Data
During-Conflict Justice Dataset
The DCJ project recieved funding from the Research Council of Norway to update and dyaditize the data through 2016. Please check our website for updates on the project and a scheudle for data release.
With funding from the National Science Foundation, the collection of data for the original DCJ dataset was completed in August 2014. Building on the data collected through the PCJ dataset (see below), this project expands our current scope of inquire to include justice processes implemented while armed conflict is ongoing. Data is collected on trials, truth commissions, amnesty, reparations, purges and exiles. We includes processes initiated by both the government and rebels.
Support from the US Institute of Peace has furthered our efforts to collect detailed case information on Uganda, Turkey, and Nepal. I conducted field work in each of these countries between 2013-2014.
Data is available at the project website.
- See “Justice During Armed Conflict: A new dataset on government and rebel strategies” Co-authored with Helga Malmin Binningsbø in Journal of Conflict Resolution 62(2) 2018.
Post-Conflict Justice Dataset
The Post-Conflict Justice (PCJ) dataset is designed to allow scholars to address specific hypothesis regarding justice following war and the potential effect that these institutions can have on transitions to peace. The dataset includes all extrasystemic, internationalize internal and internal armed conflicts from 1946-2006, with at least 25 annual battle-related deaths as coded by the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset. The PCJ dataset includes: trials, truth commissions, reparations, amnesties, purges and exiles. By building upon the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset, scholars interested in PCJ can include variables regarding the nature of the conflict itself to test how PCJ arrangements work in different environments in order to better address the relationship between justice, truth and peace in the post-conflict period.
Data is available at the project website.
- See "Armed Conflict and Post-Conflict Justice, 1946-2006: A Dataset” Co-authored with Helga Malmin Binningsbo, Jon Elster and Scott Gates. Journal of Peace Research. 49(5) September 2012.
Northern Ireland Research Initiative
The Northern Ireland Research Initiative (NIRI) is an event-based, multi-source research catalogue on the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Begun in 2007, NIRI has engaged in a series of data collection projects designed to capture the patterns of violence that took place at multiple levels during the Troubles. Using numerous, partially overlapping data sources, the goal of these efforts is to identify and catalogue all events from all actors that took place in Northern Ireland from 1968 through 1998. NIRI has made great advances in the understanding of conflict by collecting data from a number of sources including: 1) records from human rights NGOs, 2) interviews with survivors and perpetrators, 3) files generated by the military and police, and 4) media reports.
With funding from the National Science Foundation, the NIRI data collection effort is ongoing. Updates can be found on our website.
- For more information on the effort see “The Northern Ireland Research Initiative: Data on the Troubles from 1968-1998” Co-authored with Christopher Sullivan and Christian Davenport. Conflict Management and Peace Science. 31(1) February 2014.
Non-State Actor Mass Atrocities
In 2016-17, I was the Leonard and Sophie Davis Fellow at the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. During that fellowship, I addressed the question of when non-state actor groups commit mass atrocities. The recent surge in violence by groups such as IS and Boko Haram, along with the targeting of civilians by these group, has intensified the need to understand under what conditions non-state groups choose to deliberately and systematically target civilians for extermination. To date, most of our research into genocide and mass atrocities has focused on those actions perpetrated by state actors. Understanding the use of this tactic across non-state groups has important implications for how we understand this behavior, as well as how we design and implement policy to prevent it.
A blog further describing the project was published at Political Violence @ a Glance. The working paper from this fellowship can be found here.