Penality, Power and Polity: Exploring the Relationship between Political Repression and Modalities of Punishment

In his most recent work, Wacquant (2009) characterizes the prison, not simply as an instrument of the criminal justice system designed to punish law violators, but instead as a “core political institution” (xviii). Indeed, the intersection between political institutions and punishment cannot be overstated. Despite this, the relationship between political power and modalities of punishment is not yet fully understood. While some notable research has examined the correlations between incarceration rates, death penalty retention, and various measures of political power and repression (see for example Killias, 1986; Neopolitan, 2001; Jacobs and Kleban, 2003; Miethe et al., 2005; Ruddell and Urbina, 2007), the influence of political factors on punishment needs a fuller explication (Ruddell and Urbina, 2007). Specifically, the use of corporal punishment as a criminal sanction has not been examined within the political repression and punishment literature. To address this empirical void, we employ a cross-national comparative approach to analyze the relationship between political repression, violence, and modalities of punishment, with particular focus on the use of corporal punishment.