Police Reforms in Peace Agreements, 1975–2011: Introducing the PRPA dataset

This article presents new data on provisions for police reform in peace agreements (PRPA) between 1975 and 2011. The PRPA dataset complements past research on the determinants and effects of specific terms in agreements with detailed data on police reform provisions. The PRPA dataset also adds a quantitative dimension to the thus far largely qualitative literature on post-conflict security sector reform (SSR). It includes information on six subtypes of police reform: capacity, training, human rights standards, accountability, force composition, and international training and monitoring. We show that there is currently a high global demand for the regulation of police reform through peace agreements: police reform provisions are now more regularly included in agreements than settlement terms that call for power-sharing or elections. We observe interesting variations in the inclusion of police reform provisions in relation to past human rights violations, regime type, or the scope of international peacekeeping prior to negotiations, and illustrate the implications of police reform provisions for the duration of post-conflict peace. Finally, we stimulate ideas on how scholars and policymakers can use the PRPA dataset in future to study new questions on post-conflict police reform

Peace agreements in armed conflicts : focusing on finding a solution to the conflict incompatibility

The Uppsala Conflict Data Program’s (UCDP) Peace Agreement Dataset was first published in 2006. Its main goal was to provide the research community with a dataset on peace agreements that was not linked to conflict termination, i. e. included both successful and failed agreements. The latest update of the dataset includes 355 peace agreements concluded in the 1975–2018 period. A number of studies have been based on the dataset over the years. The dataset is unique in its strict connection to the UCDP conflict data and in its focus on the conflict dyad, actors, and the conflict incompatibility. The dataset’s focus on only those agreements that involve the dyadic relationship between primary warring parties – between governments and rebel groups or between two governments – has direct policy implications, as it is exactly these parties who need to change their stances on incompatibilities in order to solve a conflict. Also, the Peace Agreement Dataset’s focus on agreements that address the key incompatibilities contested by the parties allow it to distinguish peace agreements on other negotiated deals, including ceasefires, and to differentiate between full, partial and peace process agreements. Finally, the analysis of key trends in peace agreements is presented. It shows that in contrast to the previous historical peak in the number of armed conflicts back in the early 1990s that corresponded to the peak in annual numbers of peace agreements, the new peak in annual numbers of armed conflicts in the late 2010s was not matched by a similar rise in peace agreements

UCDP External Support - Primary Warring Party Dataset

The UCDP, Uppsala Conflict Data Program, contains information on a large number data on organised violence, armed violence, and peacemaking. There is information from 1946 up to today, and the datasets are updated continuously. The data can be downloaded for free, and available in several different versions. The UCDP External Support Data contains information of external support in intrastate conflicts, 1975-2010. Provides information of kind of support, extern actor and specific year. The data is divided into two separate datasets which are analogous, i.e. contain identical data structured in a different manner to simplify various types of research such as different types of statistical analyses. Purpose: The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) collects information on a large number of aspects of armed violence since 1946. The dataset provide data where the unit of analysis is a warring party-year, providing information on the existence, type, and provider of external support for all warring parties (actors) coded as active in UCDP data, on an annual basis.The dataset contains information for the time-period 1975–2010.UCDP, Uppsala Conflict Data Program vid Uppsala universitet, innehåller stora mängder data över organiserat våld, väpnade konflikter och fredsarbete. Idag täcker UCDP´s data över hela världen, från 1946 och framåt, och finns presenterade i 13 olika dataset som kontinuerligt uppdateras. Datan finns tillgänglig för gratis nedladdning och användning via UCDP´s hemsida. UCDP External Support Data innehåller information om externt stöd i inomstatliga konflikter, mellan åren 1975-2010. Datan beskriver vad för typ av stöd, från vilken aktör och vilka specifika år det gavs. Datan finns i två olika dataset som är identiska avseende innehåll men har strukturerats på olika sätt. Syfte: Syftet för UCDP är att samla olika typer av information om väpnade konflikter från hela världen, från 1946 fram till idag. Ett dataset som ger data över externt stöd i inomstatliga konflikter, baserat på stridande part-år. Information om förekomst och typ av stöd samt vem/vilka som ger stödet. Täcker tidsperioden 1975-2010

UCDP External Support – Disaggregated/Supporter Dataset

The UCDP, Uppsala Conflict Data Program, contains information on a large number data on organised violence, armed violence, and peacemaking. There is information from 1946 up to today, and the datasets are updated continuously. The data can be downloaded for free, and available in several different versions. The UCDP External Support Data contains information of external support in intrastate conflicts, 1975-2010. Provides information of kind of support, extern actor and specific year. The data is divided into two separate datasets which are analogous, i.e. contain identical data structured in a different manner to simplify various types of research such as different types of statistical analyses. Purpose: The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) collects information on a large number of aspects of armed violence since 1946. The dataset provide data where the unit of analysis is the warring party-supporter-year, i.e. each row in the dataset contains information on the type of support that a warring party receives from a specific external party in a given year, using dummy variables for each category of support. The dataset contains information for the time-period 1975–2010.UCDP, Uppsala Conflict Data Program vid Uppsala universitet, innehåller stora mängder data över organiserat våld, väpnade konflikter och fredsarbete. Idag täcker UCDP´s data över hela världen, från 1946 och framåt, och finns presenterade i 13 olika dataset som kontinuerligt uppdateras. Datan finns tillgänglig för gratis nedladdning och användning via UCDP´s hemsida. UCDP External Support Data innehåller information om externt stöd i inomstatliga konflikter, mellan åren 1975-2010. Datan beskriver vad för typ av stöd, från vilken aktör och vilka specifika år det gavs. Datan finns i två olika dataset som är identiska avseende innehåll men har strukturerats på olika sätt. Syfte: Syftet för UCDP är att samla olika typer av information om väpnade konflikter från hela världen, från 1946 fram till idag. Ett dataset som ger data över vilken typ av stöd en krigsförande aktör får från en specifik extern part under ett visst år, med dmmy-varibler för varje kategori av stöd. Datasetet täcker tidsperioden 1975-2010

Introducing the UCDP Candidate Events Dataset

This article presents a new, monthly updated dataset on organized violence—the Uppsala Conflict Data Program Candidate Events Dataset. It contains recent observations of candidate events, a majority of which are eventually included in the Uppsala Conflict Data Program Georeferenced Event Dataset as part of its annual update after a careful vetting process. We describe the definitions, sources and procedures employed to code the candidate events, and a set of issues that emerge when coding data on organized violence in near-real time. Together, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program Candidate and Georeferenced Event Datasets minimize an inherent trade-off between update speed and quality control. Having monthly updated conflict data is advantageous for users needing near-real time monitoring of violent situations and aiming to anticipate future developments. To demonstrate this, we show that including them in a conflict forecasting system yields distinct improvements in terms of predictive performance: Average precision increases by 20–40% relative to using the Uppsala Conflict Data Program Georeferenced Event Dataset only. We also show that to ensure quality and consistency, revisiting the initial coding making use of sources that become available later is absolutely necessary

Organized violence 1989-2020, with a special emphasis on Syria

This article reports on trends in organized violence, building on new data by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP). The falling trend in fatalities stemming from organized violence in the world, observed for five consecutive years, broke upwards in 2020 and deaths in organized violence seem to have settled on a high plateau. UCDP registered more than 80,100 deaths in organized violence in 2020, compared to 76,300 in 2019. The decrease in violence in Afghanistan and Syria was countered by escalating conflicts in, for example, Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), Azerbaijan and Tigray, Ethiopia. Moreover, the call for a global ceasefire following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic failed to produce any results. In fact, the number of active state-based and non-state conflicts, as well as the number of actors carrying out one-sided violence against civilians, increased when compared to 2019. UCDP noted a record-high number of 56 state-based conflicts in 2020, including eight wars. Most of the conflicts occurred in Africa, as the region registered 30 state-based conflicts, including nine new or restarted ones

Peacekeepers against criminal violence – unintended effects of peacekeeping operations?

Research shows that peacekeepers reduce conflict intensity; however, effects of deployment on non-political violence are unknown. This article focuses on criminal violence and proposes a two-fold mechanism to explain why peacekeeping missions, even when effectively reducing conflict, can inadvertently increase criminal violence. First, less conflict opens up economic opportunities (so-called peacekeeping economies) and provides operational security for organized crime, thus increasing violent competition among criminal groups. Second, demobilized combatants are vulnerable to turn to crime because of limited legal livelihood opportunities and their training in warfare. While UN troops may exacerbate these dynamics, UN police peculiar role is likely to successfully contain criminal violence. Cross-national and subnational empirical analyses show that large UN military deployments result in higher homicide rates whereas UN police, overall, moderates this collateral effect