Power, process, and popular sovereignty Book

A pretty interesting book, though it is dated with a 1997 copyright. The disagreement that I would have with the author is related to the Muslim world, particularly the Arab Middle East and North Africa where the Arab Spring advanced by President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to overthrow dictators such as Mubarak in Egypt and Qadafi in Libya in favor of democracies, and the current state of war in Syria after an abortive attempt to unseat the Assad regime had the opposite effect than is advanced by Rummel's book. Democracy in those nations fostered great bloodshed, for the following reasons. Mubarak, Qadafi, and the Assad regime demanded a monopoly of force in their nations, which consisted of various Muslim sects and ethnicities and a minority Christian population. Once democracies were in place the majority Muslim population then began a program of eliminating Muslim minority sects and Christians. Thus, Rummel's view of democracy as a method of nonviolence seems to work well in the West and in those parts of the far East influenced by the West, such as Japan, Korea, and the Philippines, he needs to take a close look at the Middle East and the influence of Islam, in my opinion.