2012-2016

MAPPING ARMED CONFLICT IN ASIA, 1989-2012. ENHANCING RESEARCH BY PROVIDING GEOREFERENCED EVENT DATA ON ORGANISED VIOLENCE IN ASIA (IN12-1044:1)

PROJECT AIMS AND POTENTIAL CHANGES TO THE PURPOSE DURING THE PROJECT PERIOD
The purpose of the project was to develop detailed ('disaggregated') and geographically identified ('geo-coded') data for all armed conflicts in Asia since 1989, within the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP). UCDP is a research program at Uppsala University that collects and publishes data used for the study of armed conflicts and their resolution. UCDP has a strong position in academia, which is the result of many years of consistent work where strict definitions, academic accuracy and reliability have been in focus.

The project at hand was initiated to respond to a trend in which researchers requested a new type of conflict information suitable for new powerful statistical tools and new methods, and, which could provide answers to new research questions. This type of detailed geographical information has come to the forefront both in academia and in the policy world. This means that the focus of data collection is moved from a previous focus on aggregate data per country and year, to individual conflict events in specific geographic locations at specific times, that is, for example, a single event in which at least one person died on a particular day in a particular location. This type of data makes it possible to monitor and study conflicts locally and to link conflict processes to, for example, geographical factors (e.g. presence of natural resources and climate change), which previously was not possible with existing data.

The purpose of the project has been followed consistently throughout the course of the project period and no changes to the purpose were made.

PROJECT RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
With the completion of this project and in line with the stated aim of the project, geocoded conflict events are now available for all countries and conflicts in Asia from 1989 to 2014. When the project began the UCDP had geocoded Africa 1989-2010. As Africa and Asia account for a majority of all the events during the time period, this means the completion of the Asia coding is a big step towards the completion of a global dataset, which is the ultimate goal.

A dataset covering parts of Asia (South-East and East Asia) was released in June 2015 (UCDP GED version 1.9). The complete data for Asia 1989-2014 resulting from this project was made publicly available on the UCDP website in October 2015 (UCDP GED version 2.0). The latest version of UCDP GED, UCDP GED version 4.0, was released in March 2016. This dataset includes events in Asia together with all events in Africa and the Middle East for the period 1989-2014. The total number of unique events in Asia in 1989-2014 produced within the project, is 57,799. Afghanistan stands out with the highest number of events (18,030) followed by India (13,688 events), Nepal (5,652 events) and Pakistan (5,114 events).

The datasets have been marketed to both academia and the policy and practices field through a number of established channels. For the academic sphere, this has included presentations and a lively exchange in various research networks to encourage the use of the datasets. During the coding of Asia, we have for example shared selected beta data on Asia with leading university researchers in the discipline in Konstanz, Zurich and Geneva, among others. For the policy community, we have worked with different types of visualizations, e.g. animations presented via for example Youtube. These have attracted great interest and are a good way to introduce the benefits of geo-referenced data. UCDP has also been showcasing the new data in various public contexts within and outside academia, and has also maintained contacts with national, local or regional organizations and government agencies that could benefit from these data, but that can also provide feedback on the information. The demand for these data is large, which is shown in the large amount of researchers, policy makers, practitioners and the media who are already using the data for Africa, but now also for Asia.

In parallel with this project, the remainder of the world is being coded for the same time period. This work is funded by the Swedish Research Council. UCDP has, as mentioned, made data available for Asia, Africa and the Middle East for the period 1989-2014 and later this year, a complete global dataset will be made available for the same time period. UCDP then provides unique, complete and global data on organised violence ('traditional' war [state-based armed conflict], conflicts between non-state actors [non-state armed conflict], and one-sided violence against civilians [one-sided violence]) to the scientific community and the policy world. No other institution delivers complete global data at this level of detail which can at the same time be combined to the desired unit of analysis in terms of time and space. The flexibility and compatibility - both within the dataset, but also with a large number of other data sets on other variables relevant to the study of conflict causes and dynamics - opens great opportunities for research. It should be stressed that the data generated for Asia in the context of the current project accounts for almost half of the total amount of events data (48 per cent).

UNFORESEEN TECHNICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
During the process of geocoding Asia, the number of conflict events has been the major methodological challenge. For comparison, the UCDP GED dataset on Africa includes about 24,000 unique events, while events only in Afghanistan and India together amount to almost 32,000 events. This gives an indication of the amount of data processed and the amount of locations that have needed to be located. The work has been intense and sometimes slower than desired, but despite the amount of events, work has in general proceeded as planned. At the start of the project, the UCDP made an estimate of the number of weeks, or months, required to complete a given country. The estimate was then compared against the hours that were available in the project. This assessment was somewhat optimistic for the countries with large conflicts - Afghanistan, India and Pakistan - where coding has taken longer than expected. The additional costs have been covered via co-funding from the Faculty of Social Sciences, Uppsala University.

Producing this type of data is in itself a very labor intensive process. Every singular violent incident in which at least one was person killed is identified, classified, and assigned geographic coordinates and associated precision codes, as well as dates (also with precision codes) for all three categories of organised violence. Another reason that the work has been time consuming is that we have chosen to apply the same rigorous criteria regardless of the amount of data that needs to be dealt with, which has in some cases delayed the completion of certain countries. This process has ensured that the quality of the data published meets UCDP standards of reliability, comparability and usability. The geocoding has also provided an opportunity for revising and improving existing conflict information which has further improved the quality of the data. For this project, the UCDP has been able to use many of the insights that came from coding Africa which has made the coding process more efficient. The project has also benefited greatly from the expertise and contacts within the 'East Asian Peace Program ' (EAP), funded by RJ. The accumulated knowledge from the coding of Asia has in turn facilitated the work on geocoding other geographical regions.

INTEGRATION INTO ORGANIZATION AND WAYS TO TAKE THE WORK FORWARD
The geocoding procedures are now fully integrated into the UCDP data system for input, storage and output, as well as in all work procedures which are based on individual conflict events as the basic unit of analysis. All events are geo-referenced. In future updates of our data, which is done annually and where Asia is one of several continents, all events will be geo-coded in the same way as has been done in this project.

NEW RESEARCH QUESTIONS GENERATED BY THE PROJECT
The opportunities to ask new questions are many with the geocoding of Asia. Access to the very large amount of data that the UCDP has, which is now also geographically identified, provides the opportunity to link the data to other disaggregated datasets. Examples of how UCDP GED has been used include studies that have investigated the relationship at the local level between e.g. precipitation and conflict; soil degradation and conflict; migration and conflict; humanitarian aid and conflict; social media and conflict etc. (See further in the list of publications for examples of research questions addressed so far. These studies have been made on Africa data, but may be extended to Asia with the release of the new data.) For Asia specifically, studies have been made on climate change and conflict; counterinsurgency and civilian victimization; and on source accuracy in reporting on violence, comparing coverage by media sources to that of military intelligence sources. This is only a small selection of new questions made possible when conflict data is presented in this detailed way. More and more research data is becoming available on the local level, which has spurred UCDP to produce corresponding conflict information that can be used by the scientific community for both comparative and statistical studies, as well as to provide organizations and government agencies with access to local and regional data in order to facilitate decision making and to plan more precise preventive measures. UCDP GED is designed so that the user can choose the level of detail. Users who have previously used UCDP country-year data can thus benefit from using the same source but in a flexible way tailor the selection of data to suit the individual research project.

WEBSITE LINK
http://ucdp.uu.se/ged/

Publications

UCDP GED DATA RELEASE ARTICLE FOR CITATION OF ALL DATA

Sundberg, Ralph, and Erik Melander (2013). ‘Introducing the UCDP Georeferenced Event Dataset’, JOURNAL OF PEACE RESEARCH  50(4): 523-532


PUBLICATIONS USING UCDP-GED, ASIA DATA [BETA VERSION]

Hultman, Lisa (2012). ‘COIN and Collateral Deaths: Patterns of Violence in Afghanistan, 2004–2009’, SMALL WARS & INSURGENCIES 23(2): 245-263

Hultman, Lisa, (2012). ‘Military Offensives in Afghanistan: A Double-Edged Sword’, INTERNATIONAL AREA STUDIES REVIEW 15(3): 230-248

Weidmann, Nils B., (2015). ‘On the Accuracy of Media-based Conflict Event Data.’ JOURNAL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION 59(6): 1129-1149


UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS USING UCDP GED, ASIA DATA

Butcher, Charles and Erika Forsberg (2016). “Military Competition and the Geography of Violence against Civilians” Paper presented at the 57th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (ISA), Atlanta, USA, 16-19 March, 2016.

Croicu, Mihai Catalin and Joakim Kreutz, (2015). ‘Guerrillas all around us? Using latent variable modeling to identify multiple sovereignty in civil war’. Paper presented at the 56th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (ISA), New Orleans, Louisiana, 18-21 February 2015.

Forsberg, Erika and Louise Olsson, (2013). ‘Gender Inequality and Armed Conflict: A Disaggregated Analysis of Northeast India, 1989-2011’. Paper presented at the 54th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, San Francisco, USA, 3–6 April 2013, and, at the joint meeting of CRS and ENCoRe, University of Essex, UK, 17-20 September, 2013.

von Uexkull, Nina, Halvard Buhaug, Mihai Croicu and Hanne Fjelde, (2016). ‘Climate, Agriculture and Armed Conflict in Asia, 1989‐2014’. Paper presented at the 57th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (ISA), Atlanta, Georgia, 16-19 March 2016.


EXAMPLES OF PUBLICATIONS USING UCDP GED, AFRICA DATA

Basedau, Matthias, and Jan Henryk Pierskalla (2014). ‘How ethnicity conditions the effect of oil and gas on civil conflict: A spatial analysis of Africa from 1990 to 2010’,  POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY 38: 1-11 

Eck, Kristine (2012). ‘In data we trust? A comparison of UCDP GED and ACLED conflict events datasets’, COOPERATION AND CONFLICT   47 (1): 124-141

Eck, Kristine (2014). ‘The law of the land Communal conflict and legal authority’, JOURNAL OF PEACE RESEARCH 51(4): 441–454

Fjelde, Hanne, and Lisa Hultman (2013). ’Weakening the Enemy: A Disaggregated Study of Violence against Civilians in Africa’, JOURNAL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION published online 25 June 2013

Fjelde, Hanne, and Nina von Uexkull (2012). ’Climate triggers: Rainfall anomalies, vulnerability and communal conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa’, POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY 31(7): 444-453

Fjelde, Hanne, and Gudrun Østby (2014). ’Socioeconomic Inequality and Communal Conflict: A Disaggregated Analysis of Sub-Saharan Africa, 1990–2008’, INTERNATIONAL INTERACTIONS 40(5): 737-762

Greig,  J. Michael (2015). ‘Rebels at the Gates: Civil War Battle Locations, Movement, and Openings for Diplomacy’, INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY 59(4): 680-693

Hodler, Roland, and Paul A. Raschky (2014). ‘Economic shocks and civil conflict at the regional level’, ECONOMICS LETTERS 124(3): 530-533

Koos, Carlo, and Matthias Basedau (2013). ‘Does Uranium Mining Increase Civil Conflict Risk? Evidence from a Spatiotemporal Analysis of Africa from 1960 to 2008’, CIVIL WARS 15(3): 306-331

Kreutz, Joakim (2012). ‘From Tremors to Talks: Do Natural Disasters Produce Ripe Moments for Resolving Separatist Conflicts?’, INTERNATIONAL INTERACTIONS 38(4): 482-502

Kreutz, Joakim, and Johan Brosché (2013). ‘A responsibility to talk: mediation and violence against civilians’, CANADIAN FOREIGN POLICY JOURNAL 19(1): 26-38

Pierskalla, Jan H., and Florian M. Hollenbach (2013). ‘Technology and Collective Action: The Effect of Cell Phone Coverage on Political Violence in Africa’, AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW 107(2): 207-224

Tiernay, Michael (2015). ‘Killing Kony: Leadership Change and Civil War Termination’, JOURNAL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION 59(2): 175-206

Warren, T. Camber, (2015). ‘Explosive connections? Mass media, social media, and the geography of collective violence in African states’, JOURNAL OF PEACE RESEARCH 52(3): 297-311

Wood, Reed M., and Jacob D. Kathman, (2014). ‘Too Much of a Bad Thing? Civilian Victimization and Bargaining in Civil War’, BRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, 44(3): 685-706

Wood, Reed M., and Jacob D. Kathman, (2014). ‘Stopping the Killing During the “Peace”: Peacekeeping and the Severity of Postconflict Civilian Victimization’, FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS. Article first published online: 16 April 2014, DOI: 10.1111/fpa.12041

Wood, Reed M., and Christopher Sullivan, (2015). ‘Doing Harm by Doing Good? The Negative Externalities of Humanitarian Aid Provision during Civil Conflict’, JOURNAL OF POLITICS 77(3): 736-748