Examining economic theory's influence on criminology: Imperialism and disciplinary boundaries

Abstract

The paper aims to investigate the imperialistic status of Economic Theory of Crime. Among economists, ETC is often regarded as a successful case of imperialism toward criminology, but criminologists do not share this perception. Through a documental analysis and literature review, we select two criteria – external acceptance and reverse imperialism – to evaluate whether ETC can be considered an imperialistic discipline. From the external acceptance perspective, our main findings are that criminologists minimize the impact of ETC on the field mostly because of methodological divergences (deductivism versus inductivism) and because the causal explanation proposed is not a novelty in itself (deterrence hypothesis). On the other hand, the quantitative methods from economists did have an impact on the field, especially when criminology shifted toward a more policy-oriented discipline. Regarding reverse imperialism, we argue that the traditional neoclassical framework (beckerian model) is insufficient to explain all the causal explanations of other criminological theories. Those explanations only became attainable if economics incorporates concepts from other disciplines (therefore, reverse imperialism) but also within economics (internal imperialism).