ABSTRACT
Defence studies need to process a wide variety of data (often in large quantity) and, to achieve this in an efficient manner, need to resort to databases. The first part of the chapter will present the various families of existing databases (existing some little known ones that have a large potential for use). They will be grouped by topics, providing a full landscape on the themes they cover. These include, inter alia, armed conflicts (actors, locations, victims …); military expenditure, arms production and trade; diplomatic agreements, international organizations (especially those related to international security); political regimes and political events related to the stability of a region; borders, territories and how control over those change; measures of state power; religion, identity, ethnicity; non-state actors, illegal trade, terrorism. Many lessons can be learned from the way those databases were progressively elaborated, how they are used and what are their limitations. In the second part of the chapter, examples taken from the databases introduced in the first part of the chapter will be used to present guidelines to researchers in need of a new database. The process of building databases in the context of defence studies will be described, emphasizing good practices and pitfalls that are specific to applications in this context. State-of-the-art techniques and technologies will also be briefly introduced in a way that will be accessible and useful to the non-technical reader.
