Update Alert No. 5
8 March, 2011

Meet the UCDP at the ISA convention!

Next week, the UCDP will participate in the International Studies Association (ISA) annual convention, this year held in Montreal, Canada, on 16-19 March 2011. The UCDP will present its new georeferenced data and display its database in the exhibit hall, booth 73, as well as participate in several panels (see below).

Cultural Demography and Conflict

Wednesday 16th March 10:30 AM – 12:15 PM, room WB15

In the paper "Differential Population Dynamics, Inequality and Political Violence in India", Erika Forsberg (Uppsala University), Gudrun Østby (Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), and Monica Duffy Toft (Harvard University) conduct a sub-national analysis of states in India. The study explores the role of differential growth, horizontal inequality, and youth bulges on the extent and location of political violence, using the new events data from UCDP-GED.

New Approaches to Intrastate Conflict

Wednesday 16th March 1:45 PM – 3:30 PM, room WC10

The new UCDP georeferenced data will be presented in the paper “Climate Change, Environmental Stress, and Violent Conflict: Tests Introducing the New Uppsala Conflict Data Program Georeferenced Event Dataset (UCDP GED)”, written by Erik Melander and Ralph Sundberg.

Comparing Types of Sub-State Violence

Wednesday 16th March 1:45 PM – 3:30 PM, room WC14

In the paper "Killing Civilians in Civil War: Testing Competing Theories with Geo-referenced Data", Hanne Fjelde and Lisa Hultman use UCDP's geo-referenced events data on one- sided violence to examine influence of ethnic ties on civilian targeting in civil war.

Good Old Fashioned Diplomacy: The Role of the State in Mediation

Wednesday 16th March 1:45 PM – 3:30 PM, room WC17

In the paper "Managing Communal Conflicts: The Role of the State", Emma Johansson (PhD candidate, Uppsala University) uses UCDP non-state conflict data complemented with additional coding to investigate under what circumstances governments can play a constructive role in managing communal conflicts within their territory.

Non-State Actors in Civil Wars: Advancement and Challenges Using New Data

Thursday 17th March 10:30 AM – 12:15 PM, room TB23

New data on external support in armed conflict and third party peacemaking (UCDP MIC), as well as a new data collection project on violence against peacemakers (UCDP PAR), will be presented in the following three papers:

External Support in Armed Conflict: Presenting a New Dataset, written by Lotta Themnér, Stina Högbladh and Therése Pettersson.

Peacemakers at Risk: Presenting a New Data Collection Project on Violence against Third Party Interveners in Sub-Saharan Africa, written by Sara Lindberg.

Managing Intrastate Conflict (MIC) 1993-2004: A New Dataset, written by Erik Melander and Nina von Uexküll.

Also, Joakim Kreutz and Anders Themnér will present a paper, using new UCDP data, exploring how post-conflict concessions to rebel elites and foot soldiers influence the risk of civil war recurrence.

In the paper "Rebels Divided: Fragmentation of the Rebel Side in Civil Wars, 1975 – 2008", Hanne Fjelde and Desiree Nilsson use UCDP data in a quantitative study of the determinants of rebel group fragmentation.

Events Data in the Study of Conflict

Friday 18th March 10:30 AM – 12:15 PM, room FB13

Joakim Kreutz presents a paper, using new UCDP data, exploring how global event data can be used to investigate the short-term effect of negotiations and external shocks on conflict dynamics.

Understanding Communal Violence

Saturday 19th March 10:30 AM – 12:15 PM, room SB44

Kristine Eck and Joakim Kreutz present a paper, using new UCDP data, on how political regime change increases the risk of non-political communal violence.

Publications

Understanding Peace Research - Methods and Challenges

Understanding Peace Research - Methods and Challenges, ed. by Kristine Höglund and Magnus Öberg (Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University), was published in February 2011. The book provides a comprehensive overview of different methods and sources of information-gathering for peace and conflict students and researchers, as well as the challenges presented by such work.

The UCDP contributes to the book with the following four chapters: “The Origins of Contemporary Peace Research" (by Peter Wallensteen), "Gathering Conflict Information Using News Resources” (by Margareta Sollenberg and Magnus Öberg), "News Reports versus Written Narratives: Collecting information using different types of empirical sources" (by Frida Möller) and ”Systematic Data Collection – Experiences from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program” (by Ralph Sundberg and Lotta Themnér).

Coming updates

The UCDP External Support dataset

The UCDP External Support dataset will be released in late March. The unit of analysis in the dataset is a yearly warring party, and it lists all the actors supplying said party with support in any given year. Furthermore, the support provided is divided into different categories. The dataset covers all actors involved in inter- and intrastate conflicts in the period 1975–2009.

Ongoing projects

UCDP Georeferenced Event Dataset (UCDP GED)

The first version of the UCDP GED, which contains a subset including the entirety of sub-Saharan Africa, is scheduled for release in late spring or early summer. Additional subsets will be released throughout the year as they are completed.