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Public Support for the Death Penalty in China: Less from the Populace but More from Elites

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2020

John Zhuang Liu Open the ORCID record for John Zhuang Liu [Opens in a new window]
John Zhuang Liu*
Affiliation:
Shenzhen Research Institute of Big Data; School of Management and Economics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China. Email: zhuangliu@cuhk.edu.cn.
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Abstract

This article is the first to report the nationwide public support rate for the death penalty in China. Using a national representative sample with 31,664 respondents, it shows that 68 per cent of China's citizens are for the death penalty, while 31 per cent are opposed to it. These numbers suggest that support for capital punishment in China, although strong, is much weaker than in some other East Asian jurisdictions and less than first assumed by commentators. However, contrary to previous notions that public support for the death penalty derives from uninformed popular prejudice, it is the elites in China – i.e. those who receive higher education – who are more in favour of the death penalty. Further empirical analyses suggest that this is not because of political ideology or fear of crime. Rather, the reason is likely that the elites know fewer, and sympathize less with, criminal offenders, who generally come from underprivileged groups. These findings challenge a range of prevailing perceptions of public attitudes to the death penalty in China, especially the culture explanation for the Chinese public's punitiveness, and have important policy implications.

摘要

摘要

本文首次精确测算中国民众的死刑支持率。基于一项全国代表性样本（样本容量为 31,664人），我们发现：68% 的中国民众支持死刑，31% 的民众反对死刑。这一数据表明，虽然中国的死刑支持率较高，但其远低于学界主流观点的判断；中国民众对犯罪与刑罚的态度甚至较部分其他东亚国家和地区民众更为柔和。与通常认识相反，对死刑的支持并不主要来源于一般大众；事实上，中国的精英群体（受教育程度较高的群体）更为支持死刑。进一步的实证分析表明，这一现象并非因为精英群体有着更为保守的政治意识形态，或者其更为担忧犯罪活动对其生活的影响。更为可能的解释是，由于犯罪分子更多来自社会底层，精英群体对他们缺乏接触和了解，进而也缺乏同情。这些发现挑战了以往学界的普遍看法，尤其反驳了以传统文化解释中国民众较高死刑支持率的说法，具有重要的政策意义。

Keywords

support for the death penaltypopulaceeliteseducationsympathypunitive cultureChina死刑支持率大众精英群体受教育程度同情感刑罚惩戒文化中国
Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 246 , June 2021 , pp. 527 - 544
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Copyright
Copyright © SOAS University of London, 2020

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