ACI Project

The Armed Conflict and Intervention (ACI) Project is a joint project of the Center for Systemic Peace and the Center for Global Policy, George Mason University, and was designed to collect global information regarding seven inter-related aspects of contemporary, complex, international interventions and external influences. The rationale for the data project is presented in Monty G. Marshall, Third World War, (Rowman & Littlefield, 1999). The ACI data has been structured to conform with the basic structures of the contemporary world system. This systemic structure is presented schematically in Figure 1, below (from Marshall 1999, figure 6.1, "Systemic Interactions of States in the Global Context," p. 240).

Figure 1. Click on the image to increase view to full screen.

Although the intent is to release the data to the public, only some of the data on the seven aspects listed below has been authorized for release to date (including MAC, CIO, and FDP; see INSCR data page to access CSP data resources). The full data is only available to Political Instability (formerly, State Failure) Task Force (PITF) personnel at present. The data collection phase is mostly complete with global coverage and for most years, 1946-2006, except for the caveats listed in the six individual project descriptions below.

1) Conflict Regions (MAC)

The "security context" portion of the ACI project combines data from sixteen sources of global data covering the many forms of major armed conflict (inter-state and intra-state), codes each episode for magnitude of impact on each country directly affected by the violence (not intervenors) for each year, 1946-2006, and aggregates the armed conflict data for conflict in each country's neighboring countries and larger region (i.e., context). A country/society is considered directly affected by violence if the armed conflict episode takes place on its territory. The magnitude of impact that an episode of major armed conflict has upon a society is assessed on an ordinal scale of 1 (smallest) to 10 (greatest). Magnitude scores reflect multiple factors including state size(s), violence scope and intensity (e.g., destruction of societal infrastructure, area affected, effect on non-combatants), estimated deaths, population displacement, and episode duration. Scores are consistently assigned (i.e., comparable) across episode types and for all states directly involved. We have found very consistent "bad neighborhood/culture of violence" effects in our analyses. This is the only data resource authorized for public release at present, although it has not yet released it in electronic format. The list of "Major Episodes of Armed Conflict, 1946-2006" is posted on the CSP website, click here to go there now.

2) Direct Military Interventions (DMI)

DMI combines data from four extant public resources: (PB) Frederic S. Pearson and Robert A. Baumann, International Military Intervention, 1946-1988, St. Louis, Mo: University of Missouri-St. Louis, Center for International Studies (667 cases); (T) Herbert K. Tillema, Foreign Overt Military Interventions, September 2, 1945-December 31, 1991, Columbia, MO: University of Missouri (690 cases); (R) Patrick M. Regan, "Conditions of Successful Third-Party Intervention in Intrastate Conflicts," Journal of Conflict Resolution 40:336-59 (data file provided by the author--206 cases through 1994); and (UN) United Nations, UN Peacekeeping Operations, 1948-2006, Internet website: www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/index.asp. PB coverage ends in 1988, T ends in 1991, and R (which lacks dates for many of the cases) ends in 1994; UN data is current through 2006. Concurrence between PB and T on interventions is about 17%(!). Confidence in the data compilation is low as there appear to be conceptual problems associated with the identification of intervention incidents. The distinctions between military intervention, militarized dispute, and interstate warfare remain underspecified and unclear. This confusion is further compounded by the unknowable and/or unmeasurable influence of covert interstate operations and supply; various forms of foreign military alliance, assistance, and training; the basing of foreign troops and materials; private (mercenary) militias; and both legal and illegal arms trade (all of which are used by states as alternate "indirect" means of military intervention). The Minorities at Risk Project attempted to systematically collect information on a wide range of "foreign support" variables for ethnic minority groups during the 1990s. Analysis of that information revealed the important role that foreign support, especially support by foreign states, has for the decision to engage in open rebellion. It also indicated that support from multilateral organizations was more strongly asscoated with negotiated outcomes. See, Ted Robert Gurr and Monty G. Marshall, "Assessing Risks of Future Ethnic Wars," chapter 7 and appendix B in Ted Robert Gurr, Peoples versus States: Minorities at Risk in the New Century. Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2000.

3) Political Interaction Events (PIE)

PIE is based on Tomlinson's World Events Interaction Survey (WEIS) data. We have pared out data inconsistencies and include only inter-state interactions. WEIS data has global coverage (based on NYTimes reports; probably skewed toward Western perspectives) for the years 1964-1994. We have aggregated WEIS information for each country for each year to conform to global systemic structures: core states (West & East), regional states, proximate (i.e., neighboring) states, and a general category of "others." The WEIS data is proprietary and the massaged data is available only to PITF members; it is not clear at this time when or if it might be released publicly.

4) Bilateral Trade Flows (BTF)

BTF is based on International Monetary Fund (IMF) Direction of Trade data; the IMF data lists total trade values (both imports and exports) for all country pairs for all years, 1946-2006. IMF data is proprietary and can not be released to the public. The IMF data has been massaged to conform to global systemic structures, similar to WEIS above except G-7 and OECD replace NATO as core structures. Preliminary analysis of trading patterns has provided some valuable insights. Especially important is the observation that low levels of intra-regional trade and, particularly, low levels of intra-regional trade in manufactured goods are associated with high inequality in regional income distribution (among constituent states), high levels of political violence, and low levels of democratization in Sub-Saharan Africa and in the Muslim Countries of the Middle East and North Africa. Bilateral trade volume and value may serve as a good surrogate measure of "national interest." For example, we found that countries in Africa with higher trade with the United States during the Cold War period were more likely to experience high levels of political violence (similar bilateral trade data for the USSR is not available). We also found that African states that concentrated their extra-regional trade with a single trade partner were less likely to experience political instability than states with multiple trade partners.

5) Memberships in Conventional Inter-Governmental Organizations (CIO)

The "connectedness" (CIO) data uses Union of International Associations (UIA) yearbook public information to code country memberships in 380 "conventional inter-governmental organizations" (CIOs) classified as one of four types: United Nations, universal, intercontinental, and regional. Data coverage is global; CIO memberships are coded for each country for one year in every five years, 1952-1997.

6) Forcibly Dislocated Populations (FDP)

The FDP data is an annual time-series data set compiled from the annual World Refugee Survey series published by the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), Washington, DC. The data includes annual end-of-year totals for each country on three categories of forcibly dislocated populations: numbers of refugees from other countries hosted in that country (HOST); numbers of refugees originating in that country and hosted elsewhere (SOURCE); and numbers of internally displaced persons in that country (IDP).

 

7) Arms Trade
This project has been tabled for present; collection has not been initiated. Arms trade data is available from the Arms Trade project at SIPRI.

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