Late Modernity, Neoliberalism, and the Culture of Control: Examining Country-Level Variation in the Sources of Public Punitiveness

The predominant scholarly accounts of the punitive turn originated in the Global North to make sense of the penal changes occurring in the industrialized countries. We examine whether these narratives constitute universal accounts of the mechanisms that promote punitive sentiments or depict idiosyncratic processes affecting the Global North. Using public opinion data from 70 countries, we examine the association between rejection of late modernity values (e.g., democratization, secularization, rejection of traditional forms of authority, self-expression, autonomy, and equality) and a culture of individual responsibility and support for the death penalty. Following Garland and Wacquant, we explore cross-country differences in the level of penetration of late modernity values and the expansion of neoliberalism. Our results show that neither late modernity penetration nor neoliberalism explain country-level punitiveness but moderate the individual-level sources of punitiveness. Specifically, the culture of control explanation is more salient in countries where late modernity values are widespread while the expansion of neoliberal policies does not amplify this association.