Idiosyncratic voting in the UNGA death penalty moratorium resolutions

Pascoe, Daniel; Bae, Sangmin

doi:10.1080/13642987.2020.1804370

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…There are potentially many ways to classify the world's countries according to their death penalty practices, but the system described above has become the most common, almost exclusive, way to do so. Amnesty International's classification carries significant political and moral weight (Pascoe and Bae, 2021: 994), and has “become a conceptual foundation of the worldwide abolitionist movement” (Prokosch, 2018). Classification constructs reality (Cohen, 1985); and here it has significant consequences, affecting the distribution of advocacy resources and global attention, moral praise and condemnation.…”

Section: Classification Fallacy: “More Than Two Thirds Of the World's...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Third, there is often an assumption that states classified as de-facto abolitionist inevitably progress to full abolition (Schabas, 2019: 227). Yet there are many cases of states resuming executions after a 10-year lull, following a change of government or policy, including among others Bahrain, Chad, Guinea, Qatar, St Kitts and Nevis (Pascoe and Bae, 2021: 994), or the 2022 Burma example cited above. 15 Where the death penalty remains on the books it is relatively easy to reactivate it; “the law hath not been dead, though it has slept” declares Angelo in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure , justifying the resumption of a long-unused death penalty law.…”

Section: Classification Fallacy: “More Than Two Thirds Of the World's...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The death penalty is seen as an effective tool against political dissent, as recent executions of political protestors in Iran (BBC, 2022) potently remind. Terrorism, often broadly defined, is increasingly used to justify retaining capital punishment (Pascoe and Bae, 2021) and buttressing public support for it (Johnson, 2019: 341).…”

Section: Functional Fallacy: “Only a Symbolic Role”mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dead or alive? Reassessing the health of the death penalty and the prospects of global abolition

Dudai

2023

Theoretical Criminology

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There is a growing position among human rights advocates, academics and UN officials, predicting “the death of the death penalty”, and forecasting that it will completely disappear soon. This article questions and problematizes this prediction, exploring the assumptions, premises and gaps that underpin the optimistic outlook. Based on analysis of abolitionist discourse, three fallacies are identified and analyzed: a progressive fallacy, assuming the death penalty is a barbaric anachronism in the “civilized” modern world and displaying a teleological belief in its demise; a classificatory fallacy, entailing defining-down the prevalence of the death penalty through the category of “de-facto abolition”; and a functional fallacy, assuming that repudiating the death penalty as a crime-fighting tool will cause its demise, overlooking its transformation into an institution serving political-symbolic functions. In concluding, I suggest viewing the global death penalty as bifurcated: dying as an ordinary law-enforcement tool, but relatively healthy as an extraordinary political symbol.

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Section: Classification Fallacy: “More Than Two Thirds Of the World's...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Classification Fallacy: “More Than Two Thirds Of the World's...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Functional Fallacy: “Only a Symbolic Role”mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dead or alive? Reassessing the health of the death penalty and the prospects of global abolition

Dudai

2023

Theoretical Criminology

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“…Nevertheless, the country experienced four military coups since independence and an army mutiny in 2000. Thus, Fiji maintained the death penalty for military crimes in an unsuccessful attempt at deterrence (Pascoe and Bae 2020). Similarly, the United Kingdom also retained the death penalty for extraordinary crimes such as treason and military crimes until as late as 1998, despite abolishing for murder decades prior.…”

Section: Explaining Death Penalty Abolition In the South Pacificmentioning

confidence: 99%

Holdouts in the South Pacific: Explaining Death Penalty Retention in Papua New Guinea and Tonga

Pascoe

Novak

2022

Int J for Crime, Justice & Social Democracy

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The South Pacific forms a cohesive region with broadly similar cultural attributes, legal systems and colonial histories. A comparative analysis starts from the assumption that these countries should also have similar criminal justice policies. However, until 2022, both Papua New Guinea and Tonga were retentionist death penalty outliers in the South Pacific, a region home to seven other fully abolitionist members of the United Nations. In this article, we use the comparative method to explain why Papua New Guinea and Tonga have pursued a different death penalty trajectory than their regional neighbours. Eschewing the traditional social science explanations for death penalty retention, we suggest two novel explanations for ongoing retention in Papua New Guinea and Tonga: the law and order crisis in the former and the traditionally powerful monarchy in the latter.

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Your silence speaks volumes: Weak states and strategic absence in the UN General Assembly

Morse,

Coggins

2024

Rev Int Organ

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Country participation in one-state, one-vote forums like the United Nations General Assembly often reflects underlying power asymmetries and endogenous political processes. Voting alignment is undoubtedly an important preference indicator. However, this paper contends that it is incomplete; silence is politically significant as well. Weak states use absence as a form of institutional power that shields them from geopolitical pressure and competing-principals problems. While abstention is a public signal of neutrality that undercuts voting unanimity, the ambiguous intent of absence makes it a distinct form of political expression. We examine the politics of absences at the General Assembly, highlighting how states may be strategically absent from select votes for political reasons. Building on the Bailey et al. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 61(2), 430–456, 2017 roll-call voting data, we distinguish strategic absences from other types of absence and provide evidence that such behavior is linked to US interests and competing-principals problems. Taking these non-random reasons for missingness into account provides a fuller picture of how weak states engage with international institutions and highlights how silence can be a consequence of larger political processes.

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Idiosyncratic voting in the UNGA death penalty moratorium resolutions

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Dead or alive? Reassessing the health of the death penalty and the prospects of global abolition

Dead or alive? Reassessing the health of the death penalty and the prospects of global abolition

Holdouts in the South Pacific: Explaining Death Penalty Retention in Papua New Guinea and Tonga

Your silence speaks volumes: Weak states and strategic absence in the UN General Assembly

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