ACLED Realtime Asia Data — January – August 30, 2015

Asia, Civilians At Risk, Conflict Monitoring, Data Management, Local-Level Violence, Political Stability, Remote Violence, Rioting And Protests, Unidentified Armed Groups, Violence Against Civilians
ACLED releases up-to-date Asian conflict data on a monthly basis. The latest data — covering Asian conflict from January through August 2015 — can be found here. (For previous Asian data releases, see earlier posts on the topic.)…

Human Rights, Rule of Law, and Political Conflict in Africa

Africa, Civilians At Risk, Conflict Monitoring, Current Hotspots, Governance, Government Repression, Human Rights, Political Stability, Violence Against Civilians
Human rights abuses can range from physical violence to denials of peaceful assembly or freedom of expression. Amnesty International (2015) highlights shortcomings in justice and accountability, where crimes such as gender-based violence go unpunished; this impunity can have further negative ramifications within effected societies (ACLED, 18 February 2015).…

Burundi — July 2015 Update

Africa, Analysis, Civilians At Risk, Conflict Monitoring, Ethnic Militias, Focus On Militias, Local-Level Violence, Political Stability, Pro-Government Militias, Rioting And Protests, Unidentified Armed Groups, Violence Against Civilians
The political crisis in Burundi is entering its 14th week and though aggregate levels of political violence have decreased since May when mass rioting and protests took hold of the capital, the forms of political violence employed by the varying sides of the political divide have become more lethal (see Figure 1).…

Tunisia — July 2015 Update

Africa, Analysis, Civilians At Risk, Conflict Monitoring, Islamic State, Islamist Violence, Local-Level Violence, Political Stability, Remote Violence, Rioting And Protests, Violence Against Civilians
While a new series of violent events targeted civilians and security forces in June, Tunisia witnessed a sustained increase in political violence (see Figure 1). Not only is the number of conflict events rising, reported fatalities were also at their highest since January 2011.…

Reporting Lags and the Timeliness of Realtime Data

Africa, Boko Haram, Civilians At Risk, Conflict Monitoring, Current Hotspots, Data Management, Local-Level Violence, Political Stability, Remote Violence, Rioting And Protests, Violence Against Civilians
ACLED collects disaggregated data of every event of political violence in Africa, henceforth expanding to Asia (Raleigh et al., 2010). A particularity of ACLED’s work is the publication of data on a real-time, weekly basis.…

State Fragility and Conflict in Africa

Africa, Civilians At Risk, Conflict Monitoring, Current Hotspots, Data Management, Political Stability, Remote Violence, Rioting And Protests, Violence Against Civilians
The Fragile States Index (FSI), produced by The Fund for Peace, highlights pressures faced by states, identifying “when those pressures are pushing a state towards the brink of failure”, with the intent of shaping assessments of political risk by researchers and policymakers (Messner et al.,…