Description
In recent years, the use of quantitative methods has become an increasingly popular tool in the study of conflict and insurgency. It was thought that this approach would offset the limitations of qualitative research which is based, it is claimed, on anecdotes from specific conflict settings. Yet, this approach comes with its own set of distinct challenges. This paper therefore discusses the opportunities and limitations that quantitative data holds for understanding conflict and violent insurgency. First, the paper considers the available sources of conflict data including the Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (WITS) and the Uppsala Conflict Data Program’s (UCDP) Georeferenced Event Dataset (GED). To do this, it uses examples from Iraq and Afghanistan which feature prominently in the literature. It discusses how the data varies between the different sources based off their different coding strategies. How these decisions affect data quality will be discussed as well as the limitations this poses for conflict and insurgency research. Finally, the paper considers the future of conflict research which is movingly increasingly towards the exploitation of both temporal and geo-coded data.
