scales (Srole, 1965). Beyond the advantage of being the first andhence the ‘‘original’’ anomie scale, Merton’s (1957) sponsorship of Srole’sscale as a measure of individual-level anomie was probably crucial to thedissemination of the scale in the late 1950s and early 1960s and its sub-sequent adoption into the U.S. General Social Survey in 1972.

Methodological studies of the dimensionality and reliability of thesevarious anomie scales have provided somewhat mixed results (Dodder andAstle, 1980; Hughes and Dodder, 1989; Kaldenberg and Woodman, 1985;Roberts, 1987). Their overall reliability is rather low and the underlyingfactorial structure appears to be unstable across studies. Although the theo-retical validity of these scales has been tacitly assumed by most researchers,a careful reading of the actual items used in these scales reveals a rathertenuous relation between the theoretical literature on anomie and the con-structs tapped by these items. For instance, Srole’s scale of anomia includesfive heterogeneous elements that tap political alienation, an Epicureanphilosophy of living one day at a time, fear of the future, and lack of inter-personal trust, while Dean’s subscale of normlessness appears to reflect ageneral sense of existential angst and religious relativism rather than a ficklesocial reality as such, and McClosky and Schaar’s (1965) scale of anomyprimarily measures nostalgia over loss of values and community.

These vintage scales thus have various conceptual and empirical weak-nesses and are becoming increasingly outdated. According to the SocialScience Citation Index (ISI, 2007), the use of these anomie scales in peer-reviewed journals peaked in the early 1970s. Between 1970 and 1975, thearticles by Srole (1956), Dean (1961), and McClosky and Schaar (1965) werecited a total of 450 times in peer-reviewed journals. Despite an exponentialgrowth in the number of peer-reviewed sociology journals over the past30 years, these three articles were cited 236 times in 1980–1986, 114 times in1990–1996, and only 54 times in the period 2000–2006. Scholarly interest inanomie as measured by these scales appears to decline at a steady rate.

ANOMIE AND THE MICROFOUNDATIONS OF SOCIAL THEORY

The unresolved conceptual and empirical ambiguities surrounding theconcept of anomie mirror the more general challenges of accounting for

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the association between micro-level and macro-level processes in socio-logy. Coleman (1986) has argued that the micro-macro gap can only bebridged by reclaiming the microfoundations of social theory that wereinherent in the work of classical sociologists and that Parsons (1937)systematically outlined in his early work on the structure of social action.In this formulation, social structure and structural changes are firmlyrooted in the collective actions of individual actors that are motivated bya variety of interests, values, norms, and anticipated consequences of indi-vidual actions. Such purposive action is in turn expected to be shaped bythe opportunities and constraints of the social structure.

Coleman (1986) argues that while sociology has made considerableadvances in accounting for the effects of social structure on individualbehaviors, the emergence of social structure from innumerable individualactions remains theoretically and empirically underdeveloped. In his influ-ential treatise on social capital (Coleman, 1988) and his massive work onthe foundations of social theory (1990), Coleman subsequently developedtheoretical accounts of positive collective outcomes in terms of individualrational choice within the constraints of a socially constructed structure.On the methodological front, Coleman’s work within the sociology ofeducation also became a major inspiration for the development ofhierarchical linear modeling to distinguish community-level effects fromindividual-level effects on academic achievement (Raudenbush and Bryk,1986). These theoretical and methodological advances have importantimplications for several unresolved issues in Durkheimian sociology(Bjarnason et al., 2005).

In contrast to Coleman’s (1990) insistence on the self-interested actoras the microfoundation of social structure, the Durkheimian approachemphasizes the dual nature of simultaneously selfish and social humanbeings. Although animals exist in a given physical environment, humanbeings need the exteriority and constraint of a social environment thatmust continuously be constructed and maintained. As a consequence,human beings do not only need society for instrumental reasons of physi-cal survival but also for existential reasons of intellectual survival. Theconcepts of exteriority and constraint are therefore central to the socialpsychological theory implicit in Durkheim’s work (Hilbert, 1986). Individ-ual perceptions of society as an external reality that imposes constraintson social behavior are essential to the well-being of individuals and societyalike. The failure to construct an exterior, constraining symbolic universemay in turn leave individuals in a void of meaningless activities and leadto a variety of deviant behaviors.

Despite his emphasis on social facts as the appropriate units of socio-logical analysis, Durkheim ([1901] 1982:253) concedes that ‘‘social life is a


system of representations and mental states, provided that it is clearlyunderstood that these representations are, sui generis, different in naturefrom those which constitute the mental life of the individual and subjectto their own laws which individual psychology could not foresee.’’ Such areality sui generis is created by associated individuals in combinationbefore it establishes in each individual ‘‘in a new form a purely inner exis-tence’’ (1951:320). The socially constructed reality therefore becomes anintegral part of the individual self through social representation. ‘‘We can-not live without representing to ourselves the world around us and theobjects of every sort which fill it. And because we represent it to ourselvesit enters into us and becomes part of us. Consequently, we value the worldand are attached to it just as we are to ourselves’’ (Durkheim, [1914]1973:153).

The notion of social representation as the foundation of social realityparallels George Herbert Mead’s ([1934] 1962) distinction between the I asthe conscious agent and the me as the socially negotiated persona. Indeed,several important contributions to sociological theory have drawn explic-itly on this dynamic link between Durkheim’s work and symbolic inter-actionism. Goffman (1959), for instance, draws on both Mead andDurkheim in his discussion of techniques for creating and maintaining aworking definition of concrete social situations. When the common defini-tion of a social situation breaks down, interaction is brought to a grindingand embarrassing halt and the participants are in effect thrown into tem-porary, situational anomie. Berger (1967) also draws on both Durkheimand Mead when he argues that the ‘‘world-openness’’ of human beingsrequires the social construction of reality through a cycle of externaliza-tion, objectivation, and internalization. Every socially defined reality isthreatened by lurking ‘‘irrealities’’ and the nightmare of anomic realitycollapse in the Durkheimian sense. Similarly, Collins (1994) argues thatsociety is real not only in the normative sense of regulating behavior but,ultimately, in the sense of constraining individual experience of society asphysically real. Moving explicitly from individual action to social struc-ture, Collins (2004) subsequently argues that social structure is constructedand reconstructed on a daily basis through a process of countless inter-action ritual chains.

Hilbert (1986) has pointed out that the core of the concept of anomieis thus not merely a question of normlessness in the sense of a withdrawalof conformity, but more generally the withdrawal of anything to whichone might conform. In Coleman’s (1986) terms, anomie can be seen torefer to a breakdown in purposive social action when the predictability,coherence, and perceived fairness of social outcomes are undermined byweak or conflicting social institutions. Institutional anomie may thus ensue

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as traditional institutions of social control lose some of their objective,exterior characteristics and their ability to constrain social behavior on theindividual level. Heterogeneous and transient social relations strain thecapacity to construct a meaningful social reality in interpersonal relationsand may in turn foster ambiguous or conflicting definitions of concretesocial situations. Anomie is therefore rooted in the experiences of individ-uals but its prevalence in society as a whole is a reality sui generis that hasprofound effects on all members of society.

MEASURING ANOMIE AS A MULTILEVEL CONCEPT

The tension between macro-level anomie as a social structural defectand micro-level anomie as a social-psychological affliction lies at the veryheart of Durkheim’s original concept. This tension cannot be neutralizedwithout neutralizing the concept itself. On one hand, when anomie is con-ceptualized as an exclusively macro-level concept it can be measured onlyin terms of its theoretically derived causes and consequences (e.g.,Chamlin and Cochran, 1995; Lander, 1954; Merton, 1938; Messner andRosenfeld, 1994). When anomie is, on the other hand, conceptualized asan exclusively micro-level concept, it loses its societal frame of referenceand becomes difficult to distinguish from personality traits, psychologicalproblems, or even physical pain (e.g., De Grazia, 1948; Hilbert, 1986;McClosky and Schaar, 1965; Mestrovic, 1987).

The task of bridging this micro-macro gap must be approached fromboth the direction of social psychology and the direction of social struc-ture. Durkheim ([1897] 1951:319) in fact speculates about the best strategyfor mathematically linking individual and collective sentiments, but with-out recourse to survey methodology he is unable to measure anomie oneither level. Contemporary quantitative methods do however allow theactual measurement of societal anomie as a breakdown in collective repre-sentations that are rooted in individual perceptions, yet ‘‘different innature from those which constitute the mental life of the individual andsubject to their own laws which individual psychology could not foresee’’(Durkheim, [1901] 1982:253). Such societal anomie should be directlyrelated to other macro-level constructs and it should affect individualpsychology and behavior beyond the effects of individual perceptions ofexteriority and constraint.

The following analysis contributes to this major sociological task inthree distinct ways. First, it operationalizes societal anomie as the aggrega-tion of individual sentiments of lack of social exteriority and social con-straint. Second, it examines the empirical relations of such societal anomie


with political and economic instability across 18 European countries.Finally, it estimates a multilevel model where individual perceptions ofexteriority and constraint and societal anomie and political and economicinstability are used to predict psychological distress, substance use, andproblem behaviors among adolescents in these 18 countries.

These tasks are accomplished through the use of the Anomie Scale ofExteriority and Constraint (ASEC). This scale was developed in a series ofIcelandic school surveys to capture the theoretical thrust of the anomieliterature in a short scale that could easily be incorporated into schoolsurveys among adolescents. It contains two subscales of individualperceptions of individual-level exteriority and constraint that can becombined to provide an aggregate measure of anomie on the societal level.In 1999, the ASEC scale became an optional module in the EuropeanSchool Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (Hibell et al., 2000).It has since been used in an increasing number of countries participatingin the ESPAD study and has been used as a covariate in various recentstudies of adolescent problems and problem behaviors (e.g., Bjarnasonet al., 2005; Kokkevi et al., 2007; Thorlindsson and Bernburg, 2004). How-ever, the theoretical background of this scale has not been previously pub-lished and the validity and reliability of the scale across a wide range ofoutcomes has not been systematically assessed in a cross-cultural context.

DATA AND METHODS

Participating Countries

The current study is based on data from the 2003 European SchoolSurvey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD), a collaborativeresearch project implemented by a network of European researchers(ESPAD, 2007a; Hibell et al., 2004). The primary goal of the project is toprovide comparative data on adolescent substance use in Europe for thepurposes of research and policy formation. Independent research teams ineach country survey 15–16-year-old students at 4-year intervals accordingto a standardized ESPAD research protocol. The questionnaires consist ofa set of mandatory questions used in all countries and a set of optionalquestion modules chosen by the national research team from the ESPADprotocol. Questionnaires are administered to students in the classroomwith the use of a blank envelope procedure to ensure confidentially (seeBjarnason, 1995).

In 2003, a total of 35 European countries participated in the ESPADstudy. Methodological studies of the ESPAD data have shown high levels

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of reliability as measured by test-retest experiments and internal consis-tency in answer patterns within the questionnaire (Hibell et al., 2004).Analysis of factors such as student cooperation, comprehension of ques-tions, perceived anonymity of responses, and reported use of a fictitiousdrug also suggests that the ESPAD study yields valid data on adolescentbeliefs and behaviors. The current article is based on data from the 18countries that elected to include the optional ASEC scale in their national2003 ESPAD survey instruments.

Table I provides demographic and survey information for the 18countries included in the current study. These countries reflect the diver-sity of European countries, including, for instance, the Faroe Islands(48,000 inhabitants, 98% Lutheran), Austria (8 million, 78% RomanCatholic), Greece (11 million, 98% Orthodox), Ukraine (48 million, 70%Orthodox), the United Kingdom (59 million, 47% Anglican), and Turkey(70 million, 99.8% Muslim). Some of these countries are among the oldest

Table I. Overview of the 18 Countries Using the ASEC Scale in the 2003 European SchoolSurvey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs

Countries

Demographic Informationa Survey Informationb

NationalPopulation(1,000s) 2003

15–16Year Olds

(1,000s) 2003SampleSize

ResponseRate

Austria 8,102 94 2,377 90%Bulgaria 7,846 103 2,739 85%Croatia 4,442 55 2,884 88%Cyprus 715 11 2,152 88%Czech 10,203 130 3,172 95%Estonia 1,356 22 2,463 86%Faroe Islands 48 0.7 591 86%Greece 11,006 117 1,906 83%Hungary 10,142 124 3,143 82%Iceland 288 4 1,663 81%Isle of Man 78 0.9 721 85%Latvia 2,331 38 2,841 84%Romania 21,773 354 4,371 84%Slovakia 5,379 82 2,276 87%Slovenia 1,995 26 2,785 88%Turkey 69,770 1,238 4,177 91%Ukraine 48,004 746 4,173 83%United Kingdom 59,438 778 2,031 84%All countries 262,917 3,924 46,465 86%

aSource: Eurostat (2007), except for the Faroe Islands (Hagstova Føroya, 2007), Isle of Man(Hibell et al., 2004; Isle of Man Government Treasury, 2007), and Ukraine (State StatisticsCommittee of Ukraine, 2007).bSource: Hibell et al. (2004).


and most stable democracies in the world, while others have only recentlyachieved independence or democratic self-determination.

The national samples are in the range of 1,663–4,371 students, withthe exception of the Faroe Islands and Isle of Man where the total cohortof 15–16-year-old students is less than 1,000. All the samples are nation-ally representative except in Turkey, where the sample is representative ofthe regions of Adana, Ankara, Diyarbakir, Istanbul, Izmir, and Samsun.Response rates in individual countries range from 81% to 95%. The totalnumber of students participating in the current study is 46,465. Furtherinformation about sampling and field procedures in each country is pro-vided by Hibell et al. (2004).

Background Measures

In the following analysis, two controls for background are employed.Female is a dichotomous variable coded 0 for males and 1 for females.The proportion of females in each sample ranges from .45 in Austria to.58 in Romania. Parental education is a 5-point scale indicating the high-est level of educational attainment for mother and father. A value of 1 isgiven if both parents have completed compulsory school or less and avalue of 5 is given if at least one parent has completed a university degree.The values 2, 3, and 4 were assigned to intermediate levels of educationalattainment that vary somewhat between the 18 countries involved. Themean level of educational attainment on this 5-point scale ranges from3.02 in Turkey to 4.12 in the Isle of Man.

Exteriority and Constraint

The ASEC scale is used to operationalize individual perceptions ofexteriority and constraint. Exteriority is measured by the level of disagree-ment with the statements: (1) It is difficult to trust anything because every-thing changes, (2) In fact nobody knows what is expected of him or her inlife, and (3) You can never be certain of anything in life. Similarly, con-straint is measured by the level of disagreement with the statements: (1)You can break most rules if they don’t seem to apply, (2) I follow what-ever rules I want to follow, and (3) In fact there are very few rules abso-lute in life. Five response categories are given for each item: (1) totallyagree, (2) rather agree, (3) don’t know, (4) rather disagree, and (5) totallydisagree. The two resulting subscales each range from 3 (low exteriority orconstraint) to 15 (high exteriority or constraint). Additional information

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about the layout and wording of the ASEC scale in Bulgarian, Croatian,Czech, English, Estonian, Faroese, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic,Latvian, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, and Turkish is providedby ESPAD (2007b).

Table II shows the mean, standard deviation, and reliability ofindividual-level exteriority and constraint in the 18 participating coun-tries. These scales are generally found to be reliable with an overallChronbach’s alpha of .77 for exteriority and .69 for constraint. Thereliability level in individual countries is also quite good, with theexception of a marginally acceptable alpha level of .40 for constraint inHungary. The weighted average of perceived exteriority of the socialworld is 6.8 on a scale from 3 to 15. The lowest levels of exteriorityare found in Bulgaria (5.7) and the Czech Republic (5.7) and the high-est levels in Iceland (8.2) and Austria (8.1). The weighted average ofperceived constraint of the social world is 8.5 on a scale from 3 to 15.The lowest levels of constraint are found in Bulgaria (7.0) and Croatia(7.4) and the highest levels in the Faroe Islands (11.0) and Iceland(9.9). The average correlation is .40, ranging from .15 in the FaroeIslands to .50 in Turkey.

Table II. Exteriority and Constraint Among 15–16-Year-Old Students in 18 Countries Usingthe ASEC Scale in the 2003 European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs

Countries

Exteriority Constraint CorrelationBetween Exteriority

and ConstraintMean SD Alpha Mean SD Alpha

Austria 8.1 2.7 .64 8.5 2.7 .65 .39Bulgaria 5.7 2.7 .79 7.0 2.8 .69 .41Croatia 6.4 2.7 .79 7.4 2.6 .70 .45Cyprus 5.8 2.5 .74 8.2 2.6 .59 .22Czech 5.7 2.3 .73 8.5 2.6 .68 .29Estonia 7.0 2.5 .74 7.7 2.5 .68 .41Faroe Islands 7.2 2.6 .68 11.0 2.7 .60 .15Greece 5.9 2.7 .66 8.2 3.2 .59 .27Hungary 7.4 2.9 .75 7.6 2.3 .40 .36Iceland 8.2 2.9 .73 9.9 3.0 .76 .45Isle of Man 7.7 2.6 .78 9.1 2.8 .79 .51Latvia 6.9 2.5 .69 8.8 3.1 .77 .38Romania 6.0 2.8 .76 8.1 2.9 .65 .35Slovakia 6.6 2.6 .78 7.9 2.4 .63 .38Slovenia 7.1 2.7 .78 8.8 2.9 .74 .41Turkey 7.1 3.3 .80 8.7 3.5 .78 .50Ukraine 6.2 2.6 .76 8.0 2.9 .71 .42United Kingdom 7.6 2.6 .77 9.0 2.8 .77 .48All countries 6.8 2.7 .77 8.5 2.8 .69 .40


Psychological Distress

Contemporary definitions of nonclinical depression and lack of self-esteem parallel Durkheim’s discussion of melancholy and lack of socialworth as key elements of egoism on the individual level. Here, depressionis measured with the 6-item CES-D scale (Radloff, 1977) designed to mea-sure depressive symptomatology in epidemiologic studies among thegeneral population. The 4-point response categories range from (1) rarelyor never to (4) most of the time. Internal validity (Chronbach’s alpha)ranged from .74 in Ukraine to .86 in Cyprus. Self-esteem is measured withRosenberg’s (1989) 10-item scale with 4-point response categories: (1)strongly agree to (4) strongly disagree. The items were recoded so thathigher values indicated higher levels of self-esteem. Chronbach’s alpharanged from .64 in Ukraine to .90 in Iceland.

Substance Use Measures

Two measures of substance use are included in the current study.Daily cigarette smoking is recoded from the standard ESPAD question onfrequency of cigarette smoking (Hibell et al., 2004). Responses of less thanone cigarette per day were coded as 0 and responses of one or more ciga-rette per day were coded as 1 in order to focus on daily smoking as adistinct category of behavior rather than the quantity of cigarettessmoked. The average proportion of daily smoking ranges from .10 inTurkey to .36 in Bulgaria, corresponding to a prevalence ranging from10–36%. Lifetime illicit drug use is recoded from ESPAD questions oflifetime use of 16 illicit drugs. No illicit drug use was coded 0 and use ofany illicit drug was coded 1 in order to focus on illicit drug use as distinctcategory of behavior rather than the diversity and quantity of drugs used.The average proportion of lifetime illicit drug use ranges from .11 inTurkey to .51 in the Czech Republic, corresponding to a prevalenceranging from 11–51%.

Problem Behavior Measures

Two problem behavior measures are included in the current study.Truancy is recoded from the item: ‘‘During the last 30 days how manywhole days of school have you missed because you skipped or cut?’’Responses of no days skipped were coded as 0 and responses of one ormore days were coded as 1 in order to focus on truancy as a distinct

148 Bjarnason

category of behavior rather than the frequency of such behavior. Theaverage proportion of 30-day truancy ranges from .12 in Iceland to .49 inGreece, corresponding to a prevalence ranging from 12–49%. Suicideattempt is recoded from the item ‘‘Attempted suicide’’ in an ESPADchecklist of things that have ever happened to the respondents (Hibellet al., 2004). Responses of no suicide attempts were coded as 0 andresponses of one or more attempt were coded as 1 in order to focus onsuicidal behavior as a distinct category of behavior rather than the fre-quency of such behavior. The average proportion of self-reported suicideattempts ranges from .05 in Hungary and Slovakia to .15 in Cyprus andSlovenia, corresponding to a prevalence ranging from 5–15%.

Societal Anomie

According to Durkheim ([1897] 1951), collective sentiments of anomiecan in principle be derived mathematically from the aggregate of individ-ual sentiments. The ASEC scale allows the measurement of anomie on thesocietal level as the highest possible score of 30 minus the average exteri-ority and the average constraint in each country. This results in a measureof societal anomie with a theoretical range from 0 (no country-levelanomie) to 24 (total country-level anomie). As can be seen in Table III,the resulting measure has a mean of 14.8 across the 18 countries, with astandard deviation of 1.5 and an actual range from 11.8 to 17.4. The high-est levels of societal anomie among adolescents are found in Croatia(16.2) and Bulgaria (17.4), while the lowest levels are found in the FaroeIslands (11.8) and Iceland (12.0).

Table III. Societal Anomie and Indicators of Deregulation in 18 Countries Using the ASECScale in the 2003 European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs

Descriptives Correlations

Minimum Maximum Mean SD Eastern

GDPper

CapitaGDP

Growth Inflation

Eastern Europe 0.0 1.0 .56 .51 1.00GDP percapita (1,000 USD)

5.5 31.0 18.0 9.1 –.72*** 1.00

GDP growth .7 9.4 4.1 2.3 .51* –.78*** 1.00Inflation 0.9 20.1 4.5 4.6 .30 –.57** .74*** 1.00Societal anomie 11.8 17.4 14.8 1.5 .60** –.75*** .44# .34N = 18

#p < .10; *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.Source: UNESCO (2007) and World Bank (2007).


Social Structural Instability

The political and economic upheaval in eastern Europe after the endof the Cold War represents profound deregulation in the Durkheimiansense. About 56% of the participating countries are coded as easternEuropean (0: Austria, Cyprus, Faroe Islands, Greece, Iceland, Isle ofMan, Turkey, United Kingdom; 1: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic,Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine). Eco-nomic indicators for 2003 were obtained from UNESCO (2007) and theWorld Bank (2007). GDP per capita ranges from USD 5,520 in Ukraineto USD 30,990 in Austria. GDP growth ranges from less than 1% inAustria and the Faroe Islands to 9.8% in Ukraine. Finally, inflationranges from 0.9% in the Czech Republic to 20.1% in Ukraine.

Table III also shows the correlation between social structural instabil-ity and societal anomie in the 18 countries. This can also be seen as ameasure of concurrent validity for the societal anomie measure. Asexpected, significantly higher levels of anomie are found in eastern Europeand significantly lower levels in countries where the GDP per capita ishigher. GDP growth is also marginally associated with higher levels ofsocietal anomie. Contrary to expectations, societal anomie does notappear to have a significant association with inflation.

MULTILEVEL MODELING

The following data analysis is based on multilevel modeling tech-niques (Bryk and Raudenbush, 1992; Goldstein, 1987), and was conductedby use of the HLM 6.0 software (Raudenbush et al., 2004). This method-ology allows several important theoretical and conceptual issues to beempirically addressed. Extending the general multiple regression model,hierarchical linear regression allows the estimation of individual-levelmodels of the effects of exteriority and constraint and other indicators onvarious outcomes as:

Yij ¼ b0j þXQq¼1

bqjXqij þ rij;

where Yij is the outcome of student i in country j, b0j is the individual-levelintercept for each country, bqj (q = 1, 2, ..., Q) are individual-level slopesfor each country j, Xqij is the qth individual-level predictor for student i incountry j, and rij is the individual-level error term (see Raudenbush et al.,2004). This extends the general regression model by allowing the estimation

150 Bjarnason

of variable intercept models of the effects of country-level predictors on indi-vidual-level adolescent outcomes, as well as allowing the estimation of vari-able slopes for individual-level predictors across countries.

The Bernoulli model for dichotomous dependent variables extendsthis basic approach by transforming the predicted value into Yij by use ofthe logit link function:

gij ¼ logUij

1� Uij

� �;

where cij is the probability of success for student i in country j, and cij isthe log of the odds of success. In the Bernoulli case the predicted valueof the dichotomous dependent variable Yij is equal to the probability ofsuccess, Fij.

Each of the individual-level coefficients bqj can be modeled as anoutcome variable in the country-level model:

bqj ¼ cq0 þXSs¼1

cqsWsj þ uqj;

where cqs is the country-level intercept for the individual-level slope q incountry j, cqs (s = 1, 2, ..., S) are country-level slopes associated with theindividual-level slope q, Wsj is the sth country-level predictor for countryj, and uqj is the country-level error term. All individual-level predictors arecentered to the grand mean in the following analysis.

RESULTS

Dimensions of Egoism

The first model in Table IV shows the results for a linear regression ofindividual self-esteem (Rosenberg, 1989) on the individual-level and society-level predictors. Females are found to score significantly lower than malesby an average of 1.17 points on Rosenberg’s self-esteem scale. Parental edu-cational attainment is found to significantly increase adolescent self-esteemby .31 points for each additional educational level attained on a 5-pointscale. On the individual level, adolescents have significantly higher self-esteem if they experience the social world as an exterior reality, and to alesser extent if they experience it as a constraining reality. Self-esteemincreases by .24 points for each unit increase in exteriority and by .07 pointsfor each unit increase in constraint. Cross-nationally, adolescents on averagehave significantly higher self-esteem in countries where levels of societal


anomie are higher. Average self-esteem on the national level increases by .60points for each unit increase in societal anomie.

The second model in Table IV shows the results for a linear regressionof individual depression (Radloff, 1977) on the individual-level and society-level predictors. Females are found to score significantly higher than malesby an average of 1.98 points on the depression scale while no significanteffects are found for parental educational attainment. On the individuallevel, adolescents are significantly less depressed if they experience the socialworld as an exterior reality, and to a lesser extent if they experience a con-straining reality. Cross-nationally, adolescents are significantly moredepressed on average in countries where levels of societal anomie are higher.

Substance Use

The third model of Table IV shows the results of a Bernoulli model forthe dichotomous dependent variable of daily smoking regressed on the

Table IV. Multilevel Models of Exteriority and Constraint Among 15–16-Year-Old Studentsin 18 Countries in the 2003 European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs

Psychological Distressa Substance Useb Problem Behaviorb

1Self-Esteem

2Depression

3Daily

Smoking

4Illicit

Drug Use5

Truancy

6SuicideAttempt

Intercept 28.55*** 11.48*** .30*** .42*** .40*** .09***Level 2

Eastern Europe — — — — — .59**GDP per capita .07* — — — — —GDP growth — — — — — —Inflation — — — — 1.04* —Societal anomie .60** .17** — 1.13* — —

Level 1Female )1.17*** 1.98*** .68*** .73*** .85*** 1.68***Parentaleducation

.31*** –.01 .95*** 1.06*** 1.00 .99

Exteriority .24*** –.18*** .97*** 1.00 1.01 .99Constraint .07** –.07*** .90*** .88*** .90*** .93***Self-esteem .97*** .98*** .98*** .92***Depression 1.05*** 1.08*** 1.06*** 1.18***

VarianceIntercept 1.601*** .129*** .204*** .462*** .387*** .167***Exteriority .019*** .005*** .001*** .001*** .001** .001#

Constraint .007*** .003*** .001*** .001*** .002*** .000ns

aLinear models with continuous dependent variables, unstandardized regression coefficients.bBernoulli models with dichotomous dependent variables, coefficients are odds ratios.#p < .10; *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

152 Bjarnason

individual-level and society-level predictors. The coefficients presented areodds ratios. Females are found to be significantly less likely than males tosmoke daily by a factor of .68. In other words, across these 18 samples,males are 1.47 times more likely than females to smoke daily. Parental edu-cational attainment is found to significantly decrease the likelihood of dailysmoking among adolescents by a factor of .95 for each additional educa-tional level attained on a 5-point scale. Smoking is also associated withsignificantly less self-esteem and higher levels of depression. Controlling forgender, parental education, self-esteem, and depression, the individualeffects of exteriority and constraint continue to be statistically significant.The probability of daily smoking is significantly decreased by a factor of .97for each unit increase on the exteriority scale and by a factor of .90 for eachunit increase on the constraint scale. No significant effects on daily smokingare found for societal anomie or other country-level predictors.

The fourth model of Table IV shows the results for the dichotomousdependent variable of lifetime illicit drug use regressed on the individual-level and society-level predictors. Females are found to be significantly lesslikely than males to have used illicit drugs by a factor of .73. Parentaleducational attainment is found to significantly increase the probability ofillicit drug use among adolescents by a factor of 1.06 for each additionaleducational level attained. Illicit drug use is also significantly associatedwith less self-esteem and higher levels of depression. Controlling for gen-der, parental education, self-esteem, and depression, the individual effectsof constraint continue to be statistically significant. The probability of illi-cit drug use is significantly decreased by a factor of .88 for each unitincrease in constraint, but the individual experience of an exterior socialworld does not significantly affect illicit drug use. Net of individual-levelpredictors, higher levels of anomie are associated with a significantlyhigher average probability of illicit drug use by a factor of 1.13 for eachunit increase in societal anomie.

Problem Behavior

The fifth model of Table IV shows the results of regressing thedichotomous dependent variable of truancy on the individual-level andsociety-level predictors. Females are found to be significantly less likelythan males to be truant by a factor of .85, while parental educationalattainment is not significantly associated with the likelihood of truancy.Truancy is also associated with significantly less self-esteem and higherlevels of depression. Controlling for gender, parental education, self-esteem, and depression, the individual effects of constraint continue to be


statistically significant. The probability of truancy is significantlydecreased by a factor of .90 for each unit increase on the constraint scale.The individual experience of an exterior social world does not, however,appear to affect truancy significantly. Cross-nationally, inflation rates areassociated with significantly higher levels of truancy by a factor of 1.04for each percentage point increase in inflation.

The sixth and final model of Table IV shows the dichotomous depen-dent variable of suicide attempts regressed on the individual-level and soci-ety-level predictors. Females are found to be significantly more likely thanmales to have attempted suicide by a factor of 1.68, but parental educa-tional attainment is not significantly associated with such attempts. Suicidalattempts are associated with significantly less self-esteem and higher levelsof depression. Controlling for gender, parental education, self-esteem, anddepression, the individual effects of constraint on suicide attempts continueto be statistically significant. The probability of suicide attempts is signifi-cantly decreased by a factor of .93 for each unit increase on the constraintscale. The individual experience of an exterior social world does not, how-ever, appear to affect suicide attempts. On the societal level, adolescents ineastern Europe are significantly less likely to have attempted suicide by afactor of .59, controlling for individual-level predictors.

Variation in Slopes and Intercepts

In each of the six models of Table IV, the intercept varies significantlybetween countries. This implies that the baseline level of each outcome con-tinues to be significantly different across countries after the individual-leveland societal-level predictors have been taken into account. In five of the sixmodels, the slopes for exteriority and constraint also vary significantly. Thestrength of these effects thus differs significantly between countries eventhough the main effects are not always statistically significant. Exterioritydoes not have a significant main effect on either illicit drug use or truancy,but such a significant effect is found in some countries. In the sixth model,the effects of exteriority and constraint on suicide attempts do not varysignificantly at the .05 level. In other words, the strength of the main effectsis not significantly different between the 18 countries.

DISCUSSION

The exteriority of society as an objective, predictable reality is derivedfrom being immersed in society and experiencing its constraints.

154 Bjarnason

Conversely, the functional and moral constraints society imposes on indi-viduals can be effective only to the degree that society is perceived as anexternal reality. Thoits (1983) has argued that integrated and cohesivegroups provide members with a sense of certainty and purpose in life.Studies have also drawn on Durkheim’s concept of anomie to account forthe positive effects of religion on psychological and physiological well-being. Factors such as religious beliefs, religious communities, and per-ceived divine support nurture ‘‘coherent plausibility structures’’ andenhance individual well-being through a sense of coherence, comprehensi-bility, and meaning (Bjarnason, 1998; Ellison, 1994; Pollner, 1989). Simi-larly, research has shown that parental support and parental controlenhance adolescent well-being through perceptions of society as an exter-nal, constraining reality (Thorlindsson and Bjarnason, 1998).

Individual perceptions of exteriority and constraint appear toenhance psychological and social well-being among adolescents in a widerange of industrialized European countries. Controlling for other factors,perceptions of exteriority and, to a lesser extent, constraint are associ-ated with less depression and higher self-esteem. In other words, adoles-cents who find the social world to be objective and meaningful arehappier and more confident in themselves—in Durkheim’s nineteenth-century terms, they are less likely to suffer from melancholy and lack ofsocial worth.

Importantly, while exteriority has a stronger effect than constraint onpsychological well-being, the opposite appears to be true of social well-being. Stronger perceptions of clear, compelling rules of social conductare associated with a lower probability of daily smoking, illicit drug use,truancy, and suicide attempts. These effects are moderate to strong, evenafter controlling for gender, parental education, self-esteem, anddepression. In other words, adolescents who feel constrained by a clearnormative structure are less likely to misuse substances or engage in otherself-destructive behaviors. Exteriority only has a small statistically signifi-cant effect on daily smoking and does not affect illicit drug use, truancy,or suicide attempts beyond the effects of constraint and other variables. Itthus seems clear that exteriority primarily affects psychological well-being,while constraint primarily affects social well-being. It is, however, alsoimportant to note that the effects of exteriority and constraint on psycho-logical and social outcomes are not invariant across countries. The regres-sion slopes vary significantly between countries, indicating that exteriorityand constraint have a stronger effect on adolescent outcomes in somecountries than in others. Further research should explore the factors thatmay facilitate or inhibit the effects of exteriority and constraint on variousoutcomes.


It should be noted that while the current study includes self-esteem anddepression as covariates, the 18-country ESPAD data set does not includeconstructs drawn from various other theoretical perspectives on individualproblems and problem behaviors, such as theories of strain (Agnew, 1992),self-control (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990), social control (Hirschi, 1969),or social support (Dean and Lin, 1977). However, testing the effects of exte-riority and constraint against other theoretical constructs on the individuallevel does not require a multinational sample. This important issue couldtherefore be addressed in a future single-country study.

The societal level of anomie is directly associated with higher levels ofdepression and illicit drug use after individual-level exteriority and con-straint have been taken into account. In other words, students are moredepressed and more likely to use illicit drugs in countries where anomie isrampant, irrespective of their own individual experiences. Interestingly,the effect of societal anomie on self-esteem appears to operate in theopposite direction to the effects of individual-level exteriority and con-straint. Controlling for individual-level exteriority and constraint, studentsthus on average have higher self-esteem in countries where anomie is moreprevalent. Although unexpected, it is tempting to interpret these findingsin terms of Durkheim’s ([1897] 1951) discussion of the relationshipbetween egoism and anomie at different levels of analysis. Societal anomiemay be associated with societal egoism and hence increased anomiemay be reflected in a higher baseline of self-esteem among adolescents.Individuals who lack exteriority and constraint may nevertheless sufferfrom lower self-esteem as their social aspirations have no boundaries andthey are therefore unable to reach any meaningful social goals. This issuemerits serious consideration in future research.

The results of the current study also shed some light on societal anomieas a strictly macro-sociological affliction of the collective conscience. Itshould be noted that the measure of societal anomie is based on theresponses of adolescents and should perhaps be more cautiously interpretedas anomie in ‘‘adolescent society’’ (Coleman, 1961). However, societalanomie measured by aggregating the responses of adolescents has a strongnegative correlation with GDP per capita and a marginally significantpositive correlation with GDP growth across the 18 countries participatingin the current study. This lends further support to Durkheim’s contentionthat anomie in the collective conscience is a social fact sui generis thatis directly related to other social facts on the societal level. Considerablymore theoretical and empirical work is nevertheless needed to close thegap between individual and social structural anomie. In particular, theassociation between the measure of anomie developed in this study andinstitutional anomie theory needs to be further studied and clarified.

156 Bjarnason

The political changes that swept eastern Europe in the early 1990s canbe considered a prime example of a profound, large-scale reality collapse.The adolescents participating in the study were all born in 1987 and grewup during a period when European regimes collapsed, countries disinte-grated and new countries emerged, and wars broke out between neighbors.The Romanian respondents had celebrated only their second birthdaywhen the country’s leader Ceausescu was deposed and summarily executedon December 25, 1989. The children in Estonia and Latvia were 3–4 yearsold when their countries declared independence from the Soviet Union inAugust 1991 and 6–7 years old when the last Russian troops were with-drawn from their countries in August 1994. Most of the Ukrainian adoles-cents had turned 4 years old when the Soviet Union collapsed in December1991 and Ukraine emerged as an independent republic. The respondents inthe Czech Republic and Slovakia were 5 years old when Czechoslovakiasplit on January 1, 1993. In the summer of 1991, the Slovenian youths were3–4 years old during the 10-day war of independence from Yugoslavia,while their peers in Croatia grew up in a sporadic state of war until theywere 7–8 years old in the late summer of 1995. The finding of significantlyhigher levels of anomie among adolescents in eastern Europe than amongtheir peers in western Europe provides an important validation of the useof aggregate perceptions of exteriority and constraint among adolescents asa measure of country-level anomie. The impact of these changes on anomiein the adult population, however, remains to be assessed.

Durkheim insisted that aggregated individual attitudes and behaviorsconstituted a distinctly societal level of reality that was irreducible to indi-vidual differences. Despite his lucid descriptions of anomie in interper-sonal relations, groups of varying sizes, family, the concrete organizationof the workplace, occupational groups, capitalist competition, and culturalrepresentations of civilization at large, he continues to fall back on thisbinary distinction between the social, nonpsychological and the psycholog-ical, nonsocial levels of analysis. The country-level unit of analysisemployed in the current study corresponds to this binary distinction.However, a comprehensive Durkheimian theoretical framework calls for aformulation of feedback relations between individual, interactional, socialstructural, and cultural levels of social realty (Wiley, 1988). Furtherresearch must address the relative importance of collective anomie at thesedifferent levels of analysis.

Jack Gibbs (1994) has warned that the Durkheimian tradition in soci-ology will become obsolete unless it moves beyond Durkheim’s flawedand inconsistent theory. ‘‘Hence, sociologists should rightly proclaimDurkheim to have been a genius, and then get on with it’’ (Gibbs, 1994:30,emphasis in original). The strategy for measuring anomie presented in this


article constitutes an attempt to move in a direction suggested by Durk-heim and several sociologists of subsequent generations. The results pre-sented here strongly suggest that this may be a fruitful approach incontemporary sociology.

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