The next frontier : national development, political change, and the death penalty in Asia / David T. Johnson, Franklin E. Zimring.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Johnson, David T. (David Ted), 1960-

Contributor:

Zimring, Franklin E.

Series:

Studies in crime and public policy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Capital punishment--Asia.

Capital punishment.

Capital punishment--Asia--Case studies.

Asia.

Genre:

Case studies.

Physical Description:

xix, 522 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2009.

Summary:

Today, two-thirds of the world's nations have abolished the death penalty, either officially or in practice, due mainly to the campaign to end state executions led by Western European nations. Will this success spread to Asia, where over 95 percent of executions now occur? Do Asian values and traditions support capital punishment, or will development and democratization end executions in the world's most rapidly developing region?

David T. Johnson, an expert on law and society in Asia, and Franklin E. Zimring, a senior authority on capital punishment, combine detailed case studies of the death penalty in Asian nations with cross-national comparisons to identify the critical factors for the future of Asian death penalty policy. The clear trend is away from reliance on state execution, and many nations with death penalties in their criminal codes rarely use it. Only the hard-line authoritarian regimes of China, Vietnam, Singapore, and North Korea execute with any frequency, and when authoritarian states experience democratic reforms, the rate of executions drops sharply, as in Taiwan and South Korea. Debunking the myth of "Asian values," Johnson and Zimring demonstrate that politics, rather than culture or tradition, is the major obstacle to the end of executions. Carefully researched and full of valuable lessons, The Next Frontier is the authoritative resource on the death penalty in Asia for scholars, policy makers, and advocates around the world.

Contents:

Part I Issues and Methods

1 Asia and the Future of Capital Punishment 3

2 Varieties of Capital Punishment in Contemporary Asia 15

Part II National Profiles

3 Development without Abolition: Japan in the 21st Century 45

4 A Lesson Learned? The Philippines 103

5 The Vanguard: Change in South Korea 147

6 The Other China: Taiwan 191

7 The Political Origins of China's Death Penalty Exceptionalism 225

Part III Lessons and Prospects

8 Lessons 289

9 The Pace of Change 327.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 453-504) and index.

ISBN:

9780195337402

0195337409

9780195382457

0195382455

OCLC:

227205807