Diffusion and the Abolition of the Death Penalty: A Global Comparison

Figures & data

Table 1. Factor analyses of diffusion measurements

Diffusion networks	Complete abolition	Stepwise abolition
Global	0.838	0.855
Regional	0.853	0.848
Religion	0.860	0.864
Colonial heritage	0.817	0.861
Explained degree (%)	70.92	73.42
KMO	0.785	0.777
Bartlett’s Test (significance)	28724.330 (0.000)	32768.513 (0.000)
Table presents factor scores with Varimax as rotation method.

Table 2. Overlapping membership in networks (symmetric lambda λ)

	Global network	Regional network	Religion network	Colonial network
Global network	1
Regional network	0.025	1
Religion network	0.024	0.405	1
Colonial heritage network	0.071	0.359	0.215	1
	Significant coefficients in bold (p < 0.000)

Table 3. Explaining complete abolition of the death penalty 1800–2021. Logistic regression analyses

	Model
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Global diffusiont-1		1.038 (0.000)				1.010 (0.402)
Regional diffusiont-1			1.028 (0.000)			1.017 (0.008)
Religion network diffusiont-1				1.030 (0.000)		1.007 (0.442)
Colonial heritage network diffusiont-1					1.027 (0.000)	1.009 (0.180)
Index of diffusiont-1							3.648 (0.000)
Level of liberal democracyt-1	1.023 (0.000)	1.020 (0.000)	1.019 (0.000)	1.020 (0.000)	1.024 (0.000)	1.019 (0.000)	1.016 (0.002)
Change of democracy level	1.079 (0.000)	1.081 (0.000)	1.081 (0.000)	1.080 (0.000)	1.081 (0.000)	1.082 (0.000)	1.079 (0.000)
GDP/cap (log)t-1	1.743 (0.068)	1.353 (0.295)	1.288 (0.430)	1.428 (0.228)	1.238 (0.487)	1.180 (0.592)	0.942 (0.838)
State power (log)t-1	0.543 (0.000)	0.617 (0.000)	0.637 (0.000)	0.649 (0.000)	0.527 (0.000)	0.643 (0.000)	0.696 (0.006)
Common lawt-1	0.333 (0.013)	0.389 (0.035)	0.385 (0.032)	0.368 (0.026)	0.507 (0.138)	0.454 (0.084)	0.616 (0.291)
Islamt-1	0.689 (0.251)	0.482 (0.027)	0.851 (0.616)	1.181 (0.627)	0.729 (0.323)	0.817 (0.624)	0.913 (0.775)
Constant	0.006 (0.000)	0.003 (0.000)	0.004 (0.000)	0.003 (0.000)	0.004 (0.000)	0.003 (0.000)	0.006 (0.000)
Nagelkerke R^2	0.086	0.110	0.119	0.114	0.112	0.127	0.189
Observations	11,452	11,452	11,452	11,452	11,452	11,452	11,452
Case of events	93	93	93	93	93	93	93
The table shows Exp(B)-coefficients and significance levels in parentheses. Coefficients with p ≤ 0.05 in bold.

Table 4. Explaining stepwise abolition of the death penalty 1800–2021. Logistic regression analyses

	Model
	8	9	10	11	12	13	14
Global diffusiont-1		1.023 (0.000)				1.009 (0.145)
Regional diffusiont-1			1.015 (0.000)			1.007 (0.050)
Religion network diffusiont-1				1.018 (0.000)		1.006 (0.197)
Colonial heritage network diffusiont-1					1.016 (0.000)	1.003 (0.401)
Index of diffusiont-1							1.873 (0.000)
Level of liberal democracyt-1	1.018 (0.000)	1.015 (0.000)	1.011 (0.004)	1.014 (0.000)	1.016 (0.000)	1.012 (0.002)	1.012 (0.001)
Change of democracy level	1.071 (0.000)	1.071 (0.000)	1.067 (0.000)	1.069 (0.000)	1.071 (0.000)	1.068 (0.000)	1.069 (0.000)
GDP/cap (log)t-1	1.347 (0.114)	1.091 (0.635)	1.204 (0.330)	1.068 (0.729)	1.097 (0.624)	1.067 (0.729)	1.056 (0.770)
State power (log)t-1	0.623 (0.000)	0.696 (0.000)	0.695 (0.000)	0.718 (0.000)	0.641 (0.000)	0.729 (0.000)	0.718 (0.000)
Common lawt-1	0.543 (0.019)	0.624 (0.072)	0.618 (0.065)	0.601 (0.052)	0.771 (0.332)	0.675 (0.144)	0.698 (0.174)
Islamt-1	0.802 (0.238)	0.610 (0.009)	0.840 (0.344)	1.187 (0.387)	0.769 (0.152)	0.814 (0.394)	0.811 (0.254)
Constant	0.020 (0.000)	0.008 (0.000)	0.012 (0.000)	0.009 (0.000)	0.012 (0.000)	0.008 (0.000)	0.021 (0.000)
Nagelkerke R^2	0.058	0.074	0.073	0.074	0.073	0.081	0.080
Observations	11,452	11,452	11,452	11,452	11,452	11,452	11,452
Case of events	241	241	241	241	241	241	241
The table shows Exp(B)-coefficients and significance levels in parentheses. Coefficients with p ≤ 0.05 in bold.

Figure 1. The abolition of the death penalty in the world 1800–2021

Table 5. Explaining complete abolition of the death penalty in two periods. Logistic regression analyses

	1800-1979			1980-2021
Model	15	16	17	18	19	20
Global diffusiont-1		0.745 (0.001)			1.001 (0.949)
Regional diffusiont-1		1.009 (0.625)			1.013 (0.044)
Religion network diffusiont-1		1.045 (0.289)			1.008 (0.803)
Colonial heritage network diffusiont-1		1.072 (0.006)			1.000 (0.972)
Index of diffusiont-1			6.069 (0.000)			1.617 (0.006)
Level of liberal democracyt-1	1.023 (0.062)	1.060 (0.000)	1.041 (0.000)	1.021 (0.000)	1.016 (0.011)	1.018 (0.005)
Change of democracy level	1.060 (0.032)	1.101 (0.003)	1.078 (0.000)	1.083 (0.000)	1.083 (0.000)	1.084 (0.000)
GDP/cap (log)t-1	1.425 (0.663)	0.342 (0.337)	0.454 (0.428)	1.175 (0.614)	1.141 (0.689)	1.138 (0.682)
State powert-1	0.403 (0.000)	0.337 (0.002)	0.444 (0.008)	0.756 (0.053)	0.816 (0.201)	0.767 (0.071)
Common lawt-1	0.000 (0.991)	0.000 (0.991)	0.000 (0.991)	0.596 (0.268)	0.609 (0.296)	0.671 (0.397)
Islamt-1	0.000 (0.990)	0.000 (0.991)	0.000 (0.990)	0.608 (0.144)	1.819 (0.652)	0.715 (0.334)
Constant	0.006 (0.000)	0.012 (0.000)	0.011 (0.000)	0.011 (0.000)	0.006 (0.000)	0.009 (0.000)
Nagelkerke R^2	0.107	0.191	0.145	0.070	0.085	0.081
Observations	7,266	7,266	7,266	4.186	4.186	4.186
Case of events	24	24	24	69	69	69
The table shows Exp(B)-coefficients and significance levels in parentheses. Coefficients with p ≤ 0.05 in bold.

Table 6. Explaining stepwise abolition of the death penalty in two periods. Logistic regression analyses

	1800-1979			1980-2021
Model	21	22	23	24	25	26
Global diffusiont-1		0.983 (0.376)			1.004 (0.665)
Regional diffusiont-1		1.009 (0.111)			1.005 (0.228)
Religion network diffusiont-1		1.009 (0.283)			1.004 (0.510)
Colonial heritage network diffusiont-1		1.007 (0.306)			1.000 (1.000)
Index of diffusiont-1			2.064 (0.003)			1.377 (0.011)
Level of liberal democracyt-1	1.011 (0.066)	1.008 (0.205)	1.009 (0.128)	1.016 (0.000)	1.011 (0.015)	1.012 (0.005)
Change of democracy level	1.052 (0.002)	1.054 (0.002)	1.053 (0.002)	1.071 (0.000)	1.070 (0.000)	1.071 (0.000)
GDP/cap (log)t-1	2.757 (0.011)	1.702 (0.254)	1.653 (0.268)	0.832 (0.385)	0.862 (0.481)	0.847 (0.427)
State powert-1	0.621 (0.000)	0.649 (0.003)	0.668 (0.003)	0.750 (0.005)	0.786 (0.027)	0.768 (0.011)
Common lawt-1	0.579 (0.150)	0.854 (0.705)	0.806 (0.584)	0.631 (0.205)	0.642 (0.227)	0.665 (0.263)
Islamt-1	0.132 (0.006)	0.253 (0.079)	0.213 (0.038)	0.761 (0.184)	0.826 (0.486)	0.799 (0.276)
Constant	0.012 (0.000)	0.011 (0.000)	0.018 (0.000)	0.037 (0.000)	0.019 (0.000)	0.032 (0.000)
Nagelkerke R^2	0.068	0.082	0.078	0.042	0.049	0.048
Observations	7,266	7,266	7,266	4,186	4,186	4,186
Case of events	91	91	91	150	150	150
The table shows Exp(B)-coefficients and significance levels in parentheses. Coefficients with p ≤ 0.05 in bold.