Armed nonstate conflict—violence among armed gangs, rebel groups, or communal militias without direct state involvement—is a widespread and understudied source of instability. This dataset documents what those actors fight over and key actor traits, enabling new research on the causes, dynamics, and consequences of nonstate organized violence in Africa.

🔎 What the dataset records

• Geographical and temporal scope: Africa, 1989–2011.
• Conflict scope: armed nonstate conflicts without direct state government involvement (e.g., gangs, rebel groups, communal militias).
• Issues coded: two primary categories—territory and authority—and a residual category labeled other.
• Sub-issues included (examples): agricultural land/water coded under territory; religious issues coded under other.
• Actor characteristics coded: whether warring parties received military support from external actors; whether religion and mode of livelihood were salient mobilizing factors.
• Relation to existing resources: builds on and extends the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) Non-State Conflict dataset by adding detailed issue and actor information.

🧭 How the data were assembled and coded

• Coding procedures and decision rules are documented in the article to show how issues, sub-issues, and actor attributes were identified and recorded.
• The dataset distinguishes issue categories at the conflict-actor level and flags observable mobilization features (religion, livelihood) as well as external military support to parties.

📈 Key features and coverage that aid research

• New, systematic information on what nonstate actors fight over (territory vs. authority vs. other).
• Granular sub-issue coding (e.g., land/water, religious motivations) that permits topic-specific analysis.
• Actor-level variables on external support and mobilization drivers, allowing investigation of interaction effects between issues and actor characteristics.

💡 Why this matters

• Enables empirical tests of hypotheses about the causes, escalation dynamics, and effects of nonstate conflict by linking conflict issues to actor behavior.
• Opens new avenues for research on topics such as: the role of external military support in nonstate violence, whether livelihood-based mobilization shapes territorial disputes, and how religious issues intersect with other conflict drivers.
• The article presents the coding workflow, key dataset features, and suggested research directions that leverage these new variables.