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This paper describes a particular use of pattern recognition techniques to identify pre-conflict situations. The goal is to find particular circumstances (which appear as patterns) in the descriptions of individual countries' situations before the outbreak of violent conflicts. If we find such patterns, we can then scan for them in current news reports. If we find a pattern in the current description of a country, we can then say "When we have seen this pattern before, 'x' percent of the time a conflict has erupted within 12 months." To accomplish this, the paper describes methods for getting alerts that a conflict is about to erupt, the information needed to get those alerts, how to organize that information, and a procedure for searching for patterns in that information.

So-called "climate migration", i. e. human mobility following prolonged drought periods, floods, or other climate-related environmental changes, has been singled out as an important factor connecting climate change effects and (violent) conflict. However, the existing studies on this relationship do not offer a clear picture. Nevertheless, Syria has evolved into a "show case study" for this assumed linear causality: A "century drought" and ensuing internal migration are seen as an untold prequel of the Syrian uprising. This alarmist, determinist, and simplifying image is questioned and reviewed in order to answer the following questions: Was the Syrian drought related to or caused by climate change? Which role, if any, did it play for internal migration in pre-revolutionary Syria? What do we know about "drought migrants" and their role in the Syrian uprising? The article summarizes available research and adds to it by way of interviews with Syrian refugees.

Post-conflict societies face two distinctive challenges: economic recovery and risk reduction. Aid and policy reforms have been found to be highly effective in the economic recovery. In this paper we concentrate on the other challenge, risk reduction. The post-conflict peace is typically fragile: around half of all civil wars are due to post-conflict relapses. Both external actors and the post-conflict government must therefore give priority to reducing the risk of conflict. Our statistical results suggest that economic development does substantially reduce risks, but it takes a long time. We also find evidence that UN peacekeeping expenditures significantly reduce the risk of renewed war. The effect is large: doubling expenditure reduces the risk from 40% to 31%. In contrast to these results we cannot find any systematic influence of elections on the reduction of war risk. Therefore, post-conflict elections should be promoted as intrinsically desirable rather than as mechanisms for increasing the durability of the post-conflict peace. Based on these results we suggest that peace appears to depend upon an external military presence sustaining a gradual economic recovery, with political design playing a somewhat subsidiary role. Since there is a simple and statistically strong relationship between the severity of post-conflict risks and the level of income at the end of the conflict this provides a clear and uncontroversial principle for resource allocation: resources per capita should be approximately inversely proportional to the level of income in the post-conflict country.

This article considers the determinants of conflict in Africa. It revisits the greed versus grievance debate to consider the specific regional context and changing nature of conflict in Africa. This is a literature that has grown rapidly in economics and political science, but some recent developments in modeling and conceptualization are providing important new contributions. The article uses the zero-inflated ordered probit technique that deals with the problem of excess zeros in datasets, revisits the definition of conflict, and improves upon some proxy measures. It also considers the substantive as well as statistical significance of the variables. Changes in the technique used provide more support for the influence of grievance terms than given credit for with the usual probit model approach. Both greed and grievance determine conflict in Africa.

Violence and war were ubiquitous features of politics long before the emergence of the modern state system. Since the late 18th century major revolutions across the world have further challenged the idea of the state as a final arbiter of international order. This book discusses ten major thinkers who have questioned and re-shaped how we think about politics, violence and relations between states – Thucydides, Augustine, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Clausewitz, Lenin and Mao, and Schmitt. Conflict, war and revolution have generally been seen in political thought as problems to be managed by stable domestic political communities. In different ways, all the paradigmatic thinkers here acknowledge them instead as inevitable dimensions of human experience, manifested through different ways of acting politically – while yet offering radically distinct answers about how they can be handled. This book dramatically broadens the canon of political thought by considering perspectives on the international system that challenge its historical inevitability and triumph. Drawing on history, theology, and law as well as philosophy, Paul Kelly introduces thinkers who challenge fundamentally the ways in which we should think about the nature and scope of political institutions and agents. He illuminates many troubling contemporary conflicts with a critical and historical perspective. This book is primarily intended for second year and upwards undergraduate students in general political theory and international theory, and advanced international relations students. Each chapter is also downloadable on its own for use in courses considering only some of the ten theorists covered. Written in an accessible way Conflict, War and Revolution will also interest advanced general readers with interests in the historical thought underpinnings of political ideas and today's international politics. Detailed reading advice is provided, and advice on how to access open access versions of the key thinkers writing.