Why Countries Reinstate the Death Penalty

The present study is unique in that it sets out to explain why countries re-introduce the death penalty after it has previously been abolished. The study is extensive in time and space; it is made up of all currently independent countries in the world during the time period 1800-2022. We identify 78 cases, where countries have changed their death penalty regimes in the direction towards a more permissive policy of death penalty usage. We discuss each of these cases briefly in order to identify common explanations for why countries re-introduce capital punishment. Findings show that variables that have been found to be of importance for the abolition of the death penalty tend to be largely irrelevant when explaining the re-introduction of the death penalty. The re-introduction of the death penalty can largely be explained by six sets of explanations, namely democratic breakdown, ideological preferences, outbreak of war, ambitions to deter crime, a response to (an attempted) political murder, and regime control.