A Top Global Think Tank

Trends in armed conflicts

The continuous critical analysis of violent conflicts around the world - their causes, dynamics and consequences - constitutes the core task of the programme.

The principal output of this research is the chapter on trends in armed conflicts produced for the SIPRI Yearbook, but this work also feeds into the development of particular thematic research projects. In recent years, chapters on major armed conflicts have focused on the analysis of new trends in armed conflict and other forms or organized collective violence in areas of armed conflict (such as one-sided violence against civilians, including terrorism, and criminal violence).

SIPRI commissions the Uppsala Conflict Data Project at Uppsala University to produce data on 'major armed conflicts' which is published annually in the SIPRI Yearbook as an appendix to the chapter on trends in armed conflicts. Since 2009, SIPRI also publishes Global Peace Index data on an annual basis.

Publications
  • Melvin, Neil J. and de Koning, R., 'Resources and armed conflict', SIPRI Yearbook 2011 (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2011), ch. 2.
     
  • Stepanova, Ekaterina, 'Armed conflict, crime and criminal violence', SIPRI Yearbook 2010 (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2010), ch. 2.
     
  • Stepanova, Ekaterina, 'One-sided violence against civilians in armed conflicts', SIPRI Yearbook 2009 (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2009), ch. 2.
     
  • Stepanova, E., 'New trends and challenges in modern armed conflicts', in Sungho Kang, John W. McDonald and Chinsoo Bae (eds.), Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding: The Role of NGOs in Historical Reconciliation and Territorial Issues (Northeast Asian History Foundation: Seoul, 2009).
     
  • Stepanova, Ekaterina, South Ossetia and Abkhazia: placing the conflict in context, SIPRI Policy Brief no. 1 (November 2008).
     
  • Stepanova E., “Un patron para el estudio de los conflictos armadas”, in Una Mirada al Mundo del Siglo XXI, (Ministeria de Defensa: Zaragoza, 2008), pp. 35-45, in Spanish.
     
  • Stepanova, Ekaterina, 'Trends in Armed Conflicts', in SIPRI Yearbook 2008: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2008), pp. 44-71 (chapter 2).
     
  • Stepanova E., 'Gosudarstvo i chelovek v sovremennyh konfliktah' [The State and the Individual in Modern Conflicts], in Mezhdunarodnyie protsessy [International Processes], vol. 6, no. 1 (January-April 2008), in Russian.