Expanding Data on Unarmed Civilian Peacekeeping

Abstract

Abstract This article presents recent research on the collection and organization of unarmed civilian peacekeeping (ucp) data and proposes a pathway to the creation of a rich, regularly updated database on ucp. The article sets out by giving an overview of the wealth of data on conventional (military) peacekeeping and related research, and raises the question about the need for a similar data wealth for ucp. Secondly, it describes the inventory of current ucp data, to highlight advances in knowledge as well as data collection challenges and critical information gaps. In the main part, the article then sets out what a more comprehensive data collection on ucp would need to take into account and what such a dataset could look like. To do so, it also draws on databases regarding nonviolent campaigns and other fields (health, aviation) to demonstrate the potential for future data collection methodologies and research, and to consider safeguarding issues. Finally, this article suggests four strategies to better structure existing ucp data in order to collect missing information on various research themes. The benefits of the resulting rich database, it argues, would be greater visibility of ucp, the production of data useful for various research programs, and insights to improve field practice.