Assessing Political Violence and Demonstrations in the United States: ACLED Pilot Data and Preliminary Findings

For three months from July through September 2019, ACLED conducted a pilot project to collect data on political violence and protest across the United States, setting out to identify the most prevalent forms of disorder and to establish comprehensive and consistent source lists for gathering relevant information. This report presents preliminary findings and lessons learned from the pilot project, providing a snapshot of the country’s evolving disorder landscape ahead of the 2020 general election.

Key Points

The Project

• ACLED’s US Pilot Project collected data on thousands of political violence and protest events across the country from July-September 2019, including mass shootings and extremist violence, excessive force by police, non-state militia activity, mob attacks, hate crimes, and mass demonstrations
• The data are based on more than 900 individual sources, with over half of all events recorded during the pilot drawn from subnational or local sources

The Findings

• Preliminary data show nearly 3,200 political violence and protest events during the pilot period
• Political violence is limited, but lethal: almost 50 fatalities are reported, primarily due to mass shootings and excessive force by police
• The US is home to a vibrant protest environment: during the pilot period, more demonstration events are recorded in the US than in almost any other country in the ACLED dataset
  • Demonstrations make up over 97% of recorded events
  • The vast majority are peaceful, with fewer than 3% escalating into violence or facing police intervention
• Demonstrations are reported in all 50 states, ranging from a minimum of three in Wyoming to a maximum of 580 in California
  • At least one demonstration event is recorded in over 700 counties – nearly a quarter of all counties in the US

Introduction

Over three months in the United States there were more than 3,000 political violence and protest events. Nearly 50 people were reported killed in politically motivated violence. Demonstrators took to the streets in all 50 states.

Reports suggest the situation is intensifying: hate crimes are on the rise (Washington Post, 13 August 2019), police brutality is increasing (The Appeal, 17 April 2018), and mass shootings are getting deadlier (LA Times, 1 September 2019). Many link these trends to the polarized political climate,  and especially to the rhetoric of US President Donald Trump (Guardian, 28 August 2019; see also, Edwards & Rushin, 2018).

But what do these data show? Numerous data projects and initiatives exist across the US, each capturing a piece of the broad spectrum of disorder occurring around the country. Projects like the Gun Violence Archive track mass shootings; the various organizational members of Communities Against Hate track hate crimes against a wide swathe of identity groups; the Southern Poverty Law Center monitors the activities of extremist groups; the Washington Post has logged fatal police shootings; initiatives like Count Love and the Crowd Counting Consortium have been tracking demonstrations. There is no shortage of innovative data projects. However, no initiative has brought together all of these various forms of political violence and protest, under one methodology, to allow for a full picture of disorder in the US, as well as to allow for cross-country comparisons with other countries around the world.

Download the PDF above to read the full report.