Previous quantitative research on ethnic civil war relies on macro-level proxies in an attempt to specify the conditions under which ethnic minorities rebel. Going beyond an exclusive focus on minorities, the present study employs Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a way to model ethnic...

It is commonly assumed that there is much less secrecy in the United States than in its allies across the Atlantic. This paper sets out to substantiate this thesis by means of a comparison between Norway and the US. The Freedom of Information Act and the Executive Order on classification are...

While territory, oil, and water are frequently mentioned as resources likely to promote interstate conflict, diamonds have emerged as a prominent factor in explanations of civil war. In this article, the authors report on a new database on diamond deposits and production and analyze the...

Natural resources, and diamonds especially, are commonly believed to play a significant role in the onset and duration of armed civil conflict. Although there is ample case study evidence that diamonds and similar resources have been used by rebel groups to finance fighting, there are few...

A number of recent studies argue that there is decline in armed conflict within and between nations. Gohdes and Price run against the grain in arguing that there is no evidence for a decrease in battle deaths in armed conflicts after World War II and that the trend reported in our earlier...

Proponents of the democratic peace have been criticized for failing to discuss colonial wars. Democratic countries have repeatedly fought such wars, which critics hold to be incompatible with democratic peace theory. Three reasons are suggested to explain why colonial wars do not invalidate the...

Geographical factors in general and proximity in particular have a pervasive influence on negative as well as positive interaction between states. Traditionally, proximity has been measured by contiguity or by great-circle distance. We argue that it is important to distinguish between the...