Sources of Income and Political Conflict
Strong state capacity is difficult to attain in low-income countries where the state lacks access to resources to aid in effectively implementing policies. As a result, incomes are often used as a proxy measurement to determine the strength of state capacity, and states with lower incomes experience some of the highest levels of conflict (see: Dixon, 2009).…
Egypt — November 2015 Update
Despite a dramatic decrease in insurgent activity in North Sinai through October (see Figure 1), the Islamic State affiliate group ‘State of Sinai’ have claimed responsibility for downing a Russian passenger plane on 31st October.…
Egypt — September 2015 Update
August witnessed a continuation in the decrease of violent conflict events in Egypt, a trend that began in January 2015. Fatalities similarly dropped after military campaigns against the State of Sinai militant group in North Sinai produced a dramatic spike in July (see Figure 1).…
Human Rights, Rule of Law, and Political Conflict in Africa
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).…
Reporting Lags and the Timeliness of Realtime Data
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
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.,…
A New Working Paper on Collective Action in North Africa
Sustained collective action in the lead up to, over the course of, and in the fallout from, the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011 has resulted in a rising trend of riots and protests, and an intensification in the violence witnessed across these events.…
A New Working Paper on ACLED Reporting Sources
The growth of online media and easily accessible information has enabled conflict data projects to provide a granular and detailed picture of conflict dynamics with geographically and temporally discrete events (Gleditsch et al.,…