Political Science: War, Peace, & Human Rights

Public collection of political violence data for developing states in Africa and Asia. Includes specific dates and locations of political violence, types of events, groups involved, fatalities and changes in territorial control. Information is recorded on the battles, killings, riots, and recruitment activities of rebels, governments, militias, armed groups, protesters and civilians. Downloadable in Excel and GIS formats.

Major data collection on war. Click on "Available Data Sets" on the left to get the data. Includes datasets covering COW country codes; inter-state, intra-state, non-state, and extra-state war; militarized interstate disputes; national material capabilities; alliances; contiguity; territorial change; IGOs; and bilateral trade.

Detailed information on electoral violence in 101 countries (1995-2013). Covers national-level legislative and executive contests only. Electoral violence is measured in a ten-month window around each election. Data in .csv.

A comprehensive listing categorization of coups for 165 countries since WWII. Variables include date, COW country code, type of coup, and multiple indicators categorizing the actors involved, means used, and outcome of the coup attempts. Data in Excel.

Provides a list of coups by country and by year. They define coups as "illegal and overt attempts by the military or other elites within the state apparatus to unseat the sitting executive," and successes as episodes in which the perpetrators control power for at least 7 days. Data is in .txt format and updated through 2015.

List of FIRCs, with indicators for whether initiated by democracies and if institutional (vs. leadership) changes. (Located under the Supplementary Material tab.)

Various cross-national time-series conflict datasets, including data on: forcibly displaced populations, major political violence episodes, ethnic and revolutions, genocide, high casualty terrorist bombings, coups d'etat and failed/fragile states (1950s-present). Data downloadable in SPSS or Excel.

From the Uppsala Conflict Data Program.

Codes for territorial claims, river claims, maritime claims, and regime claims. Supplementary datasets include colonial history, historical state names, and multilateral treaties of pacific settlement.

Aggregate data on resistance campaigns (1900-2013), annual data on campaign behavior (1946-2013), and events in 26 countries with major nonviolent and violent campaigns (1991-2012).

A spatio-temporal grid structure allowing for consistent comparisons in studying conflict. Each grid cell contains data by grid cell on socio-economic conditions, ethnic groups, physical geography, climatic conditions, and natural resources, and more. Can merge with UCDP Georeferenced Events, ACLED, and GeoEPR datasets. Downloadable as shapefiles and data in .csv format.

The SVAC Dataset includes reports of conflict-related sexual violence committed by government/state military, pro-government militias, and rebel/insurgent forces. Covers all state-based conflicts active in the years 1989-2015, as defined by the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Database. Data were collected for all years of active conflict (defined by 25 battle deaths or more per year) and for five years post-conflict. Includes information about the prevalence, perpetrators, victims, forms, timing, and locations of the reported sexual violence by each armed actor in each conflict-year. Data is coded from reports by the U.S. State Department, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Data in Excel.

SCAD includes protests, riots, strikes, inter-communal conflict, government violence against civilians, and other forms of social conflict not systematically tracked in other conflict datasets. SCAD currently includes information on thousands of events from 1990 to 2017, covering all of Africa, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean.

Armed Conflict Dataset (1946+) with a geo-referenced event dataset, coding individual events of organized violence down to the village level and by day (1989+). Also includes a "conflict polygons" dataset showing the geographical spread of conflict. Also contains separate conflict onset and termination datasets (1946+), non-state conflicts, one-sided violence (also a separate file coding for ethnicity), and battle-related deaths (1989+), as well as data on the existence, type, and providers of external support for all warring parties (1975-2009). One useful feature is the information on peace agreements, coding info about parties of the agreement and provisions of the accords (1975+). From the Uppsala Conflict Data Program.

Repository of sub-national data on armed conflict from 156 countries (1969-2017). Combines multiple open-source data collections in one site. Data in .csv and through an R package.

Source for research and data on security and conflict. SIPRI has databases on military expenditures, arms transfers, arms embargoes, and peacekeeping operations.

Drawing from UN archival records, the International Peace Institute at George Washington University presents data on peacekeeping missions of total uniformed personnel contributions by country, month, type (troop, police, or expert/observer), and by mission, 1990+. Also has data on gender and assessed contributions.

The PAM database is a unique source of qualitative and quantitative longitudinal data on the implementation of 34 Comprehensive Peace Agreements (CPAs) negotiated in civil wars between 1989 and 2012. The implementation history of each provision in an accord is tracked and scored, yielding a 10 year implementation score for each accord. The database can be searched by keyword, accord, or provision type.

Investigates the sources, processes, and outcomes of all military-security crises since the end of World War I, covering 470 crises and 1036 crisis actors. There is a system-level dataset covering the crises and another covering the actors. Includes scores of variables covering onset; actor attributes, behavior, and crisis management; superpower activity; involvement by international organizations; mediation and outcome; and more. Also includes text summaries of each crisis. Data in .csv.

Project of the Pardee Center at the University of Denver to measure various aspects of international relations. Datasets measure diplomatic representation, membership in (and importance of) intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), and signatories and ratifiers of multilateral treaties deposited at the UN. Generally 1945-present; datasets in Excel.

Codes government respect for 15 internationally recognized human rights for 202 countries, annually from 1981-2011. Data in Excel.

Global dataset that codes for the deliberate killing of non-combatant civilians in the context of a wider political conflict, 1995-present. Data are coded and georeferenced using human coding rather than automated methods. Data in Excel.

Drawing on reports by the U.S. State Dept. and Amnesty International, the PTS codes for state-perpetrated human rights violations, such as killings, tor­ture, dis­ap­pear­ances, and polit­ic­al im­pris­on­ment. Each country is scored on a 5 point scale based on the scale and severity of the abuses. Data in Excel, 1976+. Also includes SVS codes for societal violence by non-state actors, dis-aggregated by type of perpetrator and type of victim, 2013-2014.

Contains reports of conflict-related sexual violence committed by government/state military, pro-government militias, and rebel/insurgent forces (1989-2015). Includes information about the prevalence, perpetrators, victims, forms, timing, and locations of the reported sexual violence. Data is coded from reports by the U.S. State Department, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Data in Excel.

Independent research center at West Point for the study of terrorism. Contains reports on terrorist strategy, structure, and ideology. Also has a database of primary source documents captured in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere that contextualize the inner-functioning of al-Qa’ida and other security threats. In addition, the militant imagery project documents visual motifs, reports, and primary source materials (with translations) on the Islamic State in Syria & Iraq (ISIL/ISIS).

Detailed and well-sourced profiles of extremist groups and individual leaders, including details on organizational structure, financing, recruitment, and more.

Identifies, compiles, and analyzes conflict data on insurgency, civil war, and political violence worldwide. Contains demography and socioeconomics, geography, infrastructure, public opinion, violence data in GIS, and tabular data. Countries include Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, and Vietnam.

Database on 170,000+ global terrorism incidents from 1970 to present. Includes date, location (country and city), weapons used, type of target, casualties, perpetrator, and source of information.

Codes state action toward terrorist organizations or their constituencies on a day-to-day basis.

• covers Israel 1987-2004 and Canada 1985-2013

St. Andrews University, Scotland, UK.

A collaboration between the Naval Postgraduate School and the Department of Homeland Security. Contains US government reports and reports from think tanks.

Interactive literature review of qualitative and/or quantitative research examining 183 different hypotheses on how VEOs may be negatively influenced.

Interactive literature review of qualitative and/or quantitative research examining 183 different hypotheses on how VEOs may be negatively influenced.

From Israel.

Dataset coding more than 14,000 incidents of international or transnational terrorism that have an international impact, 1968-2016.

• more than 40 variables covering aspects of the incident, terrorists, victims, damages and casualties, and logistical success
• supplemental files address characteristics and fates of both hostages and terrorists after attacks
• data in Excel format

Official list of foreign terrorist organizations as designated by the U.S. Secretary of State

Traces the evolution of militant organizations and their interactions over time. Features interactive maps chart relationships among groups over time; individual maps for Syria, Iraq, Italy, North Caucasus, Philippines, Somalia, and Pakistan; and global maps of the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. Also has in-depth profiles of individual groups with group size, formation, ideology, activity, leaders, resources, ties to other groups, and community relationships.

Monthly in-depth profiles of the most important and under-analyzed leaders of extremist and militant movements around the world.

Part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Codes information on pro-government militias for all countries from 1981 to 2007.

Data on terrorism incidents 1968-2009, covering over 40,000 incidents of international and domestic terrorism.

• Search by date, region, country, perpetrator, tactic, weapon, target, # of fatalities, and more.
• Full database can be downloaded in Excel.

Measures the positive and negative reputation building efforts of domestic terror groups.

• 443 groups, 1980-2011
• positive indicators: public goods provision, media power, and political party existence
• negative indicators: forced recruitment, child recruitment, and forced funding

Contains the annual Country Reports on Terrorism.

Database tracking US drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen (and soon Somalia). Annual data from 2009 on location, target, military and civilian casualties, links to news reports, graphs, charts, and maps of strikes.

Tracks radical Islamist movements on a national, regional and global level. Entries detail radical Islamist activity and the relationship of Islam to society and the state. Browse by movement or by country.