KOSIMO: A Databank on Political Conflict

Abstract

Despite the existence of a large amount of operationalized data on violent interstate conflict as one subset of political conflict, there are shortcomings in data on domestic and nonviolent conflict and growing inadequacies between the reality of political conflict and its conceptualization in quantitative conflict research. This is mainly due to fundamental changes in conflict patterns over the past few decades and an understandable fixation by researchers on violence as a central explanandum in conflict research. In response to these shortcomings, the authors propose an integrated and dynamic databank that contains nonviolent and violent as well as domestic and international political conflicts on a global scale between 1945 and 1998. The main hypothesis of the KOSIMO project states that the analysis of an integrated and dynamic databank of political conflict will lead to more accurate propositions about current and future trends of political conflict than conclusions drawn on the basis of databanks that contain exclusively violent conflicts.

The public opinion–foreign policy paradox in Germany: integrating domestic and international levels of analysis conditionally

“…This measure expands the conception of conflict beyond the narrow definition as military conflicts determined by a number of deaths to more broadly include lower levels of conflict and potential conflict. I begin with the Kosimo data set, a collection of political conflict data prepared by Pfetsch and Rohloff (2000) of the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Political conflict is defined in the Kosimo data as the clashing of overlapping interests around national values and issues between at least two parties, at least one of which is the organized state.…”

“…This potential problem is solved with the inclusion of nonviolent cases of conflict, which are included in the Kosimo data. Pfetsch and Rohloff (2000) shows that this approach ensures that even in the case of historical changes in the way conflicts are carried out, the conflict remains recordable and comparable. 37 The characteristics, duration and frequency of the conflict measures implemented are crucial in the classification of conflicts into violent and nonviolent intensity levels.…”

Anticipating the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

“…Since 1945, most wars, state failures, and armed conflicts have occurred not between the great powers but within and between underdeveloped states in Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and Central America (Holsti 1996;Wallensteen and Sollenberg 1999;Pfetsch and Rohloff 2000). As Holsti (1996) points out, it is the anarchy within states in these regions rather than between them that accounts for most of the wars in the last half of the 20th century.…”

“…Percentage of time in conflict spans the years in training data only. Source: KOSIMO data project (Pfetsch and Rohloff 2000).…”

Staasbildung oder Staatszerfall? Zum Formwandel Kriegerischer Gewalt in der Weltgesellschaft

“…Gantzel/Schwinghammer 1995;Schreiber 2001) liegt auch den Thesen dieses Beitrags zugrunde. Die oben genannten, allgemeinen Befunde finden sich -unterschiedlich stark erläutert und differenziert -auch bei Holsti (1996: 20-25), Henderson/Singer (2000), Wallensteen/Stollenberg (2000), Pfetsch/Rohloff (2000).…”