 political structure both should be considered as explanations for differences in death penalty politics across the Atlantic.
For years, many criminal justice scholars have insisted that cultural disposition is the most influential variable in whether a Western democracy abolishes or retains the death penalty in the 21st century. Notable scholars on American capital punishment, such as Zimring, maintain that the American cultural tradition of punitiveness is the ultimate explanation for its death penalty policies (Zimring 2003). In "Capital Punishment and American Exceptionalism," Steiker focuses on the theory that the United States has a sub-culture of violence derived from its Wild West roots (Steiker 2002, 127). Other scholars point to the Puritan notion of a social deviant's estrangement from society as a key cultural disposition that supports the continuation of the policy in the United States (Grasmick, Cochran, Bursik, & Kimpel 1993, 296). All of these theories on cultural disposition are supported by the fact that the death penalty is complemented by other punitive elements in the American criminal justice system, including the imposition of lengthy incarceration sentences and felony disenfranchisement.
However, these cultural disposition theories err by highlighting certain cultural facets and disregarding those that contradict the hypothesis. For example, America's "frontier mentality" may suggest a proclivity to the death penalty but America's emphasis on individualism and self- determination certainly suggests an opposing tension. If the full range of cultural facets is considered, the influence of the cultural dispositions on a certain policy is much more complicated than the reductionist theories in the field today. While each of the cultural conception theories add interesting dimensions and contribute to a multi-causal explanation, cultural disposition theories alone paint an overly simplistic picture for this policy divide between like-minded Western democracies (Sarat and Martschukat 2011, 7). In order to fill in a perceivable gap, scholars have started to assess the importance of political structure as a critical variable in death penalty abolition across Western democracies.
In “The Myth of the Dedicated Public Servant,” Gerber and Johnson shift the debate by illustrating how political structure alone can influence death penalty politics (Gerber & Johnson 2007). In his comparative historical analysis of the United States and Europe, Gerber posits that the American democratic structure has historically bound the nation to retention while the European democratic structures have allowed for more flexibility. In general, the process of frequent, open, and direct elections encourages American political candidates to use appeals to pathos in order to capitalize on the public's fear and insecurity. Gerber suggests that once politicians have campaigned as tough on crime, their decisions in office do not give proper weight to any powerful social science data that may contradict their position on the death penalty (Gerber & Johnson 2007, 199). This populist bind is not found in the prototypical European democracy with institutions that remove decision-making from popular demand. Through his evaluation, Gerber suggests that political structure deserves more attention as a variable in the transatlantic study of death penalty abolition.
In “Civilized Rebels: Death Penalty Abolition in Europe as Cause, Mark of Distinction, and Political Strategy,” Hammel adds an important dimension to the political structure theory by contrasting the effects of American populism and European elitism (Hammel 2011). Hammel argues that European intellectuals considered opposition to the death penalty a “mark of distinction” that demonstrated their superiority to the masses (Hammel 2011, 174). In stark contrast, America's populists have always been hostile to any semblance of elitism in politics. In this way, American populist attitudes have minimized the opportunity for strong independent political leadership on the issue, which is of