This article uses Börzel and Risse's norm diffusion framework to conceptualize and evaluate the EU's ‘death penalty diplomacy’ in Japan. Despite the ‘exceptional’ nature of Japanese politics with regard to the death penalty the EU has enjoyed numerous successes in its attempts to diffuse the abolitionist norm within Japan. These successes have occurred through both direct and indirect methods of norm diffusion, and through socialization, persuasion and functional emulation. Despite the dramatic increase in executions in Japan in 2018, in practice the EU and Japan have established an understanding that executions will in future stabilize at a low and symbolic level. The EU has also co-funded research that successfully challenged the Japanese government's public opinion polling-based justification for retaining the death penalty. This research also played an important role in socializing and persuading the Japanese Federation of Bar Associations to change its official position and to support the abolition of the death penalty.

中文翻译：

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在日本扩散废奴主义规范：欧盟“死刑外交”与欧盟与日本关系中的言辞与现实之间的差距

本文使用伯泽尔和里瑟的规范扩散框架对欧盟在日本的“死刑外交”进行概念化和评估。尽管日本政治在死刑方面具有“特殊”性质，但欧盟在试图在日本国内传播废除死刑规范方面取得了无数成功。这些成功是通过规范传播的直接和间接方法，以及通过社会化、说服和功能性模仿而取得的。尽管 2018 年日本处决人数急剧增加，但在实践中，欧盟和日本已达成共识，即未来处决将稳定在较低的象征性水平。欧盟还联合资助了一项研究，成功挑战了日本政府基于民意调查的保留死刑的理由。