ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the empirical characteristics of conflict and wars in developing states and regions. It begins to explore some of these inconsistencies and demonstrate that the way we measure war and define an episode of violence as conflict has significant implications for our understandings of what war is and how much of it is happening. The state remains a crucial actor to consider when analysing conflict for a number of reasons, even though it is often just one of the competing sides in a multidimensional conflict system which may involve a range of non-state, or extra-state, fighting forces. The forced recruitment and use of child soldiers by states and non-state actors is prohibited in a range of international agreements, notably the Geneva Conventions and the 1989 united nation Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The existence of interconnected shadow economic and political networks is seen as proof that developing and conflict-affected states harbour dangerous 'ungoverned spaces'.
