ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at security from the perspective of the quantitative literature on armed conflict. It defines security on three levels, from global, state, and individual perspectives, while restricting the attention to political violence. The chapter briefly discusses the challenges facing quantitative studies of armed conflict, especially when it comes to dealing with war escalation. Policies that induce compliance from potentially threatening actors, such as poverty reduction, are more effective than those that seek to compel them through military force. The chapter displays the number of battle-related deaths in one-sided and non-state conflicts in the period 1989-2013 on a log-transformed scale, seeing security mainly from the perspective of individuals. It reviews the quantitative literature on armed conflict and discusses the security impact of three means of compellance: military expenditure, United Nations peacekeeping operations (PKOs), and military intervention for regime change.
