Austin Horng-En Wang (Political Science) published a co-authored article, "Sacrifice for the Mandate of Heaven? Regression Discontinuity of Death Penalty Execution in Taiwan," in the Social Science Journal. It exploits an unexpected death penalty execution during a national survey in Taiwan in 2012 and shows that the death penalty execution, albeit widely supported in Taiwan and drawing considerable media attention, did not boost the presidential approval at all. The empirical result questions the popular myth that executing criminals can restore the approval rate of the incumbent in democracies.