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POWER KILLS:
Democracy as a
Method of Nonviolence

By R.J. Rummel

New Brunswick, N.J.:
Transaction Publishers, 1997


CONTENTS



Figures and Tables
Preface

1. Introduction [Summary and Conclusion]

Appendix 1.1. Questions and Answers on the Fact that Democracies Do Not Make War on Each Other

PART I: THE MOST IMPORTANT FACT OF OUR TIME

Introduction to Part I
2. No War between Democracies
3. Democracy Limits Bilateral Violence
4. Democracies are Least Warlike
5. Democracies are Most Internally Peaceful
6. Democracies Don't Murder Their Citizens

PART II: WHY ARE DEMOCRACIES NONVIOLENT?


7. A New Fact?
8. What is to be Explained? [On The Nature of Democracy]
9. First Level Explanation: The People's Will
10. Second Level Explanation: Cross-Pressures, Exchange Culture, and In-Group Perception
11. Third Level Explanation I: Social Field and Freedom
12. Third Level Explanation II: Antifield and Power
13. Power Kills [Why Does Power Kill?]

References
Names index
Subject Index

FIGURES AND TABLES

Figures

Figure 3.1. The Less Democratic Two Regimes, The More Severe Their Wars 1900-1980

Figure 4.1. The Less a Regime is Democratic, The More Severe Its Foreign Violence 1900-1980

Figure 4.2. The Less Democratic a Regime, The More Severe Its Foreign Violence; Selected Sample 1900-1987

Figure 4.3. Regardless of Wealth, The Less Democratic a Regime, The More Intense Its Foreign Violence; Selected Sample

Figure 4.4. Regardless of Capability, The Less Democratic a Regime, The More Intense Its Foreign Violence; Selected Sample 1900-1987

Figure 5.1. The Less Democratic a Regime, The More Severe Its Internal Political Violence Selected Sample 1900-1987

Figure 6.1. The Distribution of Megamurderers and Their Annual Rates

Figure 6.2. The Less Democratic and More Totalitarian a Regime, the More Its Tends to Murder Its Own Citizens

Figure 8.1. The Political Triangle: Societies and Associated Political Regimes

Tables

Table 3.1. The More Democratic Two Regimes, The Less Intensely They Fight Each Other 1900-1980

Table 3.2. It is No Accident That the More Democratic Two Regimes the Less Deadly Their Wars 1900-1988

Table 4.1. The More Democratic A Regime, The Less Intense Its Foreign Violence 1900-1980

Table 4.2. The Less Democratic A Regime, The More Intense Its Foreign Violence; Selected Sample 1900-1987

Table 4.3. Regardless of Wealth, The Less Democratic A Regime, The More Intense Its Foreign Violence, Selected Sample 1900-1987

Table 4.4. Regardless of Capability, The Less Democratic A Regime, The More Intense Its Foreign Violence; Selected Sample 1900-1987

Table 5.1. Empirical Studies Overwhelmingly Find That Democracies Have the Least Internal Violence

Table 5.2. The Less Democratic A Regime, The More Severe Its Internal Political Violence; Selected Sample 1900-1987

Table 6.1. Governments Have Murdered Near 170,000,000 People in Our Century

PREFACE

I began research on this book in 1956 as an undergraduate at the University of Hawaii. By then I had selected political science as my major with an emphasis on international relations. My true interest was in understanding and doing something about the legal killing called war and it was a happy surprise to discover that I could actually focus my studies on the history, conditions, and causes of war. Through undergraduate and graduate term papers, my MA thesis and Ph.D. dissertation in 1963, and the research since, this has been my ultimate concern. This research has taken numerous paths and has expanded to understand violence and conflict generally and their possible explanations, but always down the road and until recent years I hoped to have something specific to recommend about ending war. But in the mid-1980s I was shocked to discover that several times more people were killed in democide (genocide and mass murder) by governments than died in warfare. And with that my aim broadened to help end or at least lessen this killing as well.

This book presents the sum of that research. And, I believe, I finally can offer what appears a most realistic and practical solution to war, democide, and other collective violence.


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