| Revision as of 12:47, 15 February 2006 editFWBOarticle (talk | contribs)3,184 editsm →Criticisms← Previous edit | Revision as of 13:48, 15 February 2006 edit undoUltramarine (talk | contribs)33,507 edits Please respect Npov, avoid weasel words and cite who criticzes Rummel, added section on his political viewsNext edit → | ||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
| ] | ] | ||
| '''Rudolph Joseph Rummel''' (born ], ]) is ] of ] at the ]. He has assembled data on wars, conflicts, and governmental ] and coined the term ]. He was one of the first to do research on the ]. | '''Rudolph Joseph Rummel''' (born ], ]) is ] of ] at the ]. He has assembled data on wars, conflicts, and governmental ] and coined the term ]. He was one of the first to do research on the ]. | ||
| Line 23: | Line 23: | ||
| ==Criticisms== | ==Criticisms== | ||
| === Political views === | |||
| Rummel is a strong supporter of current American policy of war on terror in general and war and subsequent occapation of Iraq in particular. However, his advocacy extend to what even the most ardent supporter of Bush's policy might consider to be extremist. In his website, he suggested that the media, which he considered to be biased, to be put under state control. In the article titled "Censor the Media" he stated that | |||
| Rummel is a strong supporter of spreading liberal democracy and a former ]. He is also an outspoken critic of ], although he also severely criticises right-wing dictatorships and the democides that occurred under ]. Controversially in some circles, he also strongly supports the current ] and the ], seeing this as part of spreading democracy. | |||
| "This is war. If the media has its way and we withdraw immediately from Iraq, or even begin staged withdrawals now with a timetable, the terrorists win. With the support of Syria, this is assured. Then, the resulting democide by the victorious terrorists may well come close to that in South Vietnam after we withdrew. And, so heartened by our lack of will, the terrorists throughout the world could only get more state support, including even possible help on nukes from North Korea or China (somehow, it has been forgotten that China is still ruled by its Communist Party, and our enemy)." | |||
| "In both World Wars I and II, the media reports on the war were strictly controlled. They must be again. Just in lives alone that might be saved thereby, it is necessary. How far should this go? I would use the censorship of World War II as criteria. This would mean, for example, that news reports of secret commando operations in Iran, or the employment of a secret weapon, or . . . well, you get the idea." | |||
| === General criticisms === | === General criticisms === | ||
| Line 45: | Line 42: | ||
| Another example of alleged manipulation by this critic: Rummel estimates the death toll in the ] as between 3,000 and 56,000. Official US figures were just over 3,000 and a German commission found 4,532. The high figure of 56,000 also merited the notation "probably much lower" in Rummel's extracts. Rummel has responded that this is misleading. His estimates generally are close to the ones given above and he ends up with a most probable estimate of 6,000. The low and high are meant to be the most unlikely low and high, and thus to bracket the probable true count. It is to determine these lows and highs that he includes what some others might consider absurd estimates. | Another example of alleged manipulation by this critic: Rummel estimates the death toll in the ] as between 3,000 and 56,000. Official US figures were just over 3,000 and a German commission found 4,532. The high figure of 56,000 also merited the notation "probably much lower" in Rummel's extracts. Rummel has responded that this is misleading. His estimates generally are close to the ones given above and he ends up with a most probable estimate of 6,000. The low and high are meant to be the most unlikely low and high, and thus to bracket the probable true count. It is to determine these lows and highs that he includes what some others might consider absurd estimates. | ||
| Rummel follow those scholars who argue that famines like the ] and the ] were deliberate and could have been avoided completely. Some argue that the adverse weather contributed to bad harvests during the ]. Plus localised famine was not a rare occurrence in China. Thus some part of the death toll may have been unavoidable and therefore not a democide. | |||
| Some argue that the adverse weather contributed to bad harvests during the Great Leap Forward. Plus localised famine was not a rare occurrence in China. Had the weather condition more favourable, there is a good possibility that the death from famine may be less because more grain may have stayed at the point of production. Then deathtoll would be combined result of the policy and the weather. The deathtoll can still be estimated but not the deathtoll caused by the policy itself. This methdology seems to be the case in many of Rummel's estimates. He gross over the complex factors of historical event and attribute all deathtoll to his target regime, which help to support his political theory. Critics claim that this is mere propaganda which gross over rigorous statistical principle. The supporter of Rummel point out that Rummel follow those scholars who argue that famines like the ] and the ] were deliberate and could have been avoided completely. | |||
| Rummel until recently did not classify the Great Leap Forward as democide. He believed that Mao's policies were largely responsible for the famine, but he was misled about it, and finally when he found out, he stopped it and changed his policies. Thus not an intentional famine and thus not a democide. New information from '']'' states that Mao knew about the famine from the beginning and didn't care. Eventually he had to be stopped by a meeting of 7,000 top Communist Party members. Thus the famine was intentional and a democide. | Rummel until recently did not classify the Great Leap Forward as democide. He believed that Mao's policies were largely responsible for the famine, but he was misled about it, and finally when he found out, he stopped it and changed his policies. Thus not an intentional famine and thus not a democide. New information from '']'' states that Mao knew about the famine from the beginning and didn't care. Eventually he had to be stopped by a meeting of 7,000 top Communist Party members. Thus the famine was intentional and a democide. | ||
Revision as of 13:48, 15 February 2006
Rudolph Joseph Rummel (born October 21, 1932) is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii. He has assembled data on wars, conflicts, and governmental murder and coined the term democide. He was one of the first to do research on the democratic peace theory.
Career
Rudolph Joseph 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 Prize for Peace . Received the Susan Strange Award of the International Studies Association for having intellectually most challenged the field in 1999. Received the Lifetime Achievement Award 2003 from the Conflict Processes Section, American Political Science Association. He has written about two-dozen books and over 100 professional articles.
Democratic peace
Rummell was one of the earliest to do research on the democratic peace theory. According to his research, no wars have been waged between well-established liberal democracies. Wars are conflicts causing at least 1000 battle deaths. By democracy is meant liberal democracy, where those who hold power are elected in competitive elections with a secret ballot and wide franchise (loosely understood as including at least 2/3rds 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. Well established means that a regime had been democratic long enough for it to be stable and democratic practices to become established. In practice, this means that the democracy should be older than three to five years. He discusses some claimed exceptions to this peace here.
Democide
Rummel is the creator of the term democide: "the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder". He has further stated: "I 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 the may soon die of malnutrition, unattended disease, and forced labor, or deporting them into wastelands where they may die rapidly from exposure and disease."
His research shows that the death toll from this is far greater than the death toll from war. After studying over 8,000 reports of government caused deaths, Rummel estimates that there have been 262 million victims of democide in the last century. According to his figures, six times as many people have died from the inflictions of people working for governments than have died in battle.
He argues that there is also a correlation 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. According to Rummel, "The more power a regime has, the more likely people will be killed. This is a major reason for promoting freedom." Rummel concludes: "Concentrated political power is the most dangerous thing on earth."
Rummel argues that the continuing increase in democracy worldwide will soon lead to an end to wars and democide, possibly around or even before the middle of this century. He has an extensive FAQ on his webpage, answering many questions and objections regarding the democratic peace and democide. He has also published book, Saving Lives, Enriching Life on his website. This book aims at popularizing his findings and is available as a free download.
Famine and Happiness
Rummel does not include famine in democide unless it is deliberate, like the Holodomor. However, he argues that there have been no famines in democracies, deliberate or not. As another argument for democracy, he points to research showing that average happiness in a nation increases with more democracy.
Criticisms
Political views
Rummel is a strong supporter of spreading liberal democracy and a former libertarian. He is also an outspoken critic of communism, although he also severely criticises right-wing dictatorships and the democides that occurred under colonialism. Controversially in some circles, he also strongly supports the current war on terror and the Iraq War, seeing this as part of spreading democracy.
General criticisms
Rummel excludes the current conflicts between Israel and Palestine as well as India and Pakistan. Rummel's defenders would argue that Palestine was never a real democracy until 2005, and that Pakistan is ruled by a strongman who wields a great deal of undemocratic power. Moreover, were Israel, itself born from the illegal storming of a British Protectorate, truly at war with Palestine, Palestine would be destroyed due to the enormous disparity of power, and if Pakistan and India were truly at war with each other then tens of millions would die. Rummel's real point is that democracies rarely go to war with each other, and liberal democracies (defined by free speech, free press, and universal franchise) never do.
One critic, John Grohol, claims that Rummel does not consider the number of deaths due to anarchy and the lack of government, through mechanisms such as civil conflict, the breakdown of society, and foreign invasion. Rummel has responded that this is false and that his estimates for each country include that for war dead and internal nondemocidal violence. Moreover, the most anarchical system may be international relations, wars of which he have tallied and included in his analysis.
Another point by the same critic is that Rummel is claimed to calculate the death toll by comparing the statistical data before and after a certain date and derive an estimate about the number of killings that occurred between. He is claimed to fail to establish evidence of actual killing. Rummel has responded that there is no indication of what estimates are claimed to be wrong. He uses all kinds of documents to establish democide, such as refugee reports, memoirs, biographies, historical analyses, actual exhumed body counts, records kept by the murderers themselves, and so on. He has tried to summarize all estimates available in the literature and many of these documents establish evidence of actual killing.
The same critic claims that it is a flaw in Rummel's statistical calculations that he doesn't use error margins. Rummel has responded that his data are not a sample but instead all estimates available in English for all nations over a period of a century, and available in the libraries he worked in, including the Library of Congress. Error margins are inappropriate when dealing with the universe of data and not a sample.
Yet another criticism by this critic is that Rummel's results are based on an absolute trust in statistical data and statistics are prone to errors. Rummel has responded that he is certainly aware that he presents an estimate. He argues that the estimates are accurate enough to be used in to establish the causes of democide and thus for moral criticism and in guiding policy. Some critics allege that he commits a classical error of statistics, that "Correlation implies causation". Correlations between democide and certain political systems do not prove that these political systems are the causes of democide. However, Rummel's research uses much more advanced statistical methods than calculating simple correlations. It is false to state that there is no way to infer the causal structure from statistical data.
Specific criticisms
The same critic thinks that the data that Rummel uses is questionable. For example, his Soviet death toll estimate(and especially his Gulag death toll) is claimed to be based on many outdated sources with exaggerated statistics. Rummel has made his calculations and sources available online. Note that they are from his published books and thus do not include new research and new sources available after the publication date. Regarding Stalin's victims Rummel's counts 43 million deaths inside and outside the Soviet Union. This is much higher than an often quoted figure of 20 million. Rummel has 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. Conquest's calculations excluded camp deaths after 1950, and before 1936; executions 1939-53; the vast deportation of the people of captive nations into the camps, and their deaths 1939-1953; the massive deportation within the Soviet Union of minorities 1941-1944; and their deaths; and those the Soviet Red Army and secret police executed throughout Eastern Europe after their conquest during 1944-1945 is omitted. Moreover, the Holodomor that killed 5 million in 1932-1934 is not included.
Another example of alleged manipulation by this critic: Rummel estimates the death toll in the Rheinwiesenlager as between 3,000 and 56,000. Official US figures were just over 3,000 and a German commission found 4,532. The high figure of 56,000 also merited the notation "probably much lower" in Rummel's extracts. Rummel has responded that this is misleading. His estimates generally are close to the ones given above and he ends up with a most probable estimate of 6,000. The low and high are meant to be the most unlikely low and high, and thus to bracket the probable true count. It is to determine these lows and highs that he includes what some others might consider absurd estimates.
Rummel follow those scholars who argue that famines like the Great Leap Forward and the Holodomor were deliberate and could have been avoided completely. Some argue that the adverse weather contributed to bad harvests during the Great Leap Forward. Plus localised famine was not a rare occurrence in China. Thus some part of the death toll may have been unavoidable and therefore not a democide.
Rummel until recently did not classify the Great Leap Forward as democide. He believed that Mao's policies were largely responsible for the famine, but he was misled about it, and finally when he found out, he stopped it and changed his policies. Thus not an intentional famine and thus not a democide. New information from Mao: the Unknown Story states that Mao knew about the famine from the beginning and didn't care. Eventually he had to be stopped by a meeting of 7,000 top Communist Party members. Thus the famine was intentional and a democide.
NOTE: Rudolph J Rummel has responded to some of this criticism on his blog Democratic Peace.
Selective list of books
- Death by Government
- Power Kills: Democracy As a Method of Nonviolence
- Reset: Never Again
- War & Democide: Never Happen (Never Again)
- China's Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900
External link
- Power Kills main site
- Democratic Peace - Rummel's blog
- Freedom's Nest - summary