Introduction

Theories that are confined in their scope and analysis to either side of the distinctions between the factors and levels of analysis described in Table I.1 in the Interlude are ill-suited to engaging with conflicting interpretations of the relationship between non-participation and crime. In particular, they lack capacity for interrogating the ways in which categorically conflicted analyses are intersected by one another. Theories that are restricted to analyses of structures of political power, economic systems and social institutions are likely to give insufficient recognition to the powers of individual agents and groups, to the predispositions and motivations of individual actors, or to the power and influence of the affective and the emotional. The obverse limitations apply to theories that are restricted by a focus on individual behaviours and predispositions. It is of interest here to find points of entry across these lines of division, in the form of theoretical frameworks that blur and confound them. Encompassing theoretical frameworks (as distinct from specific theories) of this sort are rare. Frameworks that are directly relevant to non-participation, welfare and crime are rarer.