Convergence and Divergence in the Long-term Decline of Violence: Comparative Evidence from the Global South

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Abstract

Most generalisations on the long-term trend in interpersonal violence over the past 200 years come from the global North, especially from Europe, where homicide rates have declined and converged. Much less is known, in contrast about long-term trends in various regions of the Global South. This paper will examine emerging evidence on trends in homicide focussing on five regions in the global South, namely the Southern parts of Latin America, the Caribbean, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Hong-Kong and Sydney. Adopting a world-system perspective it will first critically discuss the limitations of the data and the challenges to assessing violence in colonial contexts, where interpersonal and systemic state violence are intimately interconnected. In a second step, it similarities and differences in long-term trends based on a review of existing scholarship in each region as as well as on primary data collections.It will then, in a third step, discuss then extent to which macro-historical frameworks such as the Theory of the Civilising Process, Modernisation Theory, or World-System theory can account for convergence and divergence in interpersonal violence trends across the globe.

Author

• Manuel Eisner, University of Cambridge