Religion and the Death Penalty: A Global Comparison

In the present study, the ambition is to explain variations in death penalty usage across time and space with reference to religion. Whereas previous studies regarding death penalty usage have generally focused on the period after 1960, this study covers the period 1800–2022. All currently independent countries in the world and all major world religions are included in the empirical analyses. The ambition is to provide a comprehensive account of how religion relates to death penalty usage at different points in time. The different world religions are doctrinally linked to attitudes towards the death penalty, after which the relationships between religious dominance and death penalty regimes are tested by means of bivariate and multivariate statistical analyses. The results show that although religion is strongly associated with death penalty regimes in bivariate analyses, the impact of religion on death penalty usage is overshadowed by degree of democracy, diffusion and state power.