Crimes of the Elite: Emerging Frameworks and Patterns In White Collar Crime

Crimes of the elite, notably, white-collar crime, is a defining yet persistently under-recognized feature of contemporary neoliberalism. Political and economic corruption, fraud, market manipulation, regulatory evasion, environmental harm, and cyber-enabled financial offenses redistribute wealth, expose communities to risk, and weaken democratic accountability. Yet these acts are frequently normalized as aggressive entrepreneurship or resolved through administrative sanctions rather than public condemnation. This session asks how sociology can make such harms visible without reducing explanation to individual greed or legal definitions.

Building from Edwin Sutherland’s challenge to class-biased criminology, the session places classic theories of differential association, elite power, organizational deviance, and regulatory enforcement in dialogue with emerging work on the privileging of the elite in neoliberalism. It invites comparative and transnational research that examines how criminal opportunities are produced within firms, professions, markets, and states—and how race, class, gender, colonial histories, and geopolitical location shape both victimization and accountability. How do organizational cultures and professional networks normalize or conceal harmful conduct? How do corporations and elites exploit jurisdictional gaps, regulatory capture, technological complexity, or narratives of innovation? Which regulatory, restorative, labor, community, and social-movement responses can produce meaningful accountability across borders?

Theoretical, qualitative, quantitative, historical, and mixed-method papers on occupational, corporate, state-corporate, financial, environmental, and digital white-collar crime are welcome. Contributions from the Global South and research that challenges North Atlantic assumptions are especially encouraged.