Data and Measurement

Work Package Leader:
Dr. Jon Pedersen – Fafo Institute for Applied International Studies

Overview

This Work Package will provide technical support throughout the programme in the development of new methods for the collection of quantitative and qualitative empirical evidence on violent conflict at the individual, household and group level. It will also compile existing unexplored datasets. The Conceptual Framework will be matched with existing data and needs will be identified for new data collection and methodologies in both conceptual and applied research areas. These datasets will provide a much needed micro perspective to existing cross-sectional datasets typically used in macro-level analysis of violent conflict.

Another important purpose of this Work Package is to enable the development of better criteria and indicators to be used in all Work Packages under the headings ‘Research and Knowledge’ and ‘Policy Linkages and Synthesis’. This is to distinguish different types of conflicts from each other, identify different actors, contextualise different causes and effects of violent conflict, map them onto different economic, political and social structures and evaluate them. Efforts in this direction have thus far been dispersed. As MICROCON progresses, different approaches to the categorisation of violent conflicts, the different analytical methods for assessing them and different empirical data tests relevant to validating them will be explored and contrasted.

Surveys

In addition, this Work Package will provide the necessary support for the design of new surveys and new survey instruments and methods, and the implementation of supplementary surveys to those already available. These will follow strict ethical scrutiny procedures to be set in place by the MICROCON Director and the Steering Committee.

Methods of analysis will be coordinated to be similar enough across cases to produce credible comparisons but tailored sufficiently to capture local specificities. With the accumulation of cases, this may produce statistical comparisons as well as the tracing of a small number of cases over time to uncover the core determinants and potentials for peace and conflict in different social, political, economic and cultural contexts. In order to structure comparison, we will choose country case studies that represent different stages of conflict processes and contextual characteristics.

Countries to be Analysed

Countries to be analysed fall under three headings:

1. European countries experiencing serious social tensions and/or violent conflicts that will impact on the security of EU citizens:

  • Albania
  • Belgium
  • Bulgaria
  • France
  • Kosovo
  • Netherlands
  • Romania
  • Serbia
  • Spain
  • Turkey
  • Ukraine
  • United Kingdom

2. Conflict-prone countries in neighbouring regions where Europe has strategic economic and political interests:

  • Afghanistan
  • Georgia
  • Israel
  • Kyrgyzstan
  • Lebanon
  • Liberia
  • Morocco
  • Palestine
  • Tajikistan
  • Syria

3. Countries that have experienced forms of conflict, or have been able to contain collective violence, in a way that entails a significant impact in the understanding of micro level violent conflicts:

  • Angola
  • Burundi
  • Colombia
  • Cote D’Ivoire
  • D R Congo
  • Eritrea
  • Ethiopia
  • Guinea
  • India
  • Indonesia
  • Kenya
  • Nigeria
  • Peru
  • Rwanda
  • Sierra Leone
  • Somalia
  • South Africa
  • Sri Lanka
  • Sudan
  • Uganda
  • Zimbabwe

For more information on MICROCON's work in these countries, visit our Projects by country page. The Preliminary Technical Report on Data Collection and Methods will be posted on this page when it is published. This report will be revised twice a year as the programme progresses.