Politics Resources Guide

Various cross-national time-series conflict datasets, including data on forcibly displaced populations, major episodes of political violence, ethnic and revolutionary war, genocide, high casualty terrorist bombings, coups d'etat, and state fragility/legitimacy indices. Dates vary, but mostly 1950s-present. Data downloadable in SPSS or Excel.

Major data collection on war, originally headed by J. David Singer and now Paul Diehl. 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.

The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) offers a number of datasets on organised violence and peacemaking. Most famous is the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset (1946-2014), but they also have datasets on conflict termination, non-state conflicts, one-sided violence, peace agreements, and battle-related deaths, among others. You can download full datasets or generate your own datasets or tabular reports using various filters.

Covers individual events of organized lethal violence (state-based, one-sided, and non-state conflict) in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. These events are geo-coded down to the level of individual villages, with temporal durations disaggregated to single, individual days. Data in multiple formats (.csv, Excel, SQL, R). Also includes a "conflict polygons" dataset showing the geographical spread of conflict.

Dataset by Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, University of Essex, which expands the Uppsala Armed Conflict Data by UCDP/PRIO. Adds information about the non-state actors involved in civil conflict and information about the external dimensions conflicts, including external support and extraterritorial features.

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.

The Conflict Site Dataset is a georeferenced extention to the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflicts Dataset that provides coordinates for the actual location of the armed conflicts in the dataset and the list of countries in which the conflicts were located. Every conflict-year in the dataset is assigned a circular conflict zone, based on a center point given in latitude and longitude coordinates and a radius indicator measuring the distance from the center point to the most distant point in the conflict zone. Data in Excel.

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

ACLED is the most comprehensive public collection of political violence data for developing states. These data contain information on the specific dates and locations of political violence, the types of event, the 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. Event data are derived from a variety of sources, mainly concentrating on reports from war zones, humanitarian agencies, and research publications. As of early 2014, ACLED has recorded over 80,000 individual events, primarily focused on Africa. All ACLED data can be downloaded on this site by country in excel and GIS formats.

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 over 10,300 social conflict events from 1990 to 2012.

Drawing from UN archival records, the IPI (International Peace Insitute at George Washington University) Peacekeeping Database presents the first publicly available database of total uniformed personnel contributions of each contributing country by month, by type (troop, police, or expert/observer) and by mission, from November 1990 to the present. Also has data on gender and assessed contributions.

Research project started by Paul Hensel that is collecting systematic data on contentious issues in world politics. Datasets currently include territorial claims, river claims, maritime claims, and regime claims. Supplementary datasets include colonial history, historical state names, and multilateral treaties of pacific settlement.

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.

Data on both attempted and successful coups in dictatorships from 1970-2010. The dataset differentiates between reshuffling coups, which change the leader atop a regime but leave the regime structure intact, and regime change coups, which change the leader and lead to a new autocratic regime. Data in Stata format. Aksoy, Deniz, David B. Carter and Joseph G. Wright. 2015. “Terrorism and the Fate of Dictators.” World Politics http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0043887115000118

Provides a list of coups by country and by country-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.

The CDP’s objective is to compile, for 165 countries in the post WWII era, a more comprehensive listing, documentation, and categorization of coups for use by researchers. The project is ongoing, but 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.

A spatio-temporal grid structure allowing for consistent comparisons in studying conflict. It is composed of 0.5x0.5 decimal degree grid cells that cover all terrestrial areas of the world. Each grid cell contains annual data by grid cell on armed conflicts, population, local economic activity, ethnic groups, physical terrain, climatic conditions, and more. Dataset consists of shapefiles and data in .csv or Stata format.

Detailed news, analysis, and data on terrorism.

• database of over 300,000+ geocoded global terrorist and insurgent events 2009-present, with extensive array of indicators for targets, tactics, groups, and casualties
• profiles of nearly 300 terrorist and insurgent groups across the world, covering threat assessment, aims and objectives, tactics, targets, areas of operation, personnel, recruitment, and rivalries
• country analysis and briefings
• thousands of news articles and analyses
• visualization tools (maps, charts, etc.)

Database on global terror incidents.

• 170,000+ incidents from 1970 to present
• includes domestic, transnational, and international incidents
• date, location (country and city), weapons used, type of target, casualties, perpetrator, source of information

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

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.

Searchable database on all suicide attacks 1974-2016 (more than 5,000 attacks).

• location, target type, and weapon used
• demographic and biographical characteristics of suicide attackers
• draws from native language sources (e.g., Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, Tamil) in addition to English

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
  • global maps of the Islamic State and Al Qaeda
• in-depth profiles of individual groups
  • covers group size, formation, ideology, activity, leaders, resources, ties to other groups, and community relationships

Identifies, compiles, and analyzes micro-level conflict data on insurgency, civil war, and other political violence worldwide.

• demography/socioeconomics, geography, infrastructure, public opinion, violence data in GIS and tabular forms
• Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Vietnam
• links to external data repositories for the countries covered

Independent research center at West Point for the study of terrorism.

• reports on terrorist strategy, structure, and ideology
• 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
• a militant imagery project documenting visual motifs
• reports and primary source documents (with translations) on the Islamic State in Syria & Iraq (ISIL/ISIS).

Database of insurgencies from 1775 to 2012.

• outcomes are categorized as an insurgent victory, a draw, a victory for the regulars, or ongoing
• attempts to include all significant insurgent movements (meaning they caused some deaths and drew some attention from contemporaries and historians)
• data available as .csv

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

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

Tracks radical Islamist movements on a national, regional and global level.

• Browse by movement or by country.
• Entries detail radical Islamist activity and the relationship of Islam to society and the state.

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

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

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

• covers Israel 1987-2004 and Canada 1985-2013

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

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

EPR "identifies all politically relevant ethnic groups and their access to state power in every country of the world from 1946 to 2013. It includes annual data on over 800 groups and codes the degree to which their representatives held executive-level state power—from total control of the government to overt political discrimination." Interface incorporates this dataset with datasets on conflict, geocoded settlement patterns, transnational ethnic kin groups, and ethnicity of refugees. Datasets in .csv and Excel formats. Extensive source documentation is available for each country through the EPR Atlas.

The Minorities at Risk (MAR) Project "monitors and analyzes the status and conflicts of politically-active communal groups" and currently maintains data on 283 politically active ethnic groups. The centerpiece of the project is a dataset that tracks groups on political, economic, and cultural dimensions. The project also maintains analytic summaries of group histories, risk assessments, and group chronologies for each group in the dataset." See also the recent article "The Use and Misuse of the 'Minorities at Risk' Project" in the Annual Review of Political Science.

Part of the Minorities at Risk project (above). MAROB seeks to identify "those factors that motivate some members of ethnic minorities to become radicalized, to form activist organizations, and to move from conventional means of politics and protest into violence and terrorism."

CREG focuses on 165 countries (all countries with a population above 500,000 in 2004) during the post-WWII era and collects "population data for the principal ethnic and religious groups in a country," which it uses to create a set of projections on the relative sizes of the different groups in each country. An ongoing project; data is in Excel.

Listing of datasets available from our Data and Statistical Services site. You may also want to browse through the data organized by world region.

Replication data from Fearon (2003) "Ethnic and Cultural Diversity by Country," Journal of Economic Growth 8(2): 195-222.

From Alesina et. al (2003) "Fractionalization," Journal of Economic Growth 8(2): 155-94.

Replication data for Sambanis (2000) "Partition as a Solution to Ethnic War: An Empirical Critique of the Theoretical Literature," World Politics 52(4): 437-483.

ICPSR provides member colleges and universities with access to an extensive data archive. Search by keyword or browse by thematic categories.

Game theoretic models predict that sanctions that would be effective typically would bring about change in the target's behavior at the threat stage and would never be applied. To test these models, this project has collected data on instances of both the threat and implementation of sanctions during the period from 1945-2005.

E-book version of the 3d edition of Hufbauer's classic text on economic sanctions. Chapter appendices have lists of cases and additional info. Selected and updated case studies are available online.

This database gives information on all multilateral arms embargoes that have been implemented by an international organization, such as the EU or UN, or by a group of nations. It includes both legally binding embargoes and those that are solely political commitments. It provides details of the aims, scope and amendments to all arms embargoes that are in force, or have been in force since 1998 and to most that were in force before 1998.

Information on official UN sanctions

Comparative assessment of the impacts and effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions regimes over the past twenty years. Focuses on case episodes within a broader country analysis to track changes in targeted sanctions over time. Also analyzes their effectiveness in terms of the different purposes of targeted sanctions, whether they are intended to coerce, constrain, or signal targets. Quantitative database to be released in 2014. Also see their site http://www.sanctionsapp.com/.

Information on EU sanctions as implemented under the Common Foreign & Security Policy (CFSP).

Very clear presentation of information on sanctions implemented by the UK against various countries and groups.

Best source for CRS reports, hearings, Congressional committee reports, and more on sanctions, embargoes, etc. Try searching for "international sanctions" or "embargoes" with a country name or within a certain date range.

"The Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC") of the US Department of the Treasury administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions based on US foreign policy and national security goals against targeted foreign countries and regimes, terrorists, international narcotics traffickers" and others.

The Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) controls export embargoes of arms and defense items to sanctioned countries. Maintains a list of embargoed countries with a link to official Federal Register notices of embargoes.

List of nonproliferation sanctions maintained by the Dept. of State.

The Bureau's mission is "to protect the security of the United States, which includes its national security, economic security, cyber security, and homeland security" by "implementing and enforcing the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), which regulate the export and reexport of most commercial items." Most items BIS regulates are “dual-use” items–those that have both commercial and military or proliferation applications.