Large-scale armed conflict is a characteristic feature of modern societies. The statistics of conflict show remarkable regularities like power law distributions of fatalities and duration , but lack a unifying framework. We explore a large, detailed data set of 10^5 armed conflict reports spanning 20 years across nearly 10^4 kilometers. By systematically clustering spatiotemporally proximate events into conflict avalanches , we show that the number of conflict reports, fatalities, duration, and geographic extent satisfy consistent power law scaling relations . The temporal evolution of conflicts measured by these scaling variables display emergent symmetry, collapsing onto a universal dynamical profile over a range of scales. The measured exponents and dynamical profiles describe a system distinct from prevailing explanations of conflict growth such as forest fire models. Our findings suggest that armed conflicts are dominated by a low-dimensional process that scales with physical dimensions in a surprisingly unified and predictable way .
Armed conflict exhibits regularities beyond known power law distributions of fatalities and duration over varying culture and geography. We systematically cluster conflict reports from a database of 10^5 events from Africa spanning 20 years into conflict avalanches . Conflict profiles collapse over a range of scales. Duration, diameter, extent, fatalities, and report totals satisfy mutually consistent scaling relations captured with a model combining geographic spread and local conflict-site growth. The emergence of such social scaling laws hints at principles guiding conflict evolution .
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Large-scale armed conflict is a characteristic feature of modern societies. The statistics of conflict show remarkable regularities like
Armed conflict exhibits regularities beyond known
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, but lack a unifying framework. We explore a large, detailed data set
over varying culture and geography. We systematically cluster conflict reports from a database
R
armed conflict reports
events from Africa
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across nearly 10^4 kilometers. By systematically clustering spatiotemporally proximate events
R
, we show that the number of conflict reports, fatalities, duration, and geographic extent satisfy consistent power law scaling relations . The temporal evolution of conflicts measured by these scaling variables display emergent symmetry, collapsing onto a universal dynamical profile over a range of scales. The measured exponents and dynamical profiles describe a system distinct from prevailing explanations of conflict growth such as forest fire models. Our findings suggest that armed conflicts are dominated by a low-dimensional process that scales with physical dimensions in a surprisingly unified and predictable way
. Conflict profiles collapse over a range of scales. Duration, diameter, extent, fatalities, and report totals satisfy mutually consistent scaling relations captured with a model combining geographic spread and local conflict-site growth. The emergence of such social scaling laws hints at principles guiding conflict evolution