In European history, war has played a major role in state‐building and the state monopoly on violence. But war is a very specific form of organized political violence, and it is decreasing on a global scale. Other patterns of armed violence now dominate, ones that seem to undermine...

Sustainable Development Goal 16 on "peace, justice, and strong institutions" is widely considered a central pillar of sustainable development. Based on a comprehensive concept of peace that goes beyond the mere absence of war, it might also be the most difficult to realise. Debates in Peace and...

This Working Paper examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on state and non-state violent actors in the Global South. We provide an ACLED-based interregional mapping of trends in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and subSaharan Africa. Cross-regional case...

Non-state armed actors (NSAAs) come in a variety of shapes and sizes, including warlordled groups, insurgencies, militias, and organised-crime syndicates to name just the most prominent examples hereof. In war or lower-level armed conflict, as well as violence-prone contexts, these groups pose...