The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

by Steven Pinker

  11. Conflict Catalog: Brecke, 1999, 2002; Long & Brecke, 2003.

  12. PRIO Battle Deaths Dataset: Lacina & Gleditsch, 2005; http://www.prio.no/CSCW/Datasets/Armed-Conflict/Battle-Deaths/.

  13. Related conflict datasets: UCDP: http://www.prio.no/CSCW/Datasets/Armed-Conflict/UCDP-PRIO/. SIPRI: www.sipri.org, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2009. Human Security Report Project: http://www.hsrgroup.org/; Human Security Centre, 2005, 2006; Human Security Report Project, 2007, 2008, 2009.

  14. Categories of armed conflict: Human Security Report Project, 2008, p. 10; Hewitt, Wilkenfeld, & Gurr, 2008; Lacina, 2009.

  15. Genocide more destructive: The calculation that genocide killed more people in the 20th century than war was first performed by Rummel, 1994, replicated by White, 2005a, and captured in the title of Goldhagen’s 2009 book on genocide, Worse than war. Matthew White (in press) points out that the comparison depends on how one classifies wartime genocides, which make up half the genocide deaths. Most deaths in the Holocaust, for example, depended on Germany’s conquest of Europe. If wartime genocides are added to battle deaths, then wars are worse, 105 million to 40 million. If they are lumped with peacetime genocides, then genocides are worse, 81 million to 64 million. (Neither figure includes deaths from famines.)

  16. Genocide databases: Eck & Hultman, 2007; Harff, 2003, 2005; Rummel, 1994, 1997; “One-Sided Violence Dataset” in http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/datasets/.

  17. Death categories: PRIO Documentation of Coding Decisions, Lacina, 2009, pp. 5–6; Human Security Report Project, 2008.

  18. Concept of causation: Pinker, 2007b, pp. 65–73, 208–25.

  19. World War I and the 1918 flu pandemic: Oxford et al., 2002.

  20. Low rate of battle deaths: Average for 2000–2005, from the state-based battle-death figures reported in Human Security Report Project, 2007, based on the UCDP/PRIO dataset, Gleditsch et al., 2002. Population figures are from International Data Base, U.S. Census Bureau, 2010c.

  21. Mean homicide rate: Krug et al., 2002, p. 10.

  22. All death figures in these paragraphs are taken from the PRIO dataset: Gleditsch et al., 2002; Lacina, 2009; Lacina & Gleditsch, 2005. The dataset differs slightly from the UCDP/PRIO dataset that went into the three graphs: Human Security Centre, 2006; Human Security Report Project, 2007.

  23. Interstate wars: PRIO New war dataset, “Best Estimates” for battle fatalities. Gleditsch et al., 2002; Lacina, 2009.

  24. China’s peaceful rise: Bijian, 2005; Weede, 2010; Human Security Report Project, 2011. Turkey’s “zero problems with neighbors” policy: “Ahmet Davutoglu,” Foreign Policy, Dec. 2010, p. 45. Brazilian boast: S. Glasser, “The FP Interview: The Soft-Power Power” (interview with Celso Amorim), Foreign Policy, Dec. 2010, p. 43.

  25. East Asian peace: Human Security Report Project, 2011, chaps. 1, 3.

  26. Decreasing lethality of civil wars: Marshall & Cole, 2009, p. 114.

  27. Declining lethality of all wars: Human Security Report Project, 2009, p. 2.

  28. Poverty and war: Human Security Centre, 2005, p. 152, using data from Macartan Humphreys and Ashutosh Varshney.

  29. Poverty may not cause violent resource competition: Fearon & Laitin, 2003; Theisen, 2008.

  30. War as development in reverse: Human Security Report Project, 2008, p. 5; Collier, 2007.

  31. Richer governments can keep the peace: Human Security Report Project, 2011, chaps. 1, 3.

  32. Structural variables change slowly: Human Security Report Project, 2007, p. 27.

  33. Police-induced love: Quoted in Goldhagen, 2009, p. 212.

  34. Bad policing: Fearon & Laitin, 2003; Mueller, 2004a.

  35. He’s our S.O.B.: Roosevelt may not have originated the trope; see http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=8204.

  36. Proxy wars only part of the decline: Human Security Centre, 2005, p. 153.

  37. Mao indifferent to deaths: Quoted in Glover, 1999, p. 297.

  38. Mao OK with half of humanity dying: Quoted in Mueller, 2010a.

  39. Vietnamese willingness to absorb casualties: Mueller, 2004a, pp. 76–77. American misestimation: Blight & Lang, 2007.

  40. Grow beards or remain in Europe: C. J. Chivers & M. Schwirtz, “Georgian president vows to rebuild army,” New York Times, Aug. 24, 2008.

  41. Anocracies: Human Security Report Project, 2007, 2008; Marshall & Cole, 2009.

  42. The trouble with anocracies: Marshall & Cole, 2008. See also Pate, 2008, p. 31.

  43. Distribution of anocracies: Human Security Report Project, 2008, pp. 48–49.

  44. Resource curse: Collier, 2007; Faris, 2007; Ross, 2008.

  45. Bottom billion in 14th century: Collier, 2007, p. 1.

  46. Remnants of war: Mueller, 2004a, p. 1.

  47. General Butt Naked: Mueller, 2004a, p. 103.

  48. Statistics of civil wars: Fearon & Laitin, 2003, p. 76.

  49. Improvement in African governments: Human Security Report Project, 2007, pp. 26–27.

  50. African democratic leaders: R. Rotberg, “New breed of African leader,” Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 9, 2002.

  51. International pressure: Human Security Report Project, 2007, pp. 28–29; Human Security Centre, 2005, pp. 153–55.

  52. Democracies don’t have large civil wars: Gleditsch, 2008; Lacina, 2006.

  53. Globalization reduces civil conflict: Blanton, 2007; Bussman & Schneider, 2007; Gleditsch, 2008, pp. 699–700.

  54. Peacekeeping: Fortna, 2008; Goldstein, 2011.

  55. Civil wars accumulated: Hewitt et al., 2008, p. 24; Human Security Report Project, 2008, p. 45. Rates of onset and termination: Fearon & Laitin, 2003.

  56. Rise of peacekeeping and international activism: Human Security Centre, 2005, pp. 153–55; Fortna, 2008; Gleditsch, 2008; Goldstein, 2011.

  57. Blessed are the peacekeepers: Fortna, 2008, p. 173.

  58. Peace and cocktail parties: Fortna, 2008, p. 129.

  59. “If Kabbah go”: Fortna, 2008, p. 140.

  60. Peacekeepers save face: Fortna, 2008, p. 153.

  61. Lack of record-keeping by the UN: Human Security Centre, 2005, p. 19.

  62. Warlord death count: Rummel, 1994, p. 94.

  63. Decline of deaths in nonstate conflicts: Human Security Report Project, 2007, pp. 36–37; Human Security Report Project, 2011.

  64. Iraq body counts: Fischer, 2008.

  65. Democratic Republic of the Congo: The DRC total of 147,618 is the sum of the “best estimate” battle deaths from 1998 through 2008. The all-wars total of 9.4 million is the geometric mean of the sums of the low and high battle-death estimates. Both from the PRIO Battle Deaths Dataset, 1946–2008, Version 3.0, http://www.prio.no/CSCW/Datasets/Armed-Conflict/Battle-Deaths/, Lacina & Gleditsch, 2005.

  66. Myth of reversal in civilian war deaths: Human Security Centre, 2005, p. 75; Goldstein, 2011; Roberts, 2010; White, in press.

  67. Civilian deaths in the Civil War: Faust, 2008.

  68. Lancet study: Burnham et al., 2006.

  69. Bias in epidemiological studies: Human Security Report Project, 2009; Johnson et al., 2008; Spagat, Mack, Cooper, & Kreutz, 2009.

  70. Fudge factor: Bohannon, 2008.

  71. Retrospective surveys of war deaths: Obermeyer, Murray, & Gakidou, 2008.

  72. The trouble with surveys: Spagat et al., 2009.

  73. Claim of 5.4 million deaths in DRC: Coghlan et al., 2008.

  74. Problems with DRC estimate: Human Security Report Project, 2009.

  75. Famine and disease decline during war: Human Security Report Project, 2009.

  76. Lives saved by vaccination: Human Security Report Project, 2009, p. 3.

  77. Indirect deaths have probably decreased: Human Security Report Project, 2009, p. 27.

  78. Definitions of genocide, politicide, democide: Rummel, 1994, p. 31. Reviews of genocide: Chalk & Jonassohn, 1990; Chirot & McCauley, 2006; Glover, 1999; Goldhagen, 2009; Harff, 2005; Kiernan, 2007; Payne, 2004; Power, 2002; Rummel, 19
94; Valentino, 2004.

  79. 170 million victims of democide: Rummel, 1994, 1997.

  80. Rummel’s highball estimates: White, 2010c, note 4; Dulić, 2004a, 2004b; Rummel, 2004.

  81. More conservative estimate of democide victims: White, 2005a, in press.

  82. Democides in wartime: White, in press; see also note 15, this chapter.

  83. Mass drownings: Bell, 2007a, pp. 182–83; Payne, 2004, p. 54.

  84. Einsatzgruppen more lethal than gas chambers: Goldhagen, 2009, p. 124. Earlier mobile killing squads: Keegan, 1993, p. 166.

  85. Tutsi techniques of mass killing: Goldhagen, 2009, p. 120.

  86. What “razing” meant: Chalk & Jonassohn, 1990, p. 7.

  87. Biblical starvation: Deuteronomy 28:52–57; translation from Kugel, 2007, pp. 346–47.

  88. Torture and mutilation during democides: Goldhagen, 2009; Power, 2002; Rummel, 1994.

  89. Artistically cruel: Dostoevsky, 1880/2002, p. 238.

  90. Cultural Revolution death toll: Rummel, 1994, p. 100. Though see also Harff, 2003, who gives a more conservative estimate.

  91. Red Guards ransacking: Glover, 1999, p. 290.

  92. Christian Wirth: Glover, 1999, p. 342.

  93. Psychology of categories: Pinker, 1997, pp. 306–13; Pinker, 1999/2011, chap. 10.

  94. Accuracy of stereotypes: Jussim, McCauley, & Lee, 1995; Lee, Jussim, & McCauley, 1995; McCauley, 1995.

  95. Applying stereotypes categorically when pressured: Jussim et al., 1995.

  96. Categories reflect attitudes: Jussim et al., 1995; Lee et al., 1995; McCauley, 1995.

  97. Essentializing social groups: Gelman, 2005; Gil-White, 1999; Haslam, Rothschild, & Ernst, 2000; Hirschfeld, 1996; Prentice & Miller, 2007.

  98. Taxonomies of motives for democide: Chalk & Jonassohn, 1990; Chirot & McCauley, 2006; Goldhagen, 2009; Harff, 2003; Valentino, 2004.

  99. Genocide for convenience: Goldhagen, 2009.

  100. Roman massacre of Alexandrian Jews: Kiernan, 2007, p. 14.

  101. Hobbesian trap in former Yugoslavia: Glover, 1999; Goldhagen, 2009.

  102. Aristotle on hatred: Quoted in Chirot & McCauley, 2006, pp. 72–73.

  103. Jivaro genocide: Quoted in Daly & Wilson, 1988, p. 232.

  104. Fandi genocide: Quoted in Daly & Wilson, 1988, pp. 231–32.

  105. Metaphor and analogy in cognition: Pinker, 2007b, chap. 5.

  106. Vermin metaphors: Chirot & McCauley, 2006; Goldhagen, 2009; Kane, 1999; Kiernan, 2007.

  107. “Kill the nits”: Kane, 1999. Quote from Kiernan, 2007, p. 606.

  108. Yuki: Quoted in Chalk & Jonassohn, 1990, p. 198.

  109. Cheyenne: Quoted in Kiernan, 2007, p. 606; Kane, 1999.

  110. Biological metaphors for Jews: Chirot & McCauley, 2006, pp. 16, 42; Goldhagen, 2009.

  111. Psychology of disgust: Curtis & Biran, 2001; Rozin & Fallon, 1987; Rozin, Markwith, & Stoess, 1997.

  112. Moralization of disgust: Haidt, 2002; Haidt et al., 2000; Haidt, Koller, & Dias, 1993; Rozin et al., 1997; Shweder, Much, Mahapatra, & Park, 1997. See also “Morality and Taboo” in chap. 9 of this book.

  113. Primo Levi, The drowned and the saved, quoted in Glover, 1999, pp. 88–89.

  114. Dehumanization and demonization in genocide: Goldhagen, 2009. See also Haslam, 2006.

  115. Murderous ideology: Epigraph for this chapter, from Solzhenitsyn, 1973/1991, pp. 173–74.

  116. Ancestry myths: Geary, 2002.

  117. Intuitive economics: Caplan, 2007; Caplan & Miller, 2010; Fiske, 1991, 1992, 2004a; Sowell, 1980, 2005.

  118. Mobility of middlemen minorities: Sowell, 1996.

  119. Violence against middlemen minorities: Chirot, 1994; Courtois et al., 1999; Glover, 1999; Horowitz, 2001; Sowell, 1980, 2005.

  120. Marxism and Christianity: Chirot & McCauley, 2006, pp. 142–43.

  121. Nazism and the book of Revelation: Chirot & McCauley, 2006, p. 144. See also Ericksen & Heschel, 1999; Goldhagen, 1996; Heschel, 2008; Steigmann-Gall, 2003.

  122. Psychological traits of utopian tyrants: Chirot, 1994; Glover, 1999; Oakley, 2007.

  123. Mao’s callousness: Glover, 1999, p. 291.

  124. Mao’s harebrained schemes: Chirot & McCauley, 2006, p. 144; Glover, 1999, pp. 284–86.

  125. Neighboring ethnic groups usually don’t commit genocide: Brown, 1997; Fearon & Laitin, 1996; Harff, 2003; Valentino, 2004.

  126. Germans anti-Semitic but not genocidal: Valentino, 2004, p. 24.

  127. Democides committed by armed minority: Mueller, 2004a; Payne, 2005; Valentino, 2004.

  128. Division of labor in democides: Valentino, 2004. See also Goldhagen, 2009.

  129. Genocides end when leaders die or are toppled: Valentino, 2004.

  130. Ancient historians: Chalk & Jonassohn, 1990, p. 58.

  131. Genocide as old as history: Chalk & Jonassohn, 1990, p. xvii.

  132. Table of contents of genocides: Kiernan, 2007, p. 12.

  133. Democide counts: Rummel, 1994, pp. 45, 70; see also Rummel, 1997, for the raw data. The numerical precision in his estimates is not intended to be an accurate count but to allow others to verify his sources and calculations.

  134. Increase Mather praises genocide: Chalk & Jonassohn, 1990, p. 180.

  135. Moabites return the favor: Payne, 2004, p. 47.

  136. Immortal soul justifies murder: Bhagavad-Gita, 1983, pp. 74, 87, 106, 115, quoted in Payne, 2004, p. 51.

  137. Cromwell: Quoted in Payne, 2004, p. 53.

  138. Parliamentary reaction: Quoted in Payne, 2004, p. 53.

  139. Voice in the wilderness: Quoted in Kiernan, 2007, pp. 82–85.

  140. Military codes of honor: Chirot & McCauley, 2006, pp. 101–2. Nothing wrong with genocide: Payne, 2004, pp. 54–55; Chalk & Jonassohn, 1990, pp. 199, 213–14; Goldhagen, 2009, p. 241.

  141. Roosevelt on Indians: Courtwright, 1996, p. 109.

  142. Lawrence and lethal chamber: Carey, 1993, p. 12.

  143. Extermination of the Japanese: Mueller, 1989, p. 88.

  144. Origins of the word genocide: Chalk & Jonassohn, 1990.

  145. Holocaust denial: Payne, 2004, p. 57.

  146. Novelty of genocide memoirs: Chalk & Jonassohn, 1990, p. 8.

  147. Conception of history: Chalk & Jonassohn, 1990, p. 8.

  148. Rummel’s estimation methods: Rummel, 1994, pp. xvi–xx; Rummel, 1997. See also White, 2010c, note 4, for caveats.

  149. Definition of “democide”: Rummel, 1994, chap 2.

  150. Great Leap Forward: Rummel has since changed his mind because of revelations that Mao knew about the devastation as it was taking place (Rummel, 2002), but I will stick with his original numbers.

  151. Pseudo-governments versus recognized governments: White, 2010c, note 4.

  152. Governments prevent more deaths than they cause: White, 2007.

  153. Death tolls from major democides: Rummel, 1994, p. 4.

  154. Democratic, authoritarian, and totalitarian governments and their death tolls: Rummel, 1997, p. 367.

  155. Death rates from democratic, authoritarian, and totalitarian governments: Rummel, 1994, p. 15.

  156. Totalitarian versus democratic governments: Rummel, 1994, p. 2.

  157. Form of government matters: Rummel, 1997, pp. 6–10; see also Rummel, 1994.

  158. Problem and solution of democide: Rummel, 1994, p. xxi.

  159. Hemoclysm: Note that figure 6–7 double-counts some of the deaths in figure 6–1, because Rummel classifies many civilian battle deaths as democides. Also double-counted are some of the deaths in Matthew White’s table on p. 195, which folds wartime genocides into the total count for wars.

  160. Trends in democide and democracy: Rummel, 1997, p. 471. Rummel’s regression analyses supporting this point, however, are problematic.

  161. Perpetrators of Rwanda genocide: Mueller, 2004a, p. 100.

  162. Rwanda genocide was preventable: Goldhagen, 2009; Mueller, 2004a; Power, 2002.

  163. New genocide dataset: Harff
, 2003, 2005; Marshall et al., 2009.

  164. UCDP One-sided Violence Dataset: Kreutz, 2008; Kristine & Hultman, 2007; http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/datasets/.

  165. Mass killings in mid-1960s to late 1970s: Death figures are geometric means of the ranges in table 8.1 in Harff, 2005, except Darfur, which is taken by converting the magnitude entries from the PITF database to the geometric means of the ranges spelled out in Marshall et al., 2009, and summing them for the years 2003 through 2008.

  166. Overestimated genocide death tolls: The Bosnian massacres, for example, probably killed closer to 100,000 than 200,000 people; Nettelfield, 2010. On conflict numbers, see Andreas & Greenhill, 2010.

  167. Risk factors for democide: Harff, 2003, 2005.

  168. Effects of instability: Harff, 2003, p. 62.

  169. Pathways to democide: Harff, 2003, p. 61.

  170. Hitler read Marx: Watson, 1985. Fraternal twins: P. Chaunu, cited in Besançon, 1998. See also Bullock, 1991; Courtois et al., 1999; Glover, 1999.

  171. Decline of democide and fade of communism: Valentino, 2004, p. 150.

  172. Utopian omelets: Sometimes attributed to the journalist Walter Duranty, a New York Times correspondent in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, but identified as “Anonymous: French” by Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 17th ed.

  173. Humans are not eggs: Pipes, 2003, p. 158.

  174. Fewer democides in the coming century: Valentino, 2004, p. 151.

  175. No Hitler, no Holocaust: Himmelfarb, 1984.

  176. No Stalin, no Purge: Quoted in Valentino, 2004, p. 61.

  177. No Mao, no Cultural Revolution: Quoted in Valentino, 2004, p. 62.

  178. Worldwide terrorism toll: Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (dataset no longer publicly available), reported in Human Security Centre, 2006, p. 16.

  179. Existential threats: See Mueller, 2006, for quotations.

  180. Prophecy of terrorist doom: R. A. Clarke, “Ten years later,” Atlantic, Jan.–Feb. 2005.

  181. Terrorist attacks fall into a power-law distribution: Clauset, Young, & Gleditsch, 2007.

  182. Rarity of destructive terrorist attacks: Global Terrorism Database, START (National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, 2010; http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/), accessed on Apr. 21, 2010. The figure excludes terrorist attacks associated with the Rwanda genocide.