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J. David Singer, a globally recognized scholar of international politics, died Monday, December 28, 2009, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He was involved in an auto accident on September 22 and had been hospitalized since. At the time of his death, Singer was Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan, where he'd been on the faculty from 1958 until retiring in 2002. He was 84 years old.
Professor Singer was a pioneer in the scientific study of international politics. He was a vigorous advocate for research that was systematic, replicable, and based on empirical evidence. Of the scholars most frequently credited with the development of the quantitative empirical study of war, from Quincy Wright to Karl Deutsch (two of Singer's heroes and models), the contributions of J. David Singer to the scientific study of war are considered to be paramount.
Born in Brooklyn on December 7, 1925, his sixteenth birthday coincided with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The next year, Singer enlisted in the U.S. Navy as an aviation cadet. He served as a deck officer on the USS Missouri at the end of World War II and on the USS Newport News during the Korean War. In return for his military service, the G.I. Bill provided the education that led Singer to commit his career to ending the violence he witnessed as a citizen and in the Navy. He received his undergraduate degree from Duke University in 1946, where he also played tight-end on the football team. After serving in Korea, he went on to receive his Ph.D. from New York University in 1956. He was later a Ford Fellow at the University of Iowa, an instructor at Vassar College, a visiting Fellow at Harvard University, and a visiting professor at the U.S. Naval War College.
During his early career, Singer referred to himself as a "policy wonk and a public activist." His initial interest in international organizations, evidenced in his dissertation's focus on budgetary policies of the United Nations, rapidly shifted toward a more serious examination of American foreign policy and, in particular, the U.S. nuclear deterrence strategy. Singer's rejection of the dominant deterrence paradigm led to his being invited to testify before Senator Hubert Humphrey's subcommittee of...