ABSTRACT
Disaggregated studies of conflict, which are increasingly common, provide fine-grained renderings of the relevant actors, timing, and location of events. These studies look beyond the country-year as the unit of analysis, in lieu of research designs that focus on individuals, households, or groups, the heterogeneous characteristics, beliefs, and interests of these actors, and resulting variation in attitudes, decision making, and behavior. The shift toward the micro level also permits a more nuanced analysis of conflicts, with explanations that account for changes over time and across spatial units—spanning the range from villages, neighborhoods, cities, subnational administrative units, states, and regions—in the incidence, intensity, and duration of events. The ability to specify and test causal mechanisms, and thereby address a characteristic limitation of more highly aggregated large-N studies, constitutes a noteworthy advancement in conflict research.
