The Conflict Network Explorer: a web-based tool for visualizing conflict
2026-07-08
Contemporary armed conflicts often involve a wide array of actors—government forces, rebel groups, militias, informal armed groups, and civilians—interacting in complex and shifting patterns. To help capture this complexity, a growing number of studies draw on network analysis methods. As a complement to these approaches, this research note introduces a novel web-based tool that applies a visual analytics perspective to conflict dynamics. The tool visualizes conflict as a dynamic network, showing “who fights whom” through interactive network graphs. Drawing on the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) Georeferenced Event Dataset (GED), the tool automatically generates conflict actor networks alongside maps of violent events. Users can drag and reposition nodes, filter the network by time period, and use a highlighting function to trace specific actors. We demonstrate the tool's value through case studies on the Central African Republic, Syria, and Sudan. By enabling researchers and practitioners to generate conflict networks without technical expertise, the tool offers a practical complement to traditional conflict visualization methods, which typically emphasize dyadic relationships—such as state versus rebel—and display violence on maps.