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R.J. Rummel

R. J. Rummel
RJRummel.jpg
Born Rudolph Joseph Rummel
(1932-10-21)October 21, 1932
Cleveland, Ohio, United States
Died March 2, 2014(2014-03-02) (aged 81)
Kaneohe, Hawaii, United States
Education
Occupation Political scientist
Employer
Known for Research on war and conflict resolution
Website hawaii.edu/powerkills/

Rudolph Joseph Rummel (October 21, 1932 – March 2, 2014) was professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii. He spent his career studying data on collective violence and war with a view toward helping their resolution or elimination. Rummel coined the term democide for murder by government (compare genocide), such as the Stalinist purges and Mao's Cultural Revolution. His research suggests that six times as many people died from democide during the 20th century than in all that century's wars combined. He concluded that democracy is the form of government least likely to kill its citizens and that democracies do not wage war against each other. This is known as the democratic peace theory.

Rummel was the author of twenty-four scholarly books, and published his major results in Understanding Conflict and War (1975–81). 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). Other works include Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocides and Mass Murders 1917–1987 (1990); China's Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900 (1991); Democide: Nazi Genocide and Mass Murder (1992); Death by Government (1994); and Statistics of Democide (1997). Extracts, figures, and tables from the books, including his sources and details regarding the calculations, are available online on his website. Rummel also authored Factor Analysis Understanding (1970) and Understanding Correlation (1976).

In addition to his extensive research and data analysis, Rummel wrote the Never Again series of alternative-history novels, in which a secret society sends two lovers armed with fabulous wealth and modern weapons back to 1906 with orders to create a peaceful century.

Rudolph 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. He received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Hawaii in 1959 and 1961, respectively, and his Ph.D. in Political Science from Northwestern University in 1963.


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