The culture of revenge and the power of politics: A comparative attempt to explain the punitive

Abstract

In this article, it is argued that punitive attitudes or ‘norms of harshness’ are more plausibly linked to various degrees of power than they are to culture. The People’s Republic of China today executes several times more people than the rest of the world combined. It has become somewhat of a truism in China, and accepted outside, that this is due to special Chinese cultural conditions. However, upon close scrutiny, the arguments for this hypothesis are found wanting. In the final instance, it is not culture but political power that dominates the Chinese affinity towards harshness. Punitive norms tend to be fairly short‐term and changeable, which goes against the idea of ‘deeply rooted retributive culture’. The so‐called ‘national conditions of revenge’ is frequently manipulated, as is shown by survey data proving the alleged ‘people’s revenge’ to have stronger elite than popular support. Harshness has simply become a norm of political elites. Punitive culture should be seen against a background of a changeable repertoire of possibilities. It is the power of politics, not the inertia of revengeful culture that holds back the modernization of Chinese penal sentiments, attitudes, and – hopefully – practices.