The Global Conflict Risk Index: A quantitative tool for policy support on conflict prevention

Abstract

In an effort to bridge the gap between academic and governmental initiatives on quantitative conflict modelling, this article presents, validates and discusses the Global Conflict Risk Index (GCRI), the quantitative starting point of the European Union Conflict Early Warning System. Based on open-source data of five risk areas representing the structural conditions characterising a given country (political, economic, social, environmental and security areas), it evaluates the risk of violent conflict in the next one to four years. Using logistic regression, the GCRI calculates the probability of national and subnational conflict risk. Several model design decisions, including definition of the dependent variable, predictor variable selection, data imputation, and probability threshold definition, are tested and discussed in light of the model's direct application in the EU policy support on conflict prevention. While the GCRI remains firmly rooted by its conception and development in the European conflict prevention policy agenda, it is validated as a scientifically robust and rigorous method for a baseline quantitative evaluation of armed conflict risk. Despite its standard, simple methodology, the model predicts better than six other published quantitative conflict early warning systems for ten out of twelve reported performance metrics. Thereby, this article aims to contribute to a cross-fertilisation of academic and governmental efforts in quantitative conflict risk modelling.