This page is a gateway to the various research projects that I have either done, am in the midst of, or am just getting started with.
My long-term research concerns developing a computerized conflict early warning or alert system (CAS). I believe I have developed a good design for such a system, and one can find a description of that design in Conflict Management and Peace Science. I think it is a sound design because a CAS based on that design can scale up in capability to about as well as we can do at this time or in the medium-term future. However, in the process of making the design, I came to the conclusion that a lot more basic research has to be done before my proposed system can be implemented. My research since that realization thus focuses on answering basic research questions. The projects below should be viewed in that light.
The most important roadblock to a CAS, in my humble opinion, is that we need to distinguish between different types of conflict so that we can talk about the causes or early warning signs for a particular type of conflict. I think the situation we are in is roughly analogous to the situation in cancer research in the 1960s. At that time, different types of cancers were only crudely distinguished from each other if they were distinguished at all. An effort to classify cancers has subsequently contributed to advances in finding causes and treatments for cancer. Hoping to help conflict research in a similar manner, my largest research project entails creating a taxonomy of violent conflicts roughly analogous to Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order... in zoology and botany. At the core of that project is my building a Conflict Catalog, a database of all recorded violent conflicts since 1400 AD in which 32 or more people were killed.
In the course of creating my Conflict Catalog, a colleague challenged me with, "Peter, this all sounds nice and impressive, but I would like to see how this work can be applied to advancing theory." That, and the desire to have a good example for showing how to relate evidence to theory in my Empirical Research Methods and Causes of War classes, led me to examine the question of whether the structure of a system of states (countries) indeed affects the amount of violent conflict in the system, as is argued by the neorealist school of international relations theory. Namely, does it matter if you have a system with one dominant country, with two contending major powers (countries), with three major powers, or with more than three major powers? To answer that question, I ended up having to develop a dataset containing a power index (a measure of the relative power) of the most powerful countries in Europe (and to a lesser extent elsewhere) from 1494 to 1945. Now that the dataset has been developed, I am applying it to other concepts of relative country power such as power parity, power transitions, and power cycles and how they relate to violent conflict.
For a project in a totally different direction, I have for the past 6 years worked with a colleague, Bill Long, to examine the question of reconciliation in world politics. We have looked at reconciliations between countries following wars (such as Anwar Sadat shaking hands with Menachem Begin) and reconciliations within countries following civil wars (such as post-Apartheid South Africa). We have found that an explanation emphasizing rational decision-making works best in the international cases but that an explanation emphasizing a forgiveness mechanism that combines rationality with emotion is far superior in the within-country cases. Out of this collaboration we have produced a number of papers, such as one in International Interactions and, perhaps most importantly, a book scheduled to come out at the end of 2002.
Several years ago I worked with a set of computer simulations called global models. Out of that work I set up a group of web pages to help others interested in those models.
I also have written up a brief description of what I think might be the best variables to use in the creation of a Human Security (or conversely, Insecurity) Index. I have done this because the discussions/writings I have seen about such indices is quite general or narrow with respect to what should be included.
Finally, a few years ago I did a project with a grad student, Jill Wieder-Goodrich, that attempted to look in considerable detail at the causal pathways from environmental change to violent conflict. The interested reader can find that work here.
As this project progresses, I will be expanding this page with the findings from my work.
Last Update: 7 June 2002.
Peter Brecke … Sam Nunn School of International Affairs … Georgia Institute of Technology … Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0610 USA … Tel 404 894-6599 … Fax 404 894-1900 … Email peter.brecke@inta.gatech.edu