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When Being Bad is Good? Bringing Neutralization Theory to Subcultural Narratives of Right-Wing Violence

2018; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 43; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1057610x.2018.1452754

1521-0731

Sarah Colvin, Daniela Pisoiu,

Wildlife Conservation and Criminology Analyses

Bringing together terrorism studies, subcultural theory, and narrative criminology, we here test the thesis that neutralization theory might be (further) developed to provide a framework for understanding stories of ideologically informed subcultural violence. Beginning with Gresham Sykes's and David Matza's original five neutralizations, we illustrate how actors engage them in three modes: the encultured, the subcultural, and (tentatively) the postnarrative mode. We test the first two modes in particular against narratives and narrative fragments from interviews with men convicted of right-wing violence in Germany. Our findings provide a preliminary illustration of what neutralization theory might bring to research into political violence.