People from the Nordic countries are often selected as international mediators in wars and armed conflicts. Martti Ahtisaari, Erik Solheim, Anna Lindh among others. In a new book, peace researchers at Uppsala University describe what makes mediators specifically from the Nordic countries so popular. Where do they come from, why do they take on these missions and what sort of mandate do they have?
The number of armed conflicts in the world reached a historic high in 2024. This is shown by new data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) at Uppsala University. Despite a marginal decrease in total fatalities, targeted violence against civilians increased significantly.
New data from Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), at Uppsala University, show that the total number of fatalities stemming from organised violence increased in 2020, after five consecutive years of falling numbers. Despite a substantial decrease in violence in the two biggest wars of the 2010s, Afghanistan and Syria, UCDP registered more than 80,100 deaths in organised violence in 2020.
Uppsala University has appointed Cecilia Wikström to chair the governing board of the University’s new knowledge centre for nuclear disarmament and Professor Erik Melander to be the centre’s director. Following these appointments, the Alva Myrdal Centre can start its activities.
New data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), Uppsala University, shows that the number of fatalities in organised violence continues to decrease. The declared defeat of Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq has pushed the number of fatalities to its lowest level since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. However, peace researchers are worried about recent trends in Africa.
New data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), Uppsala University shows that the number of fatalities in organised violence decreased for the third consecutive year. In 2017, almost 90,000 deaths were recorded by UCDP, a decrease of 32% compared to the latest peak in 2014. The most significant drop took place in Syria.
The challenges of preventing, mitigating, and adapting to largescale political violence are daunting, particularly when violence escalates where it is not expected. With funding from the European Research Council, ViEWS: a political Violence Early-Warning System is developing a system that is rigorous, data-based, and publicly available to researchers and the international community.
When peace researchers at Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) summarize the conflict situation for the world in 2017, much focus is on the so-called Islamic State, IS. During the year, both Iraq and Syria claimed that IS had been defeated. Does the weakening of IS mean that the trend of large numbers of battle-related deaths in the world is ending?
In a world of conflict and violence new knowledge on how to build sustainable peace is urgently needed. In his dissertation PhD candidate Florian Krampe emphasizes the need for helping countries to reset their internal relations on a peaceful path.
The alarming upward trend in fatalities in organized violence, witnessed over the last few years, was broken in 2015. This is evident from new data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), Uppsala University. The number of armed conflicts involving states continued to increase, however, going from 41 in 2014 to as many as 50 in 2015.
In June, Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) reported that the number of fatalities in armed conflict has increased substantially in recent years, and that 2014 was the most violent year since the end of the Cold War. New data show that also the other two types of violence analyzed by the UCDP – conflict between non-state actors and violence targeting civilians – increased substantially in 2014.
40 armed conflicts were active in 2014, the highest number of conflicts since 1999 and an increase of 18% when compared to the 34 conflicts active in 2013. New data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) shows an increase in both the number of active conflicts but also in the number of battle-related deaths in these conflicts.
Rape in war cannot be addressed in isolation. It is deeply embedded in both the local context and that of global proportions. This is one of the conclusions made in a doctoral thesis about eastern Democratic Republic of Congo presented at Uppsala University on 19th September.
Last year the number of armed conflicts decreased markedly, at the same time as the number of battle-related deaths in these conflicts increased dramatically, largely due to the situation in Syria. This is described by peace researchers at Uppsala University’s Conflict Data Program (UCDP) in an article recently published in the Journal of Peace Research.
Which factors increase the risk for armed conflict and war? What circumstances make conflict resolution more likely to be successful? Today, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) releases a new dataset which opens up new possibilities for the study of armed conflict. Using these data, useful findings relating to climate change and armed conflict have already been made.