Citation

Hier S. Br. J. Sociol. 2016; 67(3): 414-434.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, London School of Economics and Political Science, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/1468-4446.12201

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article compares two analytical frameworks ostensibly formulated to widen the focus of moral panic studies. The comparative analysis suggests that attempts to conceptualize moral panics in terms of decivilizing processes have neither substantively supplemented the explanatory gains made by conceptualizing moral panic as a form of moral regulation nor provided a viable alternative framework that better explains the dynamics of contemporary moral panics. The article concludes that Elias's meta-theory of the civilizing process potentially provides explanatory resources to investigate a possible historical-structural shift towards the so-called age of (a)moral panic; the analytical demands of such a project, however, require a sufficiently different line of inquiry than the one encouraged by both the regulatory and decivilizing perspectives on moral panic.

Keywords

civilizing offensive; decivilizing process; Elias; Moral panic; moral regulation; risk