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AbstractMany studies rest on the assumption that Uppsala Conflict Data Program data allow for an unbiased approximation to the temporal and spatial variation of deadly violence across cases. This research note compares fatality data in the program's Georeferenced Event Dataset with the name-by-name compilation of victims in the Kosovo Memory Book for the period 1 January 1998–30 June 1999. The extent of underreporting of fatalities in the Georeferenced Event Dataset increases with conflict intensity. Events outside Kosovo and events with many fatalities are disproportionally covered. The Georeferenced Event Dataset is more likely to ignore an event when many other events occur on the same day. Surprisingly, international observer missions do not make an event more likely to be reported. Despite the mentioned problems, the dataset's high estimates of conflict deaths mirror the temporal and spatial variation of violence fairly well. Some of the inconsistencies and biases identified in the selected case plausibly also occur in other conflicts. Events that span several months or lack specific location data impede analysis and are more prominent in the dataset's entries for Kosovo than in the entire Georeferenced Event Dataset.

From 1992 to 1995, the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina claimed the lives of about 100,000 people and dominated the headlines in European newspapers. The General Framework Agreement for Bosnia and Herzegovina, signed in Dayton, Ohio, in 1995, ended the war but fulfilled neither the call for a single, unitary state, nor the separatist ambitions. Instead, the peace accords prescribed the establishment of democratic institutions with rigid provisions for power-sharing between Bosniacs, Serbs and Croats. After the war, the international peace missions perceived elections as an indicator of whether political parties and citizens accepted the Dayton Agreement and the resulting shared state. Results from the elections held 3 October 2010 are presented. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

"Die Demokratisierung von ethnisch gespaltenen Nachbürgerkriegsgesellschaften gilt bisweilen als aussichtsloses Unterfangen. Dagegen kommt der makedonische Friedensprozess einer Erfolgsgeschichte gleich. Der Angriff der albanischen Nationalen Befreiungsarmee UÇK auf die makedonischen Sicherheitskräfte 2001 lief relativ glimpflich ab; die anfänglichen sezessionistischen Ziele der UÇK wichen schnell Forderungen, die Albaner mit den Makedoniern gleichzustellen. Der bewaffnete Konflikt endete mit dem Ohrid-Abkommen, das eine umfassende Reform der staatlichen Institutionen versprach und größtenteils umgesetzt wurde, trotz der Skepsis der Makedonier. Kann Makedonien als Modell für andere Nachbürgerkriegsgesellschaften dienen? Der Autor bezweifelt das und benennt die besonderen Bedingungen, die hier zum Erfolg beitrugen. Zudem macht er einige Demokratiedefizite aus: Gewalt und Unregelmäßigkeiten bei den Parlamentswahlen, Boykotte von Parlamentssitzungen, die prekäre Unabhängigkeit der Richter. Dazu blockiert der Namensstreit mit Griechenland die Euro-atlantische Integration Makedoniens. Der Report empfiehlt der deutschen und internationalen Politik, die politische Führung Makedoniens immer wieder zu Mäßigung, etwa im Namensstreit mit Griechenland, sowie zum entschiedenen Vorgehen gegen politische Gewalt zu ermahnen. Zudem gilt es, die Regierung Griechenlands zu einer moderateren Position zu drängen." (Autorenreferat)

Existing research suggests that peace is more stable after military victories than it is after peace agreements. This article challenges this conventional wisdom. By applying survival analysis, we demonstrate that peace agreements exhibit just as strong of a relationship to enduring peace as military victories do. Moreover, we investigate the assumptions that underpin the aforementioned claim. These assumptions link peace survival to the type of civil war termination and refer to intervening variables. Using time-series data for 48 civil wars that ended between 1990 and 2009, the empirical analysis finds support for only two underpinning assumptions in favour of victories.

Despite abundant debates on humanitarian military interventions, there is yet little empirical knowledge about these operations and their effects due to a lack of systematized data. To stimulate the necessary comparative research, this article introduces a new data set on all humanitarian military interventions between 1946 and 2015. The data set outlines the interveners' proclaimed aims, mandates, and activities. Documentation of events in the target countries prior to, during, and after the interventions facilitates their evaluation. The data set consists of data matrices and structured case descriptions that document all coding decisions. A review of the spatial and temporal distribution of interveners and interventions refutes the prevalent view that the vast majority of humanitarian military interventions are conducted by Western states and that such missions subsided after the interventions in Afghanistan and Libya. The data set enables a wide range of quantitative and qualitative research. Despite its limited number of cases, it can reveal whether humanitarian military interventions generally decrease the duration and intensity of violence. Among other applications, it can help identify the conditions under which such interventions lead to an escalation or de-escalation of deadly violence.