Sacrifice for the mandate of heaven? Regression discontinuity of death penalty execution in Taiwan

The death penalty enjoys overwhelmingly cross-partisan support among Taiwanese citizens. Politicians, mass media actors, and anti-death-penalty activists all believe that death penalty executions boost the president’s approval. As a result, Taiwanese presidents are motivated to strategically execute prisoners, trying to improve their approval rate. To examine this myth, we exploit data from a nationally representative survey conducted in 2012; six inmates were unexpectedly executed during the survey period. This unique opportunity enables us to examine the causal relationship between implementing a welcoming policy and its effect on public opinion. Contrary to popular belief, however, the results of the regression discontinuity design indicate that death penalty executions in Taiwan did not boost the president’s approval rate at all. This non-finding holds after several robustness checks and difference-in-differences analyses. This result yields implications for the study of judicial politics and presidential approval.