Chapter 3 The statistics of deadly quarrels and the measurement of peace

Question 1

What counts as relevant conflicts according to analysts?

Answer 1

all levels of conflict, from intrapersonal conflict through to international conflict and all stages of conflict escalation and de-escalation.

Question 2

What is meant by a deadly quarrel?

Answer 2

any conflict that caused death to humans.

Question 3

what happened to the simple databases on armed conflict at the end of the cold war?

Answer 3

the databases have expanded and elaborated.

Question 4

The focus cannot be on armed conflicts alone what else should be focussed on according to the book?

Answer 4

developments from the formation of a conflict to the dissolution of the conflict formation.

Question 5

What has the development of datasets about non-violence led to?

Answer 5

New insights into the widespread nature and significance of non-violent strategies

Question 6

What is the ultimate aim of the GBAV effort and Geneva Declaration?

Answer 6

to expose the intimate links between the global scourge of armed violence and the prospects for sustainable development.

Question 7

what is the aim of the Geneva Declaration on armed violence and development?

Answer 7

A diplomatic initiative aimed at addressing the interrelations between armed conflict and development.

Question 8

Why are armed conflicts and their impact notoriously difficult to measure?

Answer 8

• the inclusion threshold is arbitrary no agreed universal standard or definition.
• difficult to identify clear starting points and termination points ( conflicts flare up unpredictably)

Question 9

Armed conflicts are difficult to measure what should be considered with these difficulties?

Answer 9

The difficulties must be kept in mind and care must be taken to see how they can be best accommodated.

Question 10

Why is it important to be aware of particular research aims, assumptions and approaches in armed conflict?

Answer 10

because these determine how research criteria are formulated and therefore what kind of results can be expected.

Question 11

How is peacefulness measured based on the CONIS database developed at the University of Heidelberg?

Answer 11

CONIS is linked to their conflict barometer, includes data for distinguishing between violent and non-violent managed conflicts.

Question 12

What is the argument CONIS has about including Non-violent managed conflicts in their data?

Answer 12

• by researching only overtly violent conflict data on conflicts that are resolved peacefully is missed out.
• including emergent conflicts and those which have been successfully de-escalated enables a more nuanced analysis of strategies and policies that might sustain or rebuild peace.

Question 13

How does the Global Peace Index (GPI) analyse peacefulness?

Answer 13

develop a methodology that combines qualitative and quantitative indicators in order to measure negative and positive dimensions of Galtung’s definition of peace.

Question 14

What is the UN term freedom from fear?

Answer 14

No direct violence

Question 15

What is the UN concept freedom from want?

Answer 15

the positive satisfaction of human rights and needs?

Question 16

What are risk factors that make armed conflict more likely to happen according to the book?

Answer 16

state fragility, low economic growth, political exclusion and horizontal inequalities

Question 17

What is the OECD’s definition of fragility?

Answer 17

A weak capacity to carry out basic governance functions and the lack of ability to develop mutually constructive relations with society. More vulnerable to internal or external shocks.

Question 18

according to Pinker through which five phases has the decline of violence gone through?

Answer 18

Pacification process from hunter-gatherers to agricultural civilization, The civilizing process from the middle ages to nation-states, the humanitarian revolution associated with the abolition of slavery and slow reduction in torture. The long peace after the Second World War and the new peace after the end of the Cold War.

Question 19

What has happened with the number of interstate wars over a longer-term time frame according to Holsti?

Answer 19

The number of interstate wars per year per state has gone down steadily over the past hundred years.

Question 20

What is the definition of Proxy wars?

Answer 20

a war fought between groups of smaller countries that each represent the interests of other larger powers, and may have help and support from these

Question 21

Which two restrictions is the data on battle deaths subject to?

Answer 21

1. does not take account of secondary deaths due to starvation and disease.
2. excludes fighting between non-government groups(non-state violence) and atrocities against civilians(one-sided violence)

Question 22

Which widening of intensity is found in the HIIK dataset conflict barometer?

Answer 22

widens to include the use of weapons, personnel. casualties, refugees/internally displaced persons, and material destruction.

Question 23

What does the Human Security Report conclude about low intensity and high-intensity conflicts?

Answer 23

low intensity state-based armed conflict rose high-intensity conflicts that cause 1000 or more battle-related deaths a year continued to stay steady or declined.

Question 24

On which four indicators measured over 5 years does the GTD rank countries?

Answer 24

1. Number of terrorist incidents.
2. number of fatalities.
3. number of injuries.
4. estimated property damage.

Question 25

What is the Global Terrorism Index produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace?

Answer 25

The first index to systematically rank and compare 158 countries worldwide over a ten year period.

Question 26

why is it important to widen the statistical analysis of deadly conflicts to include homicides from national and transnational criminal violence?

Answer 26

Estimates show that in terms of human insecurity, several times more people suffer directly from criminally perpetrated homicides than from armed conflict and war.

Question 27

What does the Human Security Report conclude about homicide trend data?

Answer 27

room for debate about the reliability of the global homicide trend data, but little evidence that the homicide rates in (Latin America) point to a rising global trend.

Question 28

Which kind of data is used by The Institute for economics and peace for the GPI?

Answer 28

Both qualitative and quantitative information.

Question 29

How does the Institute for Economics get their qualitative data for the GPI?

Answer 29

qualitative data comes from some 100 country analysts from the economist intelligence unit which are then peer-reviewed by an expert panel.

Question 30

What is the State of the World Atlas’ positive conclusion of the overall situation of conflict?

Answer 30

fewer wars, more peace agreements that endure for longer and there have been more peacekeeping operations.

Question 31

What states the World Bank’s World Development Report about the general situation of conflict?

Answer 31

Un peacekeeping operations are only part of the conflict picture. when trying to indicate future trends the main aim is not conflict prediction but risk assessment.

Question 32

What is the Magnitude score included by Marshall and the CSP?

Answer 32

A score for each conflict on a scale of 1 to 10. according to an assessment of the full impact of their violence on the societies that directly experience their effects.

Question 33

What are the effects of political violence and warfare following the magnitude score?

Answer 33

fatalities and casualties, resource depletion, destruction of infrastructure, and population dislocations among psychological trauma to individuals and adverse changes to the social psychology and political culture of affected social identity groups.

Question 34

Where do the roots of all major conflicts reach back into?

Answer 34

The historical past. (often centuries back)

Question 35

what is Singer’s advice about a classificatory system?

Answer 35

A classificatory system should remain as atheoretical as possible thus by accepting conventional labels of certain armed conflicts.

It is unlikely that we will succeed in finding a typology that is logically exhaustive, mutually exclusive, operationally explicit, semantically consistent and substantively comparable.

Question 36

What are the four types of conflict employed by the Stockholm international peace research institute?

Answer 36

Interstate, Revolution/Ideology, Identity/Secession and Economic/Resource.

Question 37

What is an Economic/Resource conflict?

Answer 37

the aim to usurp, seize or retain state power or state resources for economic and other interests.

Question 38

What includes a Revolution/Ideology Conflict?

Answer 38

the aim of changing the nature of government in a state by for example (a) changing the system from capitalist to socialist (b) changing the form of government from dictatorship to democracy or (c) changing the religious orientation of the state, for example, secular to Islamic.

Question 39

What is an Identity/Secession conflict?

Answer 39

involves the relative status of communities or communal groups. defined in relation to the state depending upon the nature of the group and the contextual situation.

Question 40

What resulted in the wake of 9/11 in regards to the nature of terrorist violence?

Answer 40

encouraged a process of rethinking the nature of terrorist violence, previously been separate datasets, are merged to one data set.

Question 41

In which countries are the great majority of fatalities from terrorist incidents?

Answer 41

Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria

Question 42

How do typologies of terrorism relate to the typologies of conflict discussed?

Answer 42

a typology for terrorism with two exceptions can be mapped onto the conflict typology given above for two main reasons.
1. however complex and inconsistent definitions of terrorism are we will follow those who take terrorism to refer to particular and strategies rather than to specific actors or distinct political purposes.

2. Consistent with Wardlaw’s definition we will follow a number of terrorism analysts in recognizing a typology of terrorism that accords to our own typology of major armed conflict.

Question 43

What is Wardlaw’s definition of terrorism?

Answer 43

’ Terrorism is the use, or threat of use, of violence by an individual or a group, whether acting for or in opposition to established authority, when such art is designed to create extreme anxiety and or fear-inducing effects in a target group larger than the immediate victims with the purpose of coercing that group into ascending to the political demands of the perpetrators.

Question 44

What did the US narrow the definition of terrorism to after 9/11?

Answer 44

restricting the term to Subnational groups or clandestine agents and confining the targets to noncombatants.

Question 45

Which two types of terrorism do not fit the conflict typology?

Answer 45

Insurgent Terrorism and international terrorism

Question 46

What is the definition of international terrorism?

Answer 46

Groupes of dedicated activists who are international in both personnel and purpose and are not rooted in nationally based organisations.

Question 47

What are the indirect deaths caused by conflict mentioned in the book?

Answer 47

Infant and adult mortality as a result of disease, famine, displacement and the collapse of health and other services.

Question 48

Why do conflicts in developing countries frequently cause food shortages and famine?

Answer 48

Because either hunger is deliberately used as a weapon or the unplanned effects of fighting on production and distribution.

Question 49

what are opportunity costs?

Answer 49

costs in the diversion of resources to military purposes and effects such as the export of drugs and aids.

Question 50

What are the environmental costs in conflict?

Answer 50

acts of war such as plunder of natural resources for example the destruction of forests. and the indirect effects of fighting and forced migration

Question 51

What are cultural costs in conflict?

Answer 51

Arise from deliberate or unintended damage to the cultural heritage and intergenerational costs include the scars of war, abuse flight and genocide which continue to traumatize the next generation.

Question 52

What are the eight things necessary in conflict mapping according to Wehr?

Answer 52

1. A short summary description
2. A conflict history
3. conflict context
4. Conflict parties
5. Conflict issues ( fact-based, value-based, interest )
6. Conflict dynamics
7. Alternative routes to a solution of the problem
8. conflict regulation or resolution potential