Data Synthesis Paper

This paper reviews some of the datasets and quantitative research that are relevant to the research of the Conflict Research Programme

From:
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Published
1 July 2017
Country:
Congo (Democratic Republic), Iraq, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria
Document Type:
Literature Review
Theme:
Governance and Conflict
Authors:
Duursma, A

Abstract

This paper reviews some of the datasets and quantitative research that are relevant to the research of the Conflict Research Programme (CRP). Several different types of data – including conflict episode data, conflict incident data, lethality data, conflict networks data, and humanitarian/food security data – are considered.

The first part of the paper provides a brief background on how conflict data emerged, showing where the field is coming from. The subsequent section discusses how there has been a turn to disaggregated event conflict data and agency in recent years. This turn to agency fits the research purposes of the CRP, as a focus on agency is critical for studying the logics of conflict utilised by the CRP, namely the political marketplace, moral populism and ‘civicness’, along with public authority, namely the concern with authority at all levels including the state. These concepts are new to social science and therefore have not been directly measured. The study of the political marketplace is best suited to quantitative analysis because the constituent elements of a functional market, namely financial flows and budgets, transactions and prices, can in principle be measured either directly or by proxy, and are susceptible to mathematical modelling. Measurements of moral populism would of necessity be indirect or inferred, while ‘civicness’ could be measured through events such as ceasefires and humanitarian action. The paper concludes with identifying several potential avenues for future data-driven research by the CRP.

This work is part of the Conflict Research Programme managed by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and funded by the UK Department for International Development.

Citation

Duursma, Allard (2017) Data synthesis paper, July 2017. Conflict Research Programme, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.

Data Synthesis Paper (PDF, 907KB)

Updates to this page

Published 1 July 2017
Contents