ABSTRACT
The rise of liberalism also changed how capital punishment was justified. The early modern death penalty had been phrased in the language of tradition, of religion, and of the Divine Right of Kings, none of which invited criticism or argument. Anti-liberalism forged the opposite association. Wherever authoritarian governments emerged, the turn against liberalism brought with it a return to capital punishment. Capital punishment has been practised in most known societies over the course of human history. By the late twentieth century, in the very different context of the modern liberal democratic welfare state, capital punishment had ceased to be a vital instrument of crime control and had become increasingly rare and controversial. Democratic writers and theorists of democracy have mostly been unenthusiastic about capital punishment, seeing it as a degrading practice emblematic of absolutist power and repressive rule.
