The Globalization of Violence

For the period from about 1970 to the present we can finally speak of a world history of interpersonal violence. This is due primarily to the growing geographic integration which we refer to as globalisation.

Two statistical studies of European homicide share this focus on the area west of the (former) Iron Curtain. Each examines fifteen countries, with fourteen the same in both.^[329] Since they situate the beginning of the rise in homicide in i960 and 1965 respectively, which would contradict my 1970 turning point, this matter should be cleared first. In fact, in Eisner's table per decade, 1840-2004, the 1960s have the lowest mean homicide rate (0.77) as to 0.79 in the 1950s. Only the non-country of Scotland shows a significant reverse process of 0.6 in the 1950s to 1.2 in the 1960s.^[330] Aebi and Linde's table begins in 1960, breaking the figures down to five-year periods and the authors distin­guish a geometric mean from a mean. The first is 0.69 for 1960-4 and 0.68 for 1965-9; the second is 0.86 for 1960-4 and 0.79 for 1965-9. This suggests that no upward rise occurred during the 1960s. The two means of Aebi and Linde, moreover, are highest in 1990-4 (1.27 and 1.36), after which they decrease to 0.87 and 0.93 in 2005-10. Together these figures suggest a rise in homicide rates in western Europe that began around 1970 and broke off by the mid 1990s.

Two methodological problems, however, complicate the issue again. First, the figures cited are based primarily on causes-of-death statistics, a good source. Since the 1990s, however, police counts of bodies found murdered are performed systematically and are available for many European countries. In most of them - though not in all - the police register more homicides than captured in the medical statistics. In 2001-3 the resulting rates diverged markedly for the United Kingdom (2.2 vs. 0.4); for the Netherlands this was 1.4 vs. 1.2.^[331] In the latter case we know the reason why. Police counts exclude

Homicide in a Global Perspective and medical statistics include Dutch residents victimised abroad; conversely, police counts include and medical statistics exclude non-residents victimised within the Netherlands. If this is the same in all other European countries where police counts are higher than medical counts, the Dutch murder surplus is in fact a western European surplus: fewer western Europeans are killed outside the EU than non-EU residents within it.

The second methodological problem is the old one of changes in the ability and opportunity of doctors to save the lives of injured persons. Most homi­cide scholars acknowledge it but few appear to have made an attempt to estimate its effect on the rates. The capacity to save lives certainly increased between 1970 and the present, for example through the spread of hospitals and, more recently, the introduction of fully equipped ambulances. Obviously, this means that the real rise in potentially lethal aggression was steeper than the figures indicate at first sight. Next to the growth of medical knowledge and infrastructure, a third factor, the speed with which assistance can be mobilised, is often overlooked. I have pointed earlier to the temporal coincidence of the decrease in homicide rates since the mid 1990s and the spread of mobile phones in Europe.

If we trust the available figures for the moment, the question of what caused the rise and subsequent decline - partial, because not back to the level of the 1960s - becomes pertinent. Eisner as well as Aebi and Linde relegate to the dustbin the explanations offered by a number of other scholars. Several authors, for example, focused on their own country and tried to explain the incidence of homicide by national peculiarities, whereas the trends were Europe-wide. All standard economic predictors of homicide, moreover, correlate only weakly or not at all with the trends. Instead, both articles seek an explanation in terms of changes in lifestyle or way of life. In contrast to my thesis, they suggest that the lifestyle which initiated the rise in homicide was that of the hippies. Their renunciation of traditional bonds and the bourgeois family supposedly made them more aggressive, despite their proclamation of love. This argument at least makes it understandable that the authors in question want the rising trend to begin before 1970. In my view, however, the crucial change in lifestyle was away from that of the hippies to one based on hiphop music and a flirtation with American gangs, which broke through around 1990.

On one point the explanations by Eisner and by Aebi and Linde diverge. The first sees above all a temporary resurgence of male-on-male violence based on a corresponding return of a macho culture of fighting males, aged 20-40. This conclusion, however, is based almost exclusively on English statistics, which also reveal (since 1969, when they start to include the offender-victim relationship) a massive surge in the killing of strangers. Eisner hypothesises the following types of confrontations: fights between youth gangs, armed robberies, conflicts between drug addicts ending in a knife being pulled, or simple pub brawls going wrong.^[332] For all fifteen countries, on the other hand, Aebi and Linde observe that male and female victimisation follows the same trend between 1960 and 2010.

The problem with studies of aggregate national statistics like the ones cited is that they largely ignore the evidence from qualitative studies of potentially violent groups and in-depth analyses of judicial records or police dossiers. Based on these two types of evidence, I have attempted to assess the contribution to the rise in homicide since 1970 of two new phenomena: the rise of an urban multi-ethnic street and school culture and the proliferation of organised crime related to the spread of drug use.^[333] Perhaps a third, the increasing instability of families, can be added now. This factor may have brought a slight rise in the killing of intimates, which in its turn may explain why the victimisation of women increased as well. However, this factor hardly explains why female victimisation has declined again since the mid 1990s. So let's consider the other two phenomena. Hard drugs such as heroin appeared on European markets precisely at the beginning of the 1970s, from which time on wholesale trade was vigorously pursued. The new youth culture thrived on the increasing diversity in most European cities, with (the sons of) immigrants importing back traditional honour but also influen­cing lower-class males from the native population.

The answer is unequivocal. The new youth culture has contributed to the rise in homicide, but only a little. Pupils bring knives with them to school, for example, but mostly to show off. Some, on the other hand, use these to commit street robberies. Yet, overwhelmingly the part of youthful violence remains non-lethal. This is also suggested by the timing of the breakthrough of the new youth culture: when most of the increase in homicide had already occurred. It is likely, then, that the other new phenomenon's contribution to the rising homicide rates - followed by a mere stabilisation if my mobile phone hypothesis holds - was more considerable. The expanding market for illegal drugs has fostered organised crime, which in its turn came to focus also on human trafficking and the smuggling of weapons. Modern organised crime in Europe is unlike the interwar underworld that thrived on local prostitution and gambling. Infused by globalisation, today's underworld has an international dimension, with cooperation as well as competition extend­ing over long distances. Thus, since about 1970 violence concentrates in specific social environments, whereas sensitivity to violence has increased, especially since the 1990s, among the majority of Europe's population. Paradoxically, this sensitivity explains the rise in prosecuted rates of non- lethal violence since 1970, as judicial conceptions of assault and robbery are subject to inflation.^[334]

The international dimension of organised crime constitutes an occasion for a brief look at non-Western homicide since 1970. The international drug trade obviously contributes to the level of lethal violence in countries such as Colombia and Mexico. Nevertheless, countries with high homicide rates like post-Apartheid South Africa also witness a lot of personal conflict in the context of a macho culture.