About
R.J. Rummel

RUDOLPH J. RUMMEL, b, 1932, BA and MA from the University of Hawaii (1959, 1961); Ph.D. in Political Science (Northwestern University, 1963); Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, Omicron Delta Kappa. Taught at Indiana University (1963), Yale (1964-66), University of Hawaii (1966-1995); now Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Hawaii. Received numerous grants from NSF, ARPA, and the United States Peace Research Institute. Frequently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (see here). Received the Susan Strange Award of the International Studies Association for having intellectually most challenged the field in 1999; the Lifetime Achievement Award 2003 from the Conflict Processes Section, American Political Science Association; and the 2007 The International Association of Genocide Scholars' Award for Distinguished Lifetime Contribution to the Field of Genocide and Democide Studies and Prevention.

Wrote about two-dozen books and over 100 professional articles. Most recent books: Death By Government (Transaction Publications, 1994), The Miracle That Is Freedom (Martin Institute for Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution, University of Idaho, 1996), Power Kills (Transaction Publications, 1997), and Statistics of Democide (Center for National Security Law, 1997).

Through his undergraduate term papers, MA Thesis, Ph.D. dissertation, and academic career, R.J. Rummel has focused his research on the causes and conditions of collective violence and war with a view toward helping their resolution or elimination. He published his major results in Understanding Conflict and War, Vols. 1-5 (Sage Publications, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1979, and 1981). His conclusion was that "To eliminate war, to restrain violence, to nurture universal peace and justice, is to foster freedom (liberal democracy)." Given the supreme importance of this conclusion published in 1981, Rummel then 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 (as in his Death By Government). All this theoretical, empirical, and comparative research is documented in his final work, Power Kills, nominated for the 1998 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order.

Power Kills sums up Rummel's research on violence and reaffirms and extends his earlier work. In theory and fact, democracies do not (or virtually never) make war on each other; the more democratic two regimes, the less likely violence between them; the more democratic a regime, the less its overall foreign violence; and the more democratic a regime, the less its genocide and mass murder (which in this century has killed about four times the battle dead of all its foreign and domestic wars).

With the growing international interest and work on human security, in his latest work Rummel has documented and shown empirically that the power of freedom to improve human affairs extends as well to social and economic development, Not only is democratic freedom a method of nonviolence, it also is a means to wealth and prosperity. He shows, for example, that democracies never have a famine. He also goes beyond establishing these utilitarian benefits and shows that freedom is the basic right that people have aside from however it improves their lives. He has published the results of this research exclusively on this site as Saving Lives, Enriching Life.

In sum, then, all this research shows that democracy is a method of nonviolence--that power kills-and that freedom is not only a right, but that freedom also is an engine of wealth and prosperity. This research thus contributes to world order by showing empirically, historically, and theoretically that fostering liberal democracy is a route to global human security.

Rummel is now trying to widely communicate these results and their meaning for current events and foreign policy through his related Democratic Peace blog, and a Never Again series of alternative history novels.

See also Rummel's Curriculum Vitae; "An Exclusive Freeman Interview: Rudolph Rummel Talks About the Miracle of Liberty and Peace," THE FREEMAN 47 (July 1997), 396-403; and an August-September 1998 interview for the "Laissez-Faire Thought" web page.