RT Article
T1 Cross-country comparison analysis of individual and institutional factors of anomie and online offending
JF European journal of criminology
VO 22
IS 2
SP 230
OP 255
A1 Parti, Katalin
A2 Dearden, Thomas
A2 Foriest, Whytnee
A2 Hawdon, James
A2 Räsänen, Pekka
A2 Szigeti, Akos
A2 Kiss, Tibor
LA English
YR 2025
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1922967637
AB This article addresses the gap in the literature by empirically assessing a cross-national comparison of institutional anomie theory (IAT) and self-reported cyberoffending. We used survey data from Finland, Hungary, and the United States to examine the relationship between institutional anomie and cybercrime. Each country represents different types of societies, which makes them interesting cases for cross-national comparison. With Hungary representing a conservative welfare regime, Finland a social democratic welfare regime, and the United States a liberal welfare regime, we predict that the more political regimes intervene in economic relations and support non-economic institutions, the less applicable IAT's variables will be in predicting cybercrime perpetration. In line with these predictions, binomial regression models suggest that IAT works best in the United States, where individualism, achievement, and fetishism of money increased the indices of cybercrime offending. IAT variables were less useful in predicting cybercrime offending in the other nations. Yet, also in line with our prediction, family has a strong external control function in Finland, protecting participants from cybercrime offending. However, no IAT indexes achieved statistical significance in Hungary, where a work-based welfare system suppresses family-related values. Education has a mixed effect on cybercrime offending. Thus, IAT is valuable for understanding cybercrime offending; however, it should be examined in more countries with social institutions and individual value systems different from that of the United States.
K1 American Dream
K1 Institutional Anomie Theory
K1 fetishism of money
K1 online offending
K1 Values
DO 10.1177/14773708241276944