Citation

Picoli S, del Castillo-Mussot M, Ribeiro HV, Lenzi EK, Mendes RS. Sci. Rep. 2014; 4: 4773.

Affiliation

Departamento de Física and National Institute of Science and Technology for Complex Systems, Universidade Estadual de Maringá, 87020-900 Maringá, Paraná, Brazil.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1038/srep04773

PMID

24758839

Abstract

Understanding the mechanisms and processes underlying the dynamics of collective violence is of considerable current interest. Recent studies indicated the presence of robust patterns characterizing the size and timing of violent events in human conflicts. Since the size and timing of violent events arises as the result of a dynamical process, we explore the possibility of unifying these observations. By analyzing available catalogs on violent events in Iraq (2003-2005), Afghanistan (2008-2010) and Northern Ireland (1969-2001), we show that the inter-event time distributions (calculated for a range of minimum sizes) obeys approximately a simple scaling law which holds for more than three orders of magnitude. This robust pattern suggests a hierarchical organization in size and time providing a unified picture of the dynamics of violent conflicts.

Language: en