Using past violence and current news to predict changes in violence
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Publication Date
2022-07-04Journal Title
International Interactions
ISSN
0305-0629
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Type
Article
This Version
AM
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Mueller, H., & Rauh, C. (2022). Using past violence and current news to predict changes in violence. International Interactions https://doi.org/10.1080/03050629.2022.2063853
Abstract
This article proposes a new method for predicting escalations and de‐escalations of violence using a model which relies on conflict history and text features. The text features are generated from over 3.5 million newspaper articles using a so‐called topic‐model. We show that the combined model relies to a large extent on conflict dynamics, but that text is able to contribute meaningfully to the prediction of rare outbreaks of violence in previously peaceful countries. Given the very powerful dynamics of the conflict trap these cases are particularly important for prevention efforts.
Sponsorship
Hannes Mueller acknowledges financial support from the Banco de España and the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D Barcelona School of Economics CEX2019‐000915‐S).
Embargo Lift Date
2023-11-10
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03050629.2022.2063853
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/335360
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
Licence URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
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