The war that wasn't there

Managing unclear cases in conflict data

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4842998
AutoresJoakim Kreutz (0000-0003-0650-2127, Uppsala University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2015
Volumen52
Número1
Páginas120-124
Fecha de publicación2015-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Peace Research (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0022-3433 • E-ISSN: 1460-3578
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0022343314541845
OpenAlexW2110570763
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas7
Referencias citadas8

When collecting data, some observations will always be hard to confidently classify in accordance with stated definitions of war, civil conflict, or political violence. This research note draws on the experiences of the Uppsala Conflict Data Program in the last decade in managing such unclear cases. After explaining the difference between unclear and non-cases, I describe the data generating process and how this uncertainty is distributed over time in the data. This exercise reveals that the 1980s may have been more conflict-filled than the 1990s, challenging arguments about the stability of the bipolar global order as well as the sudden 'rise' of warfare in the immediate post-Cold War era. The final section suggests different ways that researchers may use existing information regarding unclear cases as a way to conceptualize the nature of civil strife without having to engage in additional data collection

Civil Conflict · Cold war · Computer security · Data collection · Data science · Economics · Operations research · Order (exchange) · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Process (computing) · Social science · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Computer Science · Engineering · Global Security and Public Health · Law · Peacebuilding and International Security · Political Conflict and Governance · Psychology