Key Tools & Resources
IMPORTANT MESSAGE ABOUT THESE SOURCES
For this project you need to spend quality time with the resources linked below. It's not so much about typing searches and scrolling and scanning. It's about critical and careful reading! These sites are gold mines. Neither I, your librarian, nor your instructor could tell you, off the top of our heads, which of these is going to work best for any one of your projects. You need to look at ALL of them and REALLY LOOK, not just scan. Consider putting your phone in another room.
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- INCORE Conflict Data ServiceProvides information on international conflict resolution in the form of country guides, thematic guides, and peace agreements. The main audience for this service is academics as well as policy makers. Their criteria for including information is spelled out very clearly, and you should READ IT OVER! This is primarily primary source material. It is a great place to get a list of all of the agencies, organizations, associations, NGOs, etc., that have played a role in the conflict negotiations. The guides are not regularly updated – look at the date of the specific guide.
- Uppsala Conflict Data ProgramComes to you from Uppsala University's Department of Peace and Conflict Research. This is where you want to START for sure! You can get a good chronology and summary here of a specific conflict as well as very detailed information, including information on the parties involved, negotiations and agreements, about conflicts worldwide from 1989 to the present, updated annually. The basic search is geographical. There is also a dataset listing conflicts back to 1946, but with limited information on the individual events. Watch the dates, though, if the conflict is ongoing.
- Conflict BarometerA publication of the HIIK (Heidelberg Institute of International Conflict Research) at the Department of Political Science, University of Heidelberg, describes wars, coups d'etat, negotiations, peace settlements, etc., on an annual basis. Barometers from 1992 forward are online as either pdf files or rtf files. Oldest are in German only. Click CONFLICT BAROMETER--PREVIOUS YEARS in top bar. Then select a range from the pulldown to get to a particular year.
- SIPRI DatabasesThe Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) databases contain information from research institutes all over the world. The emphasis is on specific military and armed conflict information. They also have a number of potentially useful publications ... if you find one of interest, check OSCAR & LINK+ for it.
- United States Institute of PeaceUSIP is most useful for finding the full text of peace agreements and other documents related to inter- and intrastate conflicts and truth commissions. In addition, they have a wide variety of weblinks to information from other organizations, government agencies and news sources. Start searching on their Publications page. You can also use the main search box and put in a country name to see what work the USIP has been involved with in that country.