Vanessa Barker
Biographic Data
| ID | 316147 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Vanessa Barker |
| GIVEN NAMES | Vanessa |
| FAMILY NAME | Barker |
| SIGNATURE | BARKER V |
| AFFILIATIONS | Stockholm University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9035-8406 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 144 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Pathos of justice
This article takes up a pressing challenge in the discipline of criminology, that is, how to restore the relationship between crime and punishment into a theory of justice. Scholarship on crime and punishment has tended towards parallel paths, underestimating both their linkages and their incompatible logics. By bringing together insights from critical philosophy and the sociology of punishment, we elaborate a concept of justice we call pathos of…
Beyond American myopia
Body horror, existential dread, and unresolvable moral dilemmas. These are enduring features of the human condition and central to the study of crime and punishment across time and space. What makes the field of punishment and society so compelling is its collective effort to try to understand and explain these dilemmas with academic rigor, discipline, and sincerity. It takes as its object of study suffering, pain and violence but also excavates …
Nationalism and Criminal Justice in Europe
Nationalism is a complex social process and has not been very well understood or utilized in criminology. This is surprising because the concept has significant explanatory power and can unlock deep and meaningful social practices in ways that competing accounts do not. Nationalism has multiple forms and configurations, as it operates as a cultural practice, ideology, institutional arrangement, social movement, and emotional register, each with i…
The Right Against Rights in Sweden
We argue that the far-right is turning to law and legal institutions to institutionalize its extreme agendas but does so in the name of democratic values. Right-wing attempts to affirm and repress rights speak to the duality of democracy, often hinging on the perceived worthiness of rights along cultural and ethnic boundaries while still espousing equality for all. To understand and explain this phenomenon, we bring together socio-legal literatur…
Recognition Gaps and Covid Inequality
In this article, we examine recognition gaps exposed by the coronavirus pandemic. We apply Lamont's cultural processes of inequality framework to the critical case of COVID inequality during the first wave of the pandemic in Sweden - a period in which COVID-19 cases were concentrated among immigrants. We identify recognition gaps associated with five key cultural processes of inequality. Counter to the dominant narrative of Sweden as an open and …
Penal Nationalism
Cette note de recherche met en évidence les principales conclusions d’une analyse sociologique de la réponse de la Suède à la crise des réfugiés de 2015. Elle fait valoir que le nationalisme de l’État-providence est la logique sous-jacente des politiques migratoires restrictives, y compris la fermeture dramatique des frontières. L’État-providence suédois, loué pour sa générosité et son universalité, est en réalité conditionnel, s’adapte au profil…
This is Denmark
According to mainstream criminology, Nordic societies with their generous welfare states are supposed to moderate, if not restrict, penal powers. In the case of migration, we see the opposite pattern. In Denmark, we see extended use of penal institutions and penal harms to contain and remove unwanted populations from the region, including proposals for a prison island and the confinement of migrants in 19th century prisons. To make sense of these…
Penal power at the border
Penal power at the border relies on coercive tools such as expulsion, eviction, criminalization, and penalization to respond to mass mobility, which is perceived to be a social threat rather than a political expression of rights. By deploying its primal power, its material and symbolic violence invested in criminal justice, the state taps into unparalleled capacity to impose meaning on others, backed by the moral weight of censure and sanction. T…
Introduction to the special issue on the state of the State
Politics of Criminal Justice
The apparent disjuncture between the reality of crime and government responses suggests that criminal justice is not simply a technical response to crime. If criminal justice were guided by technical choices, gun death would equal gun control, gun violence would be considered a public health crisis replete with public resources, and the political will to solve it. Instead what we know from the social sciences is that criminal justice tends to be …
Amy E Lerman and Vesla M Weaver, Arresting Citizenship
Global Mobility and Penal Order
Globalization has increased the flow of people across Europe, bringing economic expansion and ethnic diversity. Open political borders have enhanced European integration and interdependence, creating a cosmopolitan European Union full of transnational citizens. Alongside this increased mobility, state coercion has been quietly on the rise. Since 1990, nearly every European democracy has increased incarceration, locking up common criminals and tho…
Nordic Exceptionalism revisited
Nordic penal regimes are Janus-faced: one side relatively mild and benign; the other intrusive, disciplining and oppressive. This paradox has not been fully grasped or explained by the Nordic Exceptionalism thesis which overstates the degree to which Nordic penal order is based on humaneness and social solidarity, an antidote to mass incarceration. This essay examines the split in the foundation of the Swedish welfare state: it simultaneously pro…
Decarceration
Explaining the Great American Crime Decline
This essay reviews three books as they document and explain the 1990s crime decline: Alfred Blumstein and Joel Wallman, eds., (2006) The Crime Drop in America ; Arthur S. Goldberger and Richard Rosenfeld, eds., (2008) Understanding Crime Patterns: Workshop Report ; and Franklin E. Zimring (2007), The Great American Crime Decline . It presents the empirical detail of the crime decline and examines the most commonly cited explanatory factors: impri…
The Politics of Imprisonment
This book examines how the democratic process and social trust shape penal sanctioning in the United States. The research shows that higher levels of civic engagement tend to support milder punishments whereas lower levels tend to support more coercive criminal justice policies. The book challenges a taken‐for‐granted assumption about the democratic process and punishment. It shows that the apparent link between public participation, punitiveness…
The Politics of Pain
Like the new social movements, crime victim movements were part of broad cultural struggles to redefine the character of social order in the late twentieth century. Motivated by pain and outrage over criminal victimization, they were engaged in highly charged moral protests over the rights and duties of state government and the relative value of human life. This article argues that the degree to which crime victims were part of a retributive move…
Deliberating Crime and Punishment
The politics of punishing
This article asks why some American states are more likely to rely on imprisonment in response to crime than others. Employing comparative historical methodology it brings new kinds of data to address contested questions in the field. In three case studies, it examines archival material, including citizens' letters to political leaders, transcripts from townhall meetings, internal government reports, public testimony; and it uses extensive second…
The politics of punishing
This article asks why some American states are more likely to rely on imprisonment in response to crime than others. Employing comparative historical methodology it brings new kinds of data to address contested questions in the field. In three case studies, it examines archival material, including citizens' letters to political leaders, transcripts from townhall meetings, internal government reports, public testimony; and it uses extensive second…
Nordic Exceptionalism revisited
Nordic penal regimes are Janus-faced: one side relatively mild and benign; the other intrusive, disciplining and oppressive. This paradox has not been fully grasped or explained by the Nordic Exceptionalism thesis which overstates the degree to which Nordic penal order is based on humaneness and social solidarity, an antidote to mass incarceration. This essay examines the split in the foundation of the Swedish welfare state: it simultaneously pro…
Penal power at the border
Penal power at the border relies on coercive tools such as expulsion, eviction, criminalization, and penalization to respond to mass mobility, which is perceived to be a social threat rather than a political expression of rights. By deploying its primal power, its material and symbolic violence invested in criminal justice, the state taps into unparalleled capacity to impose meaning on others, backed by the moral weight of censure and sanction. T…
The Politics of Pain
Like the new social movements, crime victim movements were part of broad cultural struggles to redefine the character of social order in the late twentieth century. Motivated by pain and outrage over criminal victimization, they were engaged in highly charged moral protests over the rights and duties of state government and the relative value of human life. This article argues that the degree to which crime victims were part of a retributive move…
Global Mobility and Penal Order
Globalization has increased the flow of people across Europe, bringing economic expansion and ethnic diversity. Open political borders have enhanced European integration and interdependence, creating a cosmopolitan European Union full of transnational citizens. Alongside this increased mobility, state coercion has been quietly on the rise. Since 1990, nearly every European democracy has increased incarceration, locking up common criminals and tho…
This is Denmark
According to mainstream criminology, Nordic societies with their generous welfare states are supposed to moderate, if not restrict, penal powers. In the case of migration, we see the opposite pattern. In Denmark, we see extended use of penal institutions and penal harms to contain and remove unwanted populations from the region, including proposals for a prison island and the confinement of migrants in 19th century prisons. To make sense of these…
Decarceration
Recognition Gaps and Covid Inequality
In this article, we examine recognition gaps exposed by the coronavirus pandemic. We apply Lamont's cultural processes of inequality framework to the critical case of COVID inequality during the first wave of the pandemic in Sweden - a period in which COVID-19 cases were concentrated among immigrants. We identify recognition gaps associated with five key cultural processes of inequality. Counter to the dominant narrative of Sweden as an open and …
Deliberating Crime and Punishment
Introduction to the special issue on the state of the State
The politics of punishing
This article asks why some American states are more likely to rely on imprisonment in response to crime than others. Employing comparative historical methodology it brings new kinds of data to address contested questions in the field. In three case studies, it examines archival material, including citizens' letters to political leaders, transcripts from townhall meetings, internal government reports, public testimony; and it uses extensive second…
Deliberating Crime and Punishment
The Politics of Pain
Like the new social movements, crime victim movements were part of broad cultural struggles to redefine the character of social order in the late twentieth century. Motivated by pain and outrage over criminal victimization, they were engaged in highly charged moral protests over the rights and duties of state government and the relative value of human life. This article argues that the degree to which crime victims were part of a retributive move…
The Politics of Imprisonment
This book examines how the democratic process and social trust shape penal sanctioning in the United States. The research shows that higher levels of civic engagement tend to support milder punishments whereas lower levels tend to support more coercive criminal justice policies. The book challenges a taken‐for‐granted assumption about the democratic process and punishment. It shows that the apparent link between public participation, punitiveness…
Explaining the Great American Crime Decline
This essay reviews three books as they document and explain the 1990s crime decline: Alfred Blumstein and Joel Wallman, eds., (2006) The Crime Drop in America ; Arthur S. Goldberger and Richard Rosenfeld, eds., (2008) Understanding Crime Patterns: Workshop Report ; and Franklin E. Zimring (2007), The Great American Crime Decline . It presents the empirical detail of the crime decline and examines the most commonly cited explanatory factors: impri…
Decarceration
Global Mobility and Penal Order
Globalization has increased the flow of people across Europe, bringing economic expansion and ethnic diversity. Open political borders have enhanced European integration and interdependence, creating a cosmopolitan European Union full of transnational citizens. Alongside this increased mobility, state coercion has been quietly on the rise. Since 1990, nearly every European democracy has increased incarceration, locking up common criminals and tho…
Nordic Exceptionalism revisited
Nordic penal regimes are Janus-faced: one side relatively mild and benign; the other intrusive, disciplining and oppressive. This paradox has not been fully grasped or explained by the Nordic Exceptionalism thesis which overstates the degree to which Nordic penal order is based on humaneness and social solidarity, an antidote to mass incarceration. This essay examines the split in the foundation of the Swedish welfare state: it simultaneously pro…
Politics of Criminal Justice
The apparent disjuncture between the reality of crime and government responses suggests that criminal justice is not simply a technical response to crime. If criminal justice were guided by technical choices, gun death would equal gun control, gun violence would be considered a public health crisis replete with public resources, and the political will to solve it. Instead what we know from the social sciences is that criminal justice tends to be …
Amy E Lerman and Vesla M Weaver, Arresting Citizenship
Penal power at the border
Penal power at the border relies on coercive tools such as expulsion, eviction, criminalization, and penalization to respond to mass mobility, which is perceived to be a social threat rather than a political expression of rights. By deploying its primal power, its material and symbolic violence invested in criminal justice, the state taps into unparalleled capacity to impose meaning on others, backed by the moral weight of censure and sanction. T…
Introduction to the special issue on the state of the State
Penal Nationalism
Cette note de recherche met en évidence les principales conclusions d’une analyse sociologique de la réponse de la Suède à la crise des réfugiés de 2015. Elle fait valoir que le nationalisme de l’État-providence est la logique sous-jacente des politiques migratoires restrictives, y compris la fermeture dramatique des frontières. L’État-providence suédois, loué pour sa générosité et son universalité, est en réalité conditionnel, s’adapte au profil…
This is Denmark
According to mainstream criminology, Nordic societies with their generous welfare states are supposed to moderate, if not restrict, penal powers. In the case of migration, we see the opposite pattern. In Denmark, we see extended use of penal institutions and penal harms to contain and remove unwanted populations from the region, including proposals for a prison island and the confinement of migrants in 19th century prisons. To make sense of these…
Nationalism and Criminal Justice in Europe
Nationalism is a complex social process and has not been very well understood or utilized in criminology. This is surprising because the concept has significant explanatory power and can unlock deep and meaningful social practices in ways that competing accounts do not. Nationalism has multiple forms and configurations, as it operates as a cultural practice, ideology, institutional arrangement, social movement, and emotional register, each with i…
The Right Against Rights in Sweden
We argue that the far-right is turning to law and legal institutions to institutionalize its extreme agendas but does so in the name of democratic values. Right-wing attempts to affirm and repress rights speak to the duality of democracy, often hinging on the perceived worthiness of rights along cultural and ethnic boundaries while still espousing equality for all. To understand and explain this phenomenon, we bring together socio-legal literatur…
Recognition Gaps and Covid Inequality
In this article, we examine recognition gaps exposed by the coronavirus pandemic. We apply Lamont's cultural processes of inequality framework to the critical case of COVID inequality during the first wave of the pandemic in Sweden - a period in which COVID-19 cases were concentrated among immigrants. We identify recognition gaps associated with five key cultural processes of inequality. Counter to the dominant narrative of Sweden as an open and …
Pathos of justice
This article takes up a pressing challenge in the discipline of criminology, that is, how to restore the relationship between crime and punishment into a theory of justice. Scholarship on crime and punishment has tended towards parallel paths, underestimating both their linkages and their incompatible logics. By bringing together insights from critical philosophy and the sociology of punishment, we elaborate a concept of justice we call pathos of…
Beyond American myopia
Body horror, existential dread, and unresolvable moral dilemmas. These are enduring features of the human condition and central to the study of crime and punishment across time and space. What makes the field of punishment and society so compelling is its collective effort to try to understand and explain these dilemmas with academic rigor, discipline, and sincerity. It takes as its object of study suffering, pain and violence but also excavates …
Sociology (15 works) · Political science (14 works) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (13 works) · Criminology (12 works) · Law (12 works) · Politics (9 works) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (8 works) · Democracy (8 works) · Criminal justice (6 works) · Law (6 works)