While the location of violent events and their propensity to cluster together in space is increasingly well known, a deeper exploration of their spatiality and spatial evolution over time remains an emerging frontier in conflict studies.
To fill this gap, we introduce a new Spatial Conflict Dynamics indicator (SCDi) that measures both the intensity and spatial concentration of political violence at the subnational level. The SCDi allows conflict researchers and analysts to not just map which regions experience the most violence but to track how the geography of conflict evolves over time.
Developed with the generous support of the OECD, the SCDi identifies four spatial typologies of violence and can leverage political event data from most datasets with locational information and can be used for analyses across large multi-state regions, within a single state, or in more localized contexts.
In a paper published in Terrorism and Political Violence last week, we illustrate the SCDi with an application to the case of North and West Africa, analyzing over 30,000 discrete events through a 22-year time span and across 21 countries. We perform a longitudinal analysis of the SCDi typologies to show how the indicator can inform a theory of the spatial lifecycle of violence in the region.
Walther O, Radil S, Russell D, Trémolières M. 2021. Introducing the Spatial Conflict Dynamics indicator of political violence. Terrorism and Political Violence, DOI: 10.1080/09546553.2021.1957846