Determinants of Public Opinion on the Death Penalty
Open Access
- Author:
- Matour, Matthew
- Area of Honors:
- Political Science
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Suzanna Linn, Thesis Supervisor
Giancarlo Visconti, Thesis Honors Advisor
Marie Hojnacki, Faculty Reader - Keywords:
- Death Penalty
Capital Punishment
Public Opinion
Public Support
ANES
Partisanship
Demographics
Perception of Crime - Abstract:
- Capital punishment represents an interesting case in the context of public opinion. Support for the death penalty varies tremendously among different populations across the United States, as demonstrated through Gallup and many other national polling services. Which factors account for this variation in public opinion on the death penalty among US citizens? This research attempts to account for such influences, utilizing sociopolitical and demographic data from the American National Election Survey (ANES) to construct both cross-sectional and longitudinal models for death penalty support. My results find that variables such as partisanship, education level, gender, and perception of criminal activity have historically explained attitudes toward capital punishment over time. For example, those who are Republican, male, and in favor of increasing federal spending on crime are more likely to support capital punishment. These results mostly hold true both in 2020 and over the span of the longitudinal analysis. In addition, several other variables demonstrate significance, granting predictive power for whether or not a hypothetical individual with specific characteristics will support the death penalty. Finally, trends of variable significance over time suggest that social, political, and economic events may have impacted capital punishment support in the short-term. Such events include, but are likely not limited to, the rise of innocence movements around the year 2000, the financial crisis of 2008, and the hyper-partisanship of American politics surrounding the 2016 presidential election.