Introducing ACLED: An Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset: Special Data Feature

Peer-reviewed Journal Article

Hegre, Håvard; Andrew Linke; Clionadh Raleigh & Joakim Karlsen (2010) Introducing ACLED: An Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset: Special Data Feature, Journal of Peace Research 47(5): 651–660.

​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.

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Authors

Clionadh Raleigh

Clionadh Raleigh

Professor of Human Geography, University of Sussex

Andrew Linke

Andrew Linke

Associate Senior Researcher

Håvard Hegre

Håvard Hegre

Research Professor