Mapping political violence in North and West Africa through a new Spatial Conflict Dynamic indicator

Keywords: political geography, political violence, spatial statistics
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

This paper introduces a new spatial indicator, called the Spatial Conflict Dynamics indicator (SCDi). The indicator is composed of metrics that focus on two interrelated but different spatial properties of violence: the relative intensity of conflict across a region (spatial density), and the relative distribution of conflict locations relative to each other (spatial concentration). We apply the SCDi to ACLED data for North and West Africa since 1997, highlighting which regions experience the most conflicts, how conflicts change geographically over time, and how foreign interventions affect the geography of conflicts. By aggregating our data across a high-resolution grid, we can pay special attention to the dynamics of conflict in borderlands. Contrary to popular belief that global extremist ideas fueled by transnational groups spread like wildfire across the region, the paper shows that conflict is largely localized. Less than a third of the regions with violence exhibit signs of diffusion. However, the paper also confirms that the geography of violence is less isolated than 20 years ago. Multiple clusters of high-intensity regions have formed in the Sahel, where violence is spilling over borders to adjacent regions and countries. These clusters are more likely to be surrounded by a periphery of lower intensity regions than in the past.