Organized violence, 1989–2017

Abstract

This article reports on trends in organized violence from data collected by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP). With almost 90,000 deaths recorded by UCDP last year, 2017 saw a decrease for the third consecutive year to a level 32% lower than the latest peak in 2014. This trend in declining levels of organized violence is driven by state-based armed conflict, and by the case of Syria in particular. Forty-nine state-based conflicts were active in 2017, down by four compared to 2016, and ten of these reached the level of war, with at least 1,000 battle-related deaths. The overall decrease in fatalities lends support to the claim that conflict deaths are in decline and that the world is increasingly peaceful. This trend holds even more strongly when controlling for increases in world population. In contrast, non-state conflict has increased: a new peak of 82 active non-state conflicts was recorded in 2017 and fatalities have increased concurrently. Much of this is due to escalating violence in DR Congo and the Central African Republic. However, fatalities from non-state conflict remain but 15% of the total number of fatalities from organized violence. As for actors engaged in one-sided violence, their number also increased during 2017, although the number of fatalities remained at the same level as in 2016.