Crime control is but one of many areas of life where governments attempt to influence the lives of their citizens through formal state institutions. Within the context of Third World countries, the ‘reality’ of government as nation is something which must be tested if we are to interpret more accurately comparative crime and crime control information. Utilizing Eckstein’s distinction between ‘social-polity’ and ‘political society,’ this pa· per analyzes observations from the Ivory Coast and Tanzania and attempts to demonstrate the practical utility of viewing crime control efforts within the more general context of the nation-building process. Within the context of nation-building, we can 1)better understand the implications of the “nationhood assumption” for comparative criminological research; 2) better interpret “social defense” efforts in the Third World context; and 3) better see the implications of government penetration into private decisions in the developed world.
