Uppsala/PRIO Civil Conflict Data

This dataset is a collaborative project between the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University and the Centre for the Study of Civil War at PRIO. CSCW and Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) have collaborated in the production of a dataset of armed conflicts, both internal and external, in the period 1946 to the present. Armed conflict is defined as a contested incompatibility that concerns government and/or territory where the use of armed force between two parties, of which at least one is the government of a state, results in at least 25 battle-related deaths. This dataset is primarily intended for academic use in statistical and macrolevel research, and has been widely used since it was first made available, both by researchers and policy makers.

The Centre for Human Security at the Liu Centre for the Study of Global Issues, University of British Columbia has also funded an expanded PRIO/Uppsala data collection effort for its forthcoming Human Security Report, which tracks additional forms of social violence, such as intracommunal conflict or human rights abuse. PRIO houses the academic conflict dataset and is continually improving and expanding this resource.^{[ref 1]}

Variables and Subcategories

This dataset use indicators in the Conflict Variables category, within the Onset Indicators subcategory.

The dataset can answer questions like:

• What is the intensity of particular conflict, as indicated by battle-related deaths?
• What is the number of active conflicts in a given country-year?
• When is the incidence of intra-state war?
• When is the incidence of inter-state conflict?

Data Quality

The main critique of this dataset involves the use the variable battlefield deaths as a measure of onset and intensity of conflict. This indicator means that some types of armed violence fail to be captured in the dataset, or the dataset will code the intensity of the conflict at a lower level. In many insurgencies and terrorist campaigns, the actual battlefield deaths may be small in comparison to non-combatants killed in an effort to delegitimize the state. Therefore, this figure may not be an accurate reflection of the actual intensity or magnitude of the conflict. In most contemporary armed conflicts, the number of people killed on the battlefield is usually quite small compared with those who perish because fighting and looting shred public infrastructures, displace civilians, disrupt harvests and halt other economic activity, and prevent delivery of vital health and other services. For example, a recent study found that for every battle-related death in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, there are 62 non-violent deaths related to the conflict in the country, with malnutrition and a variety of diseases the leading causes.^{[ref 2]}

Additionally, it is also difficult to find reliable data on battle deaths. The underlying data used to construct the armed conflict database might therefore be subject to problems of comparability and measurement error. According to the codebook the dataset does not include unclear conflicts where information on key variables to the definition of conflict is uncertain or missing. Key variables are those related to the incompatibility, actors and intensity. In the codebook it is further noted that due to lack of sources there is a possible bias produced against the inclusion of conflicts in the earlier decades and in the less-developed world. The information also varies with regard to the level of precision. For the start date variables, the precision level is indicated in a separate variable.^{[ref 3]}

References

1. ↑ "Data on Armed Conflict," Centre for the Study of Civil War, PRIO, http://www.prio.no/CSCW/Datasets/Armed-Conflict/.
2. ↑ Michael Renner, "I-C. Introduction to the Concepts of Environmental Security and Environmental Conflict," Inventory of Environment and Security Policies and Practices, 2006.
3. ↑ "Armed Conflict Dataset (UCDP/PRIO)," The MacroData Guide, 2009, http://www.nsd.uib.no/macrodataguide/set.html?id=55&sub=1.

Harborn, Lotta, Halvard Buhaug, Joachim Carlsen, and Havard Strand. 2007. UCPD/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset Codebook, version 4-2007.