State Failure Dataset
| Producer |
Political Instability Task Force and George Mason University |
|---|---|
| Stated Purpose |
To provide data on ethnic wars, revolutionary wars, genocides and politicides, and adverse regime changes to inform analyses of the correlates of political instability and state failure since 1955. |
| Area of Governance |
Conflict
|
| Funding Source |
US Government |
| Current usage |
The data is used as inputs for a range of academic studies. |
| Where to find it | |
| Type of data used |
Based on expert coding of reference materials. |
| Coverage |
161 countries with populations greater than 500,000 worldwide. |
| Contact details |
Dr. Monty G. Marshall |
| Methodology |
The research team uses sources of available documentation to code (according to a codebook) the various different conflicts. |
| Format of results |
Different scales are used for different data points. |
| Valid Use |
The data can be used to provide a snapshot of the extent of fighting which is affecting a country. |
| Invalid Use |
The dataset cannot provide information on the impetus for state failure, nor can it provide any picture of any tension. Thus results will change only at the point of failure and the data will not aid prevention. |
| Assumption |
In using this index one implicitly assumes that the data is drawn from a representative and unbiased selection of sources. In addition, the weighting used to calculate the magnitude of failure assumes that the number of combatants is usually of equal importance to the number of fatalities. |
| Example results |
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