ANOMIEsolidarity would take time, however. The transi-
tional period, characterized by normative disor-
ganization, Durkheim described as anomic. By this
he did not mean to imply literal normlessness but,
rather, a state of relative normative disorder (Coser
1977). Compared with communities characterized
by mechanical solidarity, developing larger towns
and cities would have a less regulated, less struc-
tured, less ordered pattern of social life.
Release from the restraining influence of norms
was not a liberating circumstance, according to
Durkheim. In this state, without adequate norma-
tive direction, people did not know what to expect
or how to behave. Many of the social problems that
Durkheim witnessed in rapidly changing industri-
alizing Europe, he blamed on inadequate norma-
tive regulation. In his classic Suicide, Durkheim
([1897] 1951) identifies ‘‘anomic suicide’’ as occur-
ring when the values and norms of the group cease
to have meaning or serve as anchors for the indi-
vidual, leading to feelings of isolation, confusion,
and personal disorganization.
CONTEMPORARY USES OF ‘‘ANOMIE’’Anomie continues to be used as defined by Durkheim,
but it has also been extended during the twentieth
century. In addition to extensions similar to past
uses of this concept, social psychological concep-
tions of anomie have become widespread. Robert
Merton’s use of ‘‘anomie’’ is very similar to that
described by Durkheim. His application (1949)
has been the core theoretical statement in one of
the twentieth century’s major criminological tradi-
tions. ‘‘Anomia’’ is a social psychological deriva-
tive used to represent a state of disaffection or
disconnectedness.
Merton on Anomie. Merton (1949) used the
concept anomie to describe how social structure
produced individual deviance. According to Merton,
when there existed within a society a disjuncture
between the legitimate goals that members of a
society were aspiring to and the legitimate means
of achieving these goals, then that society was in a
state of anomie. For both Durkheim and Merton,
frustrated aspirations were an important cause of
norm violations, or deviance. They differed in
what they saw as the source of aspirations. For
Durkheim, it was human nature to have limitless
desires, growing from a natural ‘‘wellspring’’ with-
in. Merton argued that desires did not come from
within us, but were advanced by a widely held
conception of what constitutes ‘‘the good life.’’Durkheim believed that when a society was
characterized by anomie, there were inadequate
normative constraints on the desires and expecta-
tions of people. Peasants could come to believe,
even expect, that they could rise to live like the
aristocracy, or become captains of newly develop-
ing industry. Part of mechanical solidarity was the
norms that constrained these expectations, that
ordered the intercourse between social classes,
that checked the natural wellsprings of desires and
encouraged peasants to be happy with their lot in
life. Without these checks, desires exceeded rea-
sonable hope of attainment, producing frustration
and potentially deviance.Merton’s conception of anomie placed the
society itself in the position of determining both
the legitimate goals that people should aspire to
and the legitimate means of pursuing these goals.
While this goal has often been expressed by re-
searchers as wealth attainment, Merton (1997)
believed that wealth attainment was only one ex-
ample of many societal goals. Unfortunately, so-
ciety frequently caused people to have grandiose
expectations without providing all of its members
with reasonable opportunities to pursue them le-
gitimately. This circumstance, where the goals and
the means were not both universally available to
the members of a society, Merton called anomie.When individuals were faced with anomie,
they had to choose whether to forgo the socially
advanced goals, their society’s shared vision of the
good life, or to seek these objectives by means not
defined as legitimate. Merton described five choices
available to these individuals. With ‘‘conformity,’’
the individual uses the socially prescribed means
to obtain the goals advanced by that society. ‘‘In-
novation’’ is the choice to use illegitimate means to
achieve the legitimate goals; much criminal behav-
ior is an example of innovation. When a person
goes through the motions of using the legitimate
means, fully aware that the socially advanced goals
are beyond his reach, this is ‘‘ritualism.’’ ‘‘Retreatism’’
is the choice neither to use the legitimate means
nor to strive for the legitimate goals of a society.
Finally, ‘‘rebellion’’ is rejecting the society’s means
and goals and replacing them with ones defined by
the individual as superior.