Sociology of Abolition Movements and the Death Penalty.

The paper provides a sociological analysis of abolition movements. I will ask, who are the possible main protagonists against the death penalty. A glance into history and the today's abolition movements reveals great variety of possible protagonists. Perhaps the most striking dichotomy distinguishes between 'reformers from above' and 'reformers from below'. By looking at many today's East European countries (or to Turkey) 'reformers from above' (state elites) seems to prevail. Mostly, the 'reformers from above' intent by fighting against death penalty to augment the state's reputation in relation to foreign countries. Reforms in death penalty are seen as raison d'Etat. Another possibility is, that reforms from above are motivated with the aim to change internal power balances in favor for the central state. This motivation can be found in the reforms of many continental European realms of eighteenth and nineteenth century. Many kinds of social reforms, including reforms of the penal law and the death penalty, experienced in the Western World following a different pattern. There are many middle class bound organizations, NGO's or other pressure groups trying to campaign against death penalty. Perhaps this pattern of reforms from below roots in the Anglo-Saxon World of the eighteenth century. These 'reformers from below' seem not to be motivated by raison d`Etat but ideological in forms of humanism, religious conviction, or the fight for a civil society. 'Reformers from below' are also advancing their power position by fighting against the death penalty because they can gain political influence in the course of reforms. The paper seeks to clarify following points: 1. To what kind of extant is the position towards the death penalty a 'symbol' of social competition? This network of social competition includes both power struggles within states and power struggles between states. 2. In what kind of situation the symbol 'death penalty' becomes the attributes of money (perhaps like Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital)? In this sense, to have much cultural money means to have a clement penal code. The more clement, the richer (better). The harsher, the more shameful. This means: what are the social preconditions that punitive brutality will be limited. (This would be also concept directed against functional arguments, that underlines death penalty is necessary or death penalty is not necessary because of). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]