{"id":382,"date":"2026-04-01T00:02:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T00:02:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/classprojects.digitalwcu.org\/QDP2\/?page_id=382"},"modified":"2026-04-14T16:17:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T16:17:21","slug":"articles","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/classprojects.digitalwcu.org\/QDP2\/articles\/","title":{"rendered":"Articles"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Articles and Scholarship on ACLED\n\n<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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This page gathers the research articles that help explain, support, and contextualize ACLED as a Digital Humanities project. The selected sources include work produced by ACLED itself as well as scholarship that reflects the project\u2019s methods, data structure, and contribution to conflict analysis, making them essential to understanding how ACLED works and why it matters.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Introducing ACLED: \n\nAn Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Raleigh, Clionadh, et al. \u201cIntroducing ACLED: An Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset.\u201d Journal of Peace Research<\/i>, vol. 47, no. 5, 2010, pp. 651\u201360. JSTOR<\/i>, http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/20798933. Accessed 4 Apr. 2026.<\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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This article presents ACLED, an Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset. ACLED codes the actions of rebels, governments, and militias within unstable states, specifying the exact location and date of battle events, transfers of military control, headquarter establishment, civilian violence, and rioting. In the current version, the dataset covers 50 unstable countries from 1997 through 2010. ACLED’s disaggregation of civil war and transnational violent events allow for research on local level factors and the dynamics of civil and communal conflict. Findings from subnational conflict research challenges conclusions from larger national-level studies. In a brief descriptive analysis, the authors find that, on average, conflict covers 15% of a state’s territory, but almost half of a state can be directly affected by internal wars.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Political instability patterns are obscured by conflict dataset scope conditions, sources, and coding choices<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Raleigh, C., Kishi, R. & Linke, A. Political instability patterns are obscured by conflict dataset scope conditions, sources, and coding choices.\u00a0Humanit Soc Sci Commun<\/i>\u00a010<\/b>, 74 (2023). https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1057\/s41599-023-01559-4<\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Conflict event datasets are used widely in academic, policymaking, and public spheres. Accounting for political violence across the world requires detailing conflict types, agents, characteristics, and source information. The public and policymaking communities may underestimate the impact of data collection decisions across global, real-time conflict event datasets. Here, we consider four widely used public datasets with global coverage and demonstrate how they differ by definitions of conflict, and which aspects of the information-sourcing processes they prioritize. First, we identify considerable disparities between automated conflict coding projects and researcher-led projects, largely resulting from few inclusion barriers and no data oversight. Second, we compare researcher-led datasets in greater detail. At the crux of their differences is whether a dataset prioritizes and mandates internal reliability by imposing initial conflict definitions on present events, or whether a dataset\u2019s agenda is to capture an externally valid and comprehensive assessment of present violence patterns. Prioritizing reliability privileges specific forms of violence, despite the possibility that other forms actually occur; and leads to reliance on international and English-language information sources. Privileging validity requires a wide definition of political violence forms, and requires diverse, multi-lingual, and local sources. These conceptual, coding, and sourcing variations have significant implications for the use of these data in academic analysis and for practitioner responses to crisis and instability. These foundational differences mean that answers to \u201cwhich country is most violent?\u201d; \u201cwhere are civilians most at risk?\u201d; and \u201cis the frequency of conflict increasing or decreasing?\u201d vary according to datasets all purporting to capture the same phenomena of political violence.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCONTINUE TO RESULTS<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/path><\/svg><\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Research Foundation Articles and Scholarship on ACLED This page gathers the research articles that help explain, support, and contextualize ACLED as a Digital Humanities project. The selected sources include work produced by ACLED itself as well as scholarship that reflects the project\u2019s methods, data structure, and contribution to conflict analysis, making them essential to understanding how ACLED works and why it matters. Introducing ACLED: An Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset Raleigh, Clionadh, et al. \u201cIntroducing ACLED: An Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset.\u201d Journal of Peace Research, vol. 47, no. 5, 2010, pp. 651\u201360. JSTOR, http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/20798933. Accessed 4 Apr. 2026. View Article Abstract This article presents ACLED, an Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset. ACLED codes the actions of rebels, governments, and militias within unstable states, specifying the exact location and date of battle events, transfers of military control, headquarter establishment, civilian violence, and rioting. In the current version, the dataset covers 50 unstable countries from 1997 through 2010. ACLED’s disaggregation of civil war and transnational violent events allow for research on local level factors and the dynamics of civil and communal conflict. Findings from subnational conflict research challenges conclusions from larger national-level studies. In a brief descriptive analysis, the authors find that, on average, conflict covers 15% of a state’s territory, but almost half of a state can be directly affected by internal wars. Political instability patterns are obscured by conflict dataset scope conditions, sources, and coding choices Raleigh, C., Kishi, R. & Linke, A. Political instability patterns are obscured by conflict dataset scope conditions, sources, and coding choices.\u00a0Humanit Soc Sci Commun\u00a010, 74 (2023). https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1057\/s41599-023-01559-4 View Article Abstract Conflict event datasets are used widely in academic, policymaking, and public spheres. Accounting for political violence across the world requires detailing conflict types, agents, characteristics, and source information. The public and policymaking communities may underestimate the impact of data collection decisions across global, real-time conflict event datasets. Here, we consider four widely used public datasets with global coverage and demonstrate how they differ by definitions of conflict, and which aspects of the information-sourcing processes they prioritize. First, we identify considerable disparities between automated conflict coding projects and researcher-led projects, largely resulting from few inclusion barriers and no data oversight. Second, we compare researcher-led datasets in greater detail. At the crux of their differences is whether a dataset prioritizes and mandates internal reliability by imposing initial conflict definitions on present events, or whether a dataset\u2019s agenda is to capture an externally valid and comprehensive assessment of present violence patterns. Prioritizing reliability privileges specific forms of violence, despite the possibility that other forms actually occur; and leads to reliance on international and English-language information sources. Privileging validity requires a wide definition of political violence forms, and requires diverse, multi-lingual, and local sources. These conceptual, coding, and sourcing variations have significant implications for the use of these data in academic analysis and for practitioner responses to crisis and instability. These foundational differences mean that answers to \u201cwhich country is most violent?\u201d; \u201cwhere are civilians most at risk?\u201d; and \u201cis the frequency of conflict increasing or decreasing?\u201d vary according to datasets all purporting to capture the same phenomena of political violence. CONTINUE TO RESULTS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-382","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/classprojects.digitalwcu.org\/QDP2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/classprojects.digitalwcu.org\/QDP2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/classprojects.digitalwcu.org\/QDP2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classprojects.digitalwcu.org\/QDP2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/classprojects.digitalwcu.org\/QDP2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/classprojects.digitalwcu.org\/QDP2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1194,"href":"https:\/\/classprojects.digitalwcu.org\/QDP2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/382\/revisions\/1194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/classprojects.digitalwcu.org\/QDP2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}