Rudolph Rummel

Rudolph Rummel
Born	Rudolph Joseph Rummel (1932-10-21)October 21, 1932 Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
Died	March 2, 2014(2014-03-02) (aged 81) Kaneohe, Hawaii, U.S.
Education	University of Hawaiʻi (B.A., Political Science, 1959) (M.A., Political Science, 1961) Northwestern University (Ph.D., Political Science, 1963)
Occupation	Political scientist
Employer	Indiana University (1963–1964) Yale University (1964–1966) University of Hawaiʻi (1966–1995)
Known for	Research on war and conflict resolution
Website	hawaii.edu/powerkills

Rudolph Joseph Rummel (October 21, 1932 – March 2, 2014)^[1] was a political scientist and professor at the Indiana University, Yale University, and University of Hawaiʻi. He spent his career studying data on collective violence and war with a view toward helping their resolution or elimination. Contrasting genocide, Rummel coined the term democide for murder by government, such as the genocide of indigenous peoples and colonialism, Nazi Germany, the Stalinist purges, Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, and other authoritarian, totalitarian, or undemocratic regimes, coming to the conclusion that democratic regimes result in less democides.^[2]

Rummel estimated that a total of 212 million people were killed by all governments during the 20th century,^[3] of which 148 million were killed by Communist governments from 1917 to 1987.^[4] To give some perspective on these numbers, Rummel stated that all domestic and foreign wars during the 20th century killed in combat around 41 million. His figures for Communist governments have been criticized for the methodology which he used to arrive at them, and they have also been criticized for being higher than the figures which have been given by most scholars.^[5] In his last book, Rummel increased his estimate to over 272 million innocent, non-combatant civilians who were murdered by their own governments during the 20th century.^[6] Rummel stated that his 272 million death estimate was his lower, more prudent figure, stating that it "could be over 400,000,000."^[7] Rummel came to the conclusion that a democracy is the form of government which is least likely to kill its citizens because democracies do not tend to wage wars against each other.^[2] This latest view is a concept, which was further developed by Rummel, known as the democratic peace theory.^[8]

Rummel was the author of twenty-four scholarly books, and he published his major results between 1975 and 1981 in Understanding Conflict and War (1975).^[9] He spent the next fifteen years refining the underlying theory and testing it empirically on new data, against the empirical results of others, and on case studies. He summed up his research in Power Kills (1997).^[10] His other works include Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocides and Mass Murders 1917–1987 (1990),^[11] China's Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900 (1991),^[12] Democide: Nazi Genocide and Mass Murder (1992),^[13] Death by Government: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900 (1994),^[14] and Statistics of Democide (1997).^[15] Extracts, figures, and tables from the books, including his sources and details regarding the calculations, are available online on his website. Rummel also authored Applied Factor Analysis (1970)^[16] and Understanding Correlation (1976).^[17]

Early life, education, and death[]

Rummel was born in 1932 in Cleveland, Ohio, to a family of German descent. A child of the Great Depression and World War II, he attended local public schools. Rummel received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Hawaiʻi in 1959 and 1961, respectively, and his Ph.D. in Political Science from Northwestern University in 1963.^[8]

Rummel died on March 2, 2014, aged 81. He is survived by two daughters and one sister.^[1]

Academic career and research[]

Rummel began his teaching career at Indiana University. In 1964, Rummel moved to Yale University, and in 1966 returned to the University of Hawaiʻi, where he taught there for the rest of his active career. In 1995, Rummel retired and became Professor Emeritus of Political Science. His research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, DARPA, and the United States Peace Research Institute. In addition to his books, Rummel was the author of more than 100 professional articles.^[8]

Rummel was a member of the advisory council of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.^[18]

Democide[]

Rummel coined democide, which he defined as "the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder." Rummel further stated to "use the civil definition of murder, where someone can be guilty of murder if they are responsible in a reckless and wanton way for the loss of life, as in incarcerating people in camps where they may soon die of malnutrition, unattended disease, and forced labor, or deporting them into wastelands where they may die rapidly from exposure and disease." In his book Death by Government, published in 1987, Rummel estimated that 148 million were killed by Communist governments from 1917 to 1987. The list of Communist countries with more than 1 million estimated victims included China at 76,702,000 (1949–1987), the Soviet Union at 61,911,000 (1917–1987), Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1979) at 2,035,000, Vietnam (1945–1987) at 1,670,000, Poland (1945–1987) at 1,585,000, North Korea (1948–1987) at 1,563,000, and Yugoslavia (1945–1987) at 1,072,000.^[14] Those numbers should not be considered factual, as they are inflated,^[19] and Rummel himself described his figures as "little more than educated guesses."^[20] Estimates for fascist or far-right regime include Nazi Germany at 20,946,000 (1933–1945), Nationalist China (1925–1949) and later Taiwan at 10,214,000 (1949–1987), and Empire of Japan at 5,964,000 (1900–1945). Estimates for other regime-types include the Ottoman Empire at 1,883,000 (Greek genocide), Pakistan at 1,503,000 (1971 Bangladesh genocide), Porfiriato at somewhere between 600,000–3,3000,000 and closer to 1,417,000 (1900–1920),^[20] and the Russian Empire at 1,066,000 (1900–1917). Democide in Communist and Nationalist China, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union are characterized as deka-megamurderers (128,168,000), while those in Cambodia, Japan, Pakistan, Poland, Turkey, Vietnam, and Yugoslavia are characterized as the lesser megamurderers (19,178,000), and cases in Mexico, North Korea, and feudal Russia are characterized as suspected megamurderers (4,145,000).^[14]

His research led him to reach the conclusion that the death toll from democide is far greater than the death toll from war. After studying over 8,000 reports of government-caused deaths, he estimated that there have been 262 million victims of democide in the 20th century, and six times as many people have died at the hands of people working for governments than have died in battle; his later estimates put the death toll of colonialism from 870,000 to 50,000,000. His new total came with the additions of 38,000,000 (from China) and 50,000,000 (from colonialism) to the previous old total of 174,000,000.^[21] The 38 million addition came in 2005 with the publication of the much-academic debated Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. He stated to believe Chang and Halliday's estimates to be mostly correct, and revised his figures for Communist China under Mao Zedong accordingly.^[22] Rummel posited that there is a relation between political power and democide. Political mass murder grows increasingly common as political power becomes unconstrained. At the other end of the scale, where power is diffuse, checked, and balanced, political violence is a rarity. For Rummel, "[t]he more power a regime has, the more likely people will be killed. This is a major reason for promoting freedom."^[23] He wrote that "concentrated political power is the most dangerous thing on earth."^[24]

Most estimates of democide are uncertain and scholars often give widely different estimates. His figures for Communist regimes are higher than those given by most other scholars. The higher-end figures range from 60 to 110 million.^[25] Rummel's counts 43 million deaths due to democide during Stalin's regime inside and outside the Soviet Union, a much higher estimate than an often quoted figure of 20 million. Rummel responded that this is based on a figure from Robert Conquest's book The Great Terror from 1968, and that Conquest's qualifier "almost certainly too low" is usually forgotten. According to Rummel, Conquest's calculations excluded camp deaths after 1950, and before 1936; executions 1939–1953; the population transfer in the Soviet Union, i.e. the forced transfer of various groups and their deaths in 1939–1953; the deportation within the Soviet Union of minorities in 1941–1944; and their deaths; and those the Soviet Red Army and secret police executed throughout Eastern Europe after their conquest during 1944–1945. Moreover, the Holodomor that killed 5 million in 1932–1934 (according to Rummel) is not included.^[26] After decades of research in the state archives, most scholars say that Joseph Stalin's regime killed between 6 and 9 million, which is considerably less than originally thought,^[27] while Nazi Germany killed at least 11 million, which is in line with previous estimates.^[28]

Rummel considered communism to be a significant causative factor in democides.^[5] According to Rummel, the killings committed by Communist regimes can best be explained as the result of the marriage between absolute power and the ideology of Marxism, which he also considered to be absolutist.^[29] Rummel wrote that "communism was like a fanatical religion. It had its revealed text and its chief interpreters. It had its priests and their ritualistic prose with all the answers. It had a heaven, and the proper behavior to reach it. It had its appeal to faith. And it had its crusades against nonbelievers. What made this secular religion so utterly lethal was its seizure of all the state's instruments of force and coercion and their immediate use to destroy or control all independent sources of power, such as the church, the professions, private businesses, schools, and the family."^[30] Rummel said that Communists saw the construction of their utopia as "though a war on poverty, exploitation, imperialism and inequality. And for the greater good, as in a real war, people are killed. And, thus, this war for the communist utopia had its necessary enemy casualties, the clergy, bourgeoisie, capitalists, wreckers, counterrevolutionaries, rightists, tyrants, rich, landlords, and noncombatants that unfortunately got caught in the battle. In a war millions may die, but the cause may be well justified, as in the defeat of Hitler and an utterly racist Nazism. And to many communists, the cause of a communist utopia was such as to justify all the deaths."^[29]

Discussion of the number of victims of Communist regimes has been both extensive and ideologically biased.^[31] Any attempt to estimate the total number of killings under Communist regimes greatly depends on definitions,^[32] ranging from a low of 10–20 million to a high of 110 million.^[25] Criticism of the estimates, especially those on the high-end by Rummel and The Black Book of Communism, which made extensive use of Rummel's estimates and analysis, is mostly focused on three aspects, namely that the estimates were based on sparse and incomplete data when significant errors are inevitable, the figures were skewed to higher possible values, and those dying at war and victims of civil wars, the Holodomor, and other famines under Communist governments should not be counted.^{[5][33][34][35][36][37]} Any attempts to develop a universally-accepted terminology describing mass killings of non-combatants was a complete failure.^[38] In addition, while it is generally statistically true that democides happen more in authoritarian than democratic regimes, there have been a few exceptions for democratic regimes, and some authoritarian regimes did not engage in the megamurder category of democide.^[39]

Democratic peace[]

After Dean Babst, Rummel was one of the early researchers on democratic peace theory. Rummel found that there were 205 wars between non-democracies, 166 wars between non-democracies and democracies, and no wars between democracies during the period between 1816 and 2005.^[40] The definition of democracy used by Rummel is "where those who hold power are elected in competitive elections with a secret ballot and wide franchise (loosely understood as including at least 2/3 of adult males); where there is freedom of speech, religion, and organization; and a constitutional framework of law to which the government is subordinate and that guarantees equal rights." In addition, it should be "well-established", stating that "enough time has passed since its inception for peace-sufficient democratic procedures to become accepted and democratic culture to settle in. Around three years seems to be enough for this."^[2]

Regarding war, Rummel adopted the definition of a popular database, namely that war is a conflict causing at least 1,000 battle deaths. The peace is explained thus: "Start with the answer of the philosopher Immanuel Kant to why universalizing republics (democracy was a bad word for Classical Liberals in his time) would create a peaceful world. People would not support and vote for wars in which they and their loved ones could die and lose their property. But this is only partly correct, for the people can get aroused against nondemocracies and push their leaders toward war, as in the Spanish–American War. A deeper explanation is that where people are free, they create an exchange society of overlapping groups and multiple and crosschecking centers of power. In such a society a culture of negotiation, tolerance, and splitting differences develops. Moreover, free people develop an in-group orientation toward other such societies, a feeling of shared norms and ideals that militates against violence toward other free societies."^[41]

Mortacide[]

While democide requires governmental intention, Rummel was also interested in analyzing the effects of regimes that unintentionally, yet culpably, cause the deaths of their citizens through negligence, incompetence or sheer indifference. An example is a regime in which corruption has become so pervasive and destructive of a people's welfare that it threatens their daily lives and reduces their life expectancy. Rummel termed deaths of citizens under such regimes as mortacide, and posited that democracies have the fewest of such deaths.^[42]

Famine, economic growth, and happiness[]

Rummel included famine in democide, if he deemed it the result of a deliberate policy, as he did for the Holodomor. Rummel stated that there have been no famines in democracies, deliberate or not, an argument first advanced by Amartya Sen,^[41] and he also posited that democracy is an important factor for economic growth and for raising living standards.^[43][44] He stated that research shows average happiness in a nation increases with more democracy.^[45] According to Rummel, the continuing increase in the number of democracies worldwide would lead to an end to wars and democide. He believed that goal might be achieved by the mid-21st century.^[46]

Political views[]

Rummel started out as a socialist but later became an anti-communist, a libertarian, and an advocate of economic liberalism,^[47] writing about the "miracle of liberty and peace."^[48] Apart from being an outspoken critic of communism and Communist regimes, Rummel criticized right-wing dictatorships and the democides that occurred under colonialism, which also resulted in the hundreds of million deaths.^[49] Rummel was a strong supporter of spreading liberal democracy, although he did not support invading another country solely to replace a dictatorship.^[50] Rummel posited that there is less foreign violence the more libertarian a state is.^[51][52]

Rummel was critical of past American foreign policy such as the Philippine War, involvement in the 1900 Battle of Peking, and the strategic bombing of civilians during World War II,^[53] and he also believed that the United States under the Democratic Party United States president Woodrow Wilson was a domestic tyranny.^[54] Rummel strongly supported the War on Terror and the Iraq War initiated by the Republican George W. Bush administration, arguing that "the media [was] biased against freeing Iraqi from tyranny."^[55] Rummel also proposed that an intergovernmental organization of all democracies outside of the United Nations deals with issues about which the United Nations cannot or would not act, in particular to further the promotion of peace, human security, human rights, and democracy through what he termed "an Alliance of Democracies [which] can do much better."^[56] Rummel thought that Democratic United States senator Ted Kennedy's opposition to the Vietnam War led to the state killings in Cambodia and Vietnam during the 1970s. Following the death of Kennedy, Rummel condemned the media reaction as too benign, and stated that "the post-war blood of millions is on Kennedy's hands."^[57]

Rummel was critical of Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, alleging that they were seeking to establish an authoritarian, one-party state.^[58][59] He believed that global warming was "a scam for power" and opposed Obama's carbon-trading scheme.^[60] Rummel thought that Obama killed off a democratic peace that Democratic Bill Clinton and Republican George W. Bush had been pursuing.^[61] Rummel posited that there was a leftist bias in some parts of the academic world that selectively focused on problems in nations with high political and economic freedom and ignored much worse problems in other nations. Related to this, he also criticized the tenure system.^[62][63]

Reception[]

Democratic peace theory[]

The democratic peace theory is one of the great controversies in political science and one of the main challenges to realism in international relations. More than a hundred different researchers have published multiple articles in this field according to an incomplete bibliography until 2000,^[64] and from 2000 to August 2009.^[65] Some critics respond that there have been exceptions to the theory.^[39] Rummel discussed some of these exceptions in his FAQ,^[41] and he has referred to books by other scholars such as Never at War. Criticism of the democratic peace theory include data, definition, historical periods, limited consequences, methodology, microfoundations, and statistical significance criticism, that peace comes before democracy, and several studies fail to confirm democracies are less likely to wage war than autocracies if wars against non-democracies are included. Jeffrey Pugh summarized that those who dispute the theory often do so on grounds that it conflates correlation with causation, and the academic definitions of democracy and war can be manipulated so as to manufacture an artificial trend.^[66] Rummel's first work on democratic peace received little attention. His results were incorporated in a "gigantic philosophical scheme" of 33 propositions in a 5-volume work. It was reviewed in 1992 as having "immoderate pretensions", and demonstrated Rummel's "unrelenting" economic liberalism and "extreme" views on defense policy. Nils Petter Gleditsch said that these elements may have distracted readers from Rummel's more conventionally acceptable propositions.^[67]

Rummel's version of the democratic peace theory has some distinctive features disputed by some other researchers who support the existence and explanatory power of the theory. Rummel's early research found that democracies are less warlike, even against non-democracies; other researchers hold only that democracies are far less warlike with one another. Rummel held that democracies properly defined never go to war with each other, and added that this is an "absolute or (point) claim." Other researchers such as Stuart A. Bremer found that it is a chance or stochastic matter;^[68] in this sense, Rummel's version of the democratic peace theory was deterministic.^[67] A review by James Lee Ray cited several other studies finding that the increase in the risk of war in democratizing countries happens only if many or most of the surrounding nations are undemocratic.^[40] If wars between young democracies are included in the analysis, several studies and reviews still find enough evidence supporting the stronger claim that all democracies, whether young or established, go into war with one another less frequently, while some do not.^{[69][70][71][72][73]}

Rummel did not always apply his definition of democracy to governments under discussion, and he did not always clarify when he did not apply it. The opening paragraphs of an appendix from his book Power Kills^[2] adopt Michael Doyle's lists of liberal democracies for 1776–1800 and 1800–1850. Doyle used a much looser definition, namely the secret ballot that was first adopted by Tasmania in 1856, while Belgium had barely 10% adult male suffrage before 1894.^[74]

Awards and nominations[]

In 1999, Rummel was awarded the Susan Strange Award of the International Studies Association.^[75] This award recognizes a person "whose singular intellect, assertiveness, and insight most challenge conventional wisdom and intellectual and organizational complacency in the international studies community."^[76] In 2003, Rummel was given The Lifetime Achievement Award from the Conflict Processes Organized Section of the American Political Science Association for "scholarly contributions that have fundamentally improved the study of conflict processes."^[77]

Rummel used to publicly claim that he was a finalist for the Nobel Prize for Peace, based on an Associated Press report reprinted in his local paper about an alleged Nobel short list of 117 names.^[8] Although he retracted the claim, it still appeared in one of his books.^[78] Rummel was nominated multiple times for the Peace Prize by Per Ahlmark but no shortlist has been made public.^[79]

Never Again Series[]

Rummel wrote the Never Again Series of alternative-history novels. According to the series' website, Never Again is "a what-if, alternative history" in which "two lovers are sent back in time to 1906 with modern weapons and 38 billion 1906 dollars" in order to prevent the rise of totalitarianism and the outbreak of world wars.^{[80][nb 1]}

Published works[]

• Most books and articles by Rummel are available for free download at his website, including those not listed here.^[81][82]

Books[]

• Dimensions of Nations, SAGE Publications, 1972
• Wilkenfeld, J., ed. Conflict Behavior & Linkage Politics (contributor), David McKay, 1973
• Peace Endangered: Reality Of Détente, SAGE Publications, 1976
• Understanding Conflict and War, John Wiley & Sons, 1976
• Conflict in Perspective (Understanding Conflict and War), SAGE Publications, 1977
• Field Theory Evolving, SAGE Publications, 1977
• Der gefährdete Frieden. Die militärische Überlegenheit der UdSSR ("Endangered Peace. The Military Superiority of the USSR"), München, 1977
• National Attitudes and Behaviors (with G. Omen, S. W. Rhee, and P. Sybinsky), SAGE Publications, 1979
• In the Minds of Men. Principles Toward Understanding and Waging Peace, Sogang University Press, 1984
• Applied Factor Analysis, Northwestern University Press, 1988
• Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder since 1917, Transaction Publishers, 1990
• China's Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900, Transaction Publishers, 1991
• The Conflict Helix: Principles & Practices of Interpersonal, Social & International Conflict & Cooperation, Transaction Publishers, 1991
• Democide: Nazi Genocide and Mass Murder, Transaction Publishers, 1992
• Death by Government, Transaction Publishers, 1997
• Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900, Lit Verlag, 1999
• Power Kills: Democracy as a Method of Nonviolence, Transaction Publishers, 2002
• Never Again (series)

1. War and Democide, Llumina Press, 2004
2. Nuclear Holocaust, Llumina Press, 2004
3. Reset, Llumina Press, 2004
4. Red Terror, Llumina Press, 2004
5. Genocide, Llumina Press, 2005
6. Never Again?, Llumina Press, 2005

Never Again: Ending War, Democide, & Famine Through Democratic Freedom, nonfiction supplement, Llumina Press, 2005

• The Blue Book of Freedom: Ending Famine, Poverty, Democide, and War, Cumberland House Publishing, 2007

Scholarly articles[]

Rummel had approximately 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals, including:^[81][82]

• International Journal on World Peace, October–December 1986, III (4), contributor
• Journal of International Relations, Spring 1978, 3 (1), contributor
• Reason, July 1977, 9 (3), "The Problem of Defense", contributor

See also[]

• Stéphane Courtois

Notes[]

References[]

Bibliography[]

• Gleditsch, Nils Petter (ed.). R.J. Rummel: An Assessment of His Many Contributions. SpringerBriefs on Pioneers in Science and Practice. 37. New York City, New York: Springer. pp. 1–16. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-54463-2_1. ISBN 9783319544632.
• Peterson, H. C. (2017). "Regime Type Matters". In Gleditsch, Nils Petter (ed.). R.J. Rummel: An Assessment of His Many Contributions. SpringerBriefs on Pioneers in Science and Practice. 37. New York City, New York: Springer. pp. 97–106. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-54463-2_10. ISBN 9783319544632.

Further reading[]

• Chan, Steve (March 2010). "Progress in the Democratic Peace Research Agenda". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.280.
• Gleditsch, Nils Petter (November 1992). "Democracy and Peace". Journal of Peace Research. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications. 29 (4): 369–376. doi:10.1177/0022343392029004001. JSTOR 425538.
• Gleditsch, Nils Petter (December 1995). "Democracy and the Future of European Peace". European Journal of International Relations. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications. 1 (4): 539–571. doi:10.1177/1354066195001004007.
• Gleditsch, Nils Petter; Hegre, Havard (April 1997). "Peace and Democracy: Three Levels of Analysis". Journal of Conflict Resolution. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications. 41 (2): 283–310. doi:10.1177/0022002797041002004. JSTOR 174374.
• Gleditsch, Nils Petter (July 2015). "Democracy and Peace". In Gleditsch, Nils Petter (ed.). Pioneer in the Analysis of War and Peace. SpringerBriefs on Pioneers in Science and Practice. 29. New York City, New York: Springer. pp. 61–70. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-03820-9_4. ISBN 9783319038193.
• Górka, Marek (2017). "Polityka antyterrorystyczna jako dylemat demokracji liberalnej" [Anti-Terrorism Policy As a Dilemma of Liberal Democracy]. Czasopisma Marszalek (in Polish). Koszalin, Poland: Politechnika Koszalińska: 62–89. doi:10.15804/siip201704.

External links[]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Rudolph Rummel

• Collection of essays on Rummel – edited by Nils Petter Gleditsch (2017)
• Archive Blog Topical Outline – topic and theme index to Rummel's blog posts
• Freedom's Peace archive – Rummel's blog (2004–2008)
• Why This "A freedomists View" Blog? – Rummel's blog (2008–2013)
• Why A New "Democratic Peace" Blog? – Rummel's blog (2008–2013)
• Communist Body Count – chart of Rummel's estimates
• Nazi Body Count – chart of Rummel's estimates