Support for the Death Penalty Reinstatement as a Protest Attitude: The Role of Political Trust

• Author: Ridvan Peshkopia,Adam Trahan
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1057567720963158
• Published date: 01 June 2023
• Date: 01 June 2023
• Subject Matter: Original Articles

Original Article

Support for the Death Penalty

Reinstatement as a Protest

Attitude: The Role of

Political Trust

Ridvan Peshkopia

1,2

and Adam Trahan

3

Abstract

We argue that support for the reinstatement of capital punishment might reflect protest against an

untrustworthy judicial system, framing this as a protest attitude. We test our argument with data

from a probability sample of 2,366 respondents in Albania collected in 2015 via a cell phone random

digit dialing technique. We found that respondents’ support for the reinstatement of the death

penalty is associated with lack of trust in the country’s judiciary but not necessarily respondents

prioritizing the war on crime. Also, we found that skepticism toward European Union (EU) mem-

bership conditionality as a drive for the country’s democratization is a good predictor of support for

the reinstatement of the death penalty, but there is no evidence that respondents related their

support for the country’s EU membership with support for capital punishment.

Keywords

death penalty reinstatement, trust in the judiciary, trust in politicians, EU membership conditionality,

prioritizing war on crime, protest attitude

Whereas much of the literature tries to explain people’s attitudes toward the death penalty in

countries where it continues to remain part of the penal code or practice, there is less research

dedicated to understanding attitudes toward capital punishment in abolitionist jurisdictions (Adink-

rah & Clemens, 2018). Partisans of the abolitionist movement have hoped that once abolished,

people will accept the absence of the death penalty, and so the world would smoothly move toward

a world free of capital punishment (Peshkopia & Imami, 2008). However, even after decades of

practical or legal abolition, many people in abolitionist countries show strong support for the death

penalty (Hessing et al., 2003).

1

This is even more so in former communist Central and Eastern

Europe, where in spite of the death penalty abolition for over 2 decades now, people continue to hold

1

Department of Political Science, University for Business and Technology, Kosovo

2

Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Tirana, Albania

3

Department of Criminal Justice, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA

Corresponding Author:

Ridvan Peshkopia, University for Business and Technology, Rexhep Krasniqi p. n., Kalabria, Prishtina 10000, Kosovo.

Email: ridvan.peshkopia@ubt-uni.net

International CriminalJustice Review

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DOI: 10.1177/1057567720963158

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strong opinions about it and occasionally campaign for its restoration (Peshkopia, 2014; Peshkopia

& Imami, 2008).

2

Attitudes toward reinstatement of the death penalty can serve to measure not only

people’s attitudes toward capital punishment as a public policy but also their relationships with the

institutions that provide justice and even the political class in general (Jurow, 1971; Warr & Stafford,

1984). In many cases, such relationships are not positive. High levels of corruption among both

politicians and the judicial system, coupled with slow economic growth and relatively high crime

and corruption rates, have eroded trust in the political elites and the judiciary in some countries in the

southeastern corner of Europe (English, 2008). We argue that support for the reinstatement of the

death penalty might reflect people’s protest against an untrustworthy judicial system as well as

politicians who might control and manipulate it.

Moreover, although all European countries except Belarus have abolished the death penalty,

abolition in the eastern part of the continent came not only without any public consultation—and

in some cases by constitutional court decisions rather than legislative acts—but also under severe

pressure from the European Union (EU) in the form of membership conditionality (Peshkopia &

Imami, 2008). Since 1998, the EU has included the abolition of the death penalty in policy changes

that membership aspiring countries must adopt in order to acquire EU membership (Hessing et al.,

2003; Peshkopia, 2014; Peshkopia & Imami, 2008). Therefore, we argue that people’s views toward

their country’s EU membership and EU membership conditionality would be related to their atti-

tudes toward reinstatement of the capital punishment.

We test our argument in Albania—a country which abolished the death penalty for peacetime

crimes in 2000 and for all crimes in 2007 (Peshkopia, 2014)—with data collected through a public

opinion survey conducted in Albania in summer 2015, using a cell phone random digit dialing

(RDD) technique enabled by the iziSurvey survey platform. We build a set of ordered probit models

to predict people’s attitudes toward reinstatement of the death penalty. Our analysis explores our

proposition that people’s support for reinstatement of the death penalty reflects a protest attitude.

This tenet posits that support for reinstatement of the death penalty can be predicted with low trust in

the judicial system and politicians, as well as people’s skepticism toward EU membership condi-

tionality as an instrument of the country’s democratization. Moreover, we explore whether respon-

dents’ fear of crime, in the form of prioritizing war on crime, plays any role in predicting people’s

attitudes toward reinstatement of the death penalty.

Determinants and Correlates of People’s Attitudes Toward

the Death Penalty

The demographic correlates of support and opposition to capital punishment are well established.

Supporters of capital punishment are disproportionately White (Bobo & Johnson, 2004; J. K.

Cochran & Chamlin, 2006; J. L. Johnson & Johnson, 2001), male (J. K. Cochran & Sanders,

2009; Robbers, 2006; Stack, 2000), Protestan t (Grasmick et al., 1993), politically conservative

(Longmire, 1996; Young, 1991), and married (Fox et al., 1990). These findings have been consis-

tently observed in nearly every modern study of capital punishment opinion. The empirical record is

quite clear as to “who” tends to support capital punishment. We know relatively less about why

people support or oppose the death penalty.

Research on the underlying sources of attitudes toward capital punishment has shown that support

and opposition are not based on the rational, pragmatic effects of the policy itself. Rather, people’s

attitudes toward the death penalty are linked to their personal value systems (Bohm, 2014; Vollum

et al., 2004). The empirical record on what these values are is still developing. To be sure, people

often cite practical reasons, such as deterrence, when asked why they support or oppose the death

penalty (Bohm et al., 1991). Several studies have shown, however, that death penalty opinions are

generally immutable (Bohm et al., 1993; Bohm & Vogel, 2004; Vollum et al., 2009). Subjects who

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