Phillips, Brian J and Greene, Kevin T (2022) Where is conflict research? Western bias in the literature on armed violence. International Studies Review, 24 (3). DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viac038
Phillips, Brian J and Greene, Kevin T (2022) Where is conflict research? Western bias in the literature on armed violence. International Studies Review, 24 (3). DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viac038
Phillips, Brian J and Greene, Kevin T (2022) Where is conflict research? Western bias in the literature on armed violence. International Studies Review, 24 (3). DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viac038
Abstract
Which countries are likely to be subjects of research in the study of armed conflict? Evidence from other fields suggests that research often focuses disproportionately on the West, but it is unclear to what extent this is true in conflict studies. We suggest that a baseline explanation of research focus is country conflict experience, and present two additional hypotheses: Western bias and research feasibility. Empirically, we count countries in the abstracts of five prominent conflict or security journals, 1990-2015. We also manually count single-country case studies. Western countries, measured by U.N. voting or geographic location, appear more than non-Western countries, even after considering conflict, wealth, and other factors. There is less support for the research feasibility argument, measured by country official languages and democracy. We find French- and Spanish-language countries less likely to appear in the literature. We conclude with discussion of under-studied countries and offer related suggestions.
Item Type: | Article |
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Additional Information: | Source info: Forthcoming, International Studies Review |
Uncontrolled Keywords: | armed conflict; conflict; meta-research; research; the West; war; Western bias |
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences Faculty of Social Sciences > Government, Department of |
SWORD Depositor: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Depositing User: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Date Deposited: | 02 Sep 2022 10:14 |
Last Modified: | 30 Oct 2024 20:48 |
URI: | http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/32906 |
Available files
Filename: viac038.pdf
Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0