BOOKS: The Next Frontier: National Development, Political Change, and the Death Penalty in Asia

A new book on international developments in capital punishment, The Next Frontier: National Development, Political Change, and the Death Penalty in Asia, is now available from Oxford University Press. Authors David Johnson, an expert on law and society in Asia, and Franklin Zimring, a senior authority on capital punishment, utilize their research to identify the critical factors affecting the future of the death penalty in Asia. They found that when an authoritarian state experienced democratic reform, such as in Taiwan and South Korea, the rate of executions dropped sharply. Johnson and Zimring also found that politics, instead of culture or tradition, is the major obstacle to the end of capital punishment in Asia.

(D. Johnson, F. Zimring, “The Next Frontier: National Development, Political Change, and the Death Penalty in Asia,” Oxford University Press, 2009). The book may be purchased here. See Books and International.