Where is Conflict Research? Geographic Bias in the Literature on Armed Violence

• In Event: Civil War Dynamics

Abstract

Which countries are most likely to be subjects of research in the conflict literature? Why are some countries analysed more than others? Conflict scholars’ attention to particular countries could be based on those countries’ conflict experience or conflict severity. However, recent analyses of other research topics, such as economic development, suggest that additional factors affect country coverage. This manuscript considers economic, geographic, cultural, and power-politics explanations for country coverage in the conflict literature. Empirically, the manuscript presents a country-year database with information on how often conflict journals feature each country each year. Analyses uses multiple measures of country coverage: counts of case studies and automated counts of mentions of countries. Descriptive data indicates an extreme imbalance in country coverage. Results suggest that power politics and economic factors, more than conflict experience or severity, explain country coverage in the conflict literature.

Authors

• Brian J. Phillips, University of Essex

• Kevin T Greene, University of Pittsburgh