Armed Conflict 1946-2001: A New Dataset

TLDR

Armed conflict remains a serious post‑Cold War problem, with existing datasets such as COW (threshold 1,000 deaths) and Uppsala (threshold 25 deaths) providing longitudinal data, though Uppsala has only covered the post‑Cold War era. The article reports on armed conflict data backdated to 1946 and provides an annual update. The authors describe the backdating procedures, analyze temporal trends and conflict types, and evaluate measurement criteria while outlining future data collection directions. The backdated dataset records 225 armed conflicts from 1946 to 2001, with 34 active in 2001, extending coverage to the end of World War II.

Abstract

In the period 1946-2001, there were 225 armed conflicts and 34 of them were active in all of or part of 2001. Armed conflict remains a serious problem in the post-Cold War period. For three decades, the Correlates of War project has served as the main supplier of reliable data used in longitudinal studies of external and internal armed conflict. The COW datasets on war use the relatively high threshold of 1,000 battle-deaths. The Uppsala dataset on armed conflict has a lower threshold, 25 annual battle-deaths, but has so far been available for only the post-Cold War period. This dataset has now been backdated to the end of World War II. This article presents a report on armed conflict based on this backdate as well as another annual update. It presents the procedures for the backdating, as well as trends over time and breakdowns for the type of conflict. It assesses the criteria for measuring armed conflict and discusses some directions for future data collection in this area.