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.

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