The world is undergoing historical transitions. Great social and economic changes within a system are often accompanied by structural strains, especially when the old system and the new system coexist and clash. These stressful circumstances give rise to certain subjective feelings on the part of the individuals living within the system. Such feeling states can be measured through opinion and attitude questions contained within survey instruments. Measuring the impact of stressful circumstances on both the morale and the beliefs of a population experiencing such upheaval would be of great interest not only to decision-makers, but also to the general public who may want to understand the effects of system transition. The development of such an instrument could result in an early warning system of social unrest. Anomie is, above all, a social property reflected by individuals' attitudes, opinions, and perceptions. Like many other social phenomena, anomie experienced by individuals or aggregates of individuals has both constructive and destructive functions. We also propose that instability and disintegration constitute the two most essential aspects of anomie concept. The higher the degree of instability and disintegration in a society, the more likely that society is going under an anomic situation, and the more likely its political, social, and economic system would collapse. In short, anomie can be indicated through instability and disintegration. The degree of instability and disintegration reflect directly the degree of anomie in a society. Objectively, instability may be measured through large income gap, high rate of inflation and unemployment. Subjectively it may be reflected through people's feeling about relative deprivation, status inconsistency and deep and wide-spread dissatisfaction in rapid social and economic changes. Disintegration may be measured through objective indicators such as high crime rate and massive migration. Subjectively it may be reflected through people's feeling on how far they identify and follow the core values of behavior in a society as well as how far they believe in the government. Because this research explores the interaction between anomie and the social system and treats anomie as a form of social instability, we would like therefore call our scale as a potential early warning instrument of social instability that contains a multidimensional measure with four constructs: discontent; distrust; pessimism; and individual anomie. We argue that the great social and economic changes within a system are often accompanied by structural strains, especially when the old system and the new system coexist and clash. These stressful circumstances give rise to certain subjective feelings on the part of the individuals living within the system. We propose that an early social warning instrument of instability should be able to measure the overall negative effect of system transition exerted upon individuals with only a few subjective indicators administered at the beginning stage of the transition period. Such an instrument should consist of multidimensional measures tapping different aspects of subjectively experienced social events.

Das Ziel des Asiatisch Pazifischen Anomie-Forschungsprojekts (APARP) war es, ein Arbeitsmodell zu erstellen, in dem beschleunigte Phasen sozialen Wandels - ihrerseits Resultat der Entwicklung anomischer Strukturen - sich auf die Lebensqualität (insbesondere in den urbanen Gegenden dieses geographischen Raums) auswirken. Charakteristisch für die Länder der Pazifikregion sind u.a. die Entstehung globaler Städte, die Erfahrung ökonomisch und kulturell globalisierener Kräfte sowie die internen Migrationsbewegungen der Landbevölkerung in die Städte. Diese Umstände werden als Vorbedingungen von Entwicklungen aufgefasst, die zu einer anomischen Prädisposition bei der Bevölkerung führen. Anomie tritt selbstverständlich in einer Vielzahl von Erscheinungen zutage und kann als ein Zustand aufgefasst werden, der durch den Zusammenbruch der kulturellen Struktur (der normativen Ordnung) reflktiert wird. Gleichermassen ist Anomie ein Zustand, der sich durch den Zusammenbruch bestimmter sozialer Strukturen - als Begleiterscheinung von sozialenstrukturellen Tranformationsprozessen - auszeichnet und durch gewisse soziale Instabilitäten markiert wird. In diesem Kontext sind insbesondere die Globalisierung, städtischer Wandel und Massenmigration als drei soziale Prozesse herauszustellen, die in besonderer Weise zur Entwicklung anomischer Vorbedingungen und somit zu sozialem Wandel auf nationaler und internationaler Ebene beitragen.