Publication

This paper examines the patterns of armed conflict in Africa since 1960 and how they compare with more general trends. It concludes that although Africa's declining levels of violence have broadly coincided with more global trends, the Cold War did temporarily disrupt the overlap in the 1970s and 1980s, and there has been a spike in armed violence since 2010. The latter trend may indeed represent a reversal of gains made in conflict reduction since the end of the Cold War.