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Anarchaos and Order:

On the Emergence of Social Justice

Minot State University and University of North Carolina—Charlotte

BRUCE A. ARRIGO

Minot State University and University of North Carolina—Charlotte

In this article we explore aspects of anarchism and of chaos theory, suggesting that recent insights advanced by the latter shed new light on the former. The former conceptually explains the importance of natural order as a human process that questions and, ultimately, subverts the artifice of state-imposed authoritative order. The latter examines, both theoretically and empirically, the role of order, disorder, and `chaotic' social dynamics in the transitions that society faces (i.e. order to chaos and chaos to order). Thus, we contend that these perspectives are assimilable: anarchism describes an organic means of reconfiguring social dynamics and chaology shows us how this process of reconfiguration is a naturally occurring element in all physical and social systems. To situate the sustained conceptual analysis, we describe how the proposed assimilation impacts law, crime, and especially social justice in society.

Key Words: anarchist theory • chaos theory • conceptual synthesis • social change • social justice

Theoretical Criminology, Vol. 5, No. 2, 223-252 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/1362480601005002005


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