politicalviolenceataglance2013 was the first full year for Political Violence @ a Glance, and over the past year some conflicts around the world ended, others started, and still others ground on. Our team of contributors authored many articles, and our readership and Twitter following grew. We were also lucky enough to be voted the Duck of Minerva/Sage OAIS ‘Most Promising New Blog’ of 2013, which was an honor we cherished.
Beyond our home page, our five most popular posts written this year were:
- The Four Things We Know About How Civil Wars End (and What This Tells Us About Syria), by Barbara F. Walter
- Terror in Boston, by Erica Chenoweth and Joseph K. Young
- The Logic Behind Assad’s Use of Chemical Weapons, by Barbara F. Walter
- A Dispatch from a Syrian Refugee Camp, by Lionel Beehner
- The Perils of Disingenuous Proposals, by Andrew Kydd
Perhaps unsurprisingly, all but one focused on the war in Syria, a conflict that continued to dominate global headlines in 2013 and appears set to do the same in 2014. Taking after Chris Blattman’s list of amusing random Google searches that led readers to his blog, this year ten people found us this year by Googling “why does monaco exist” and three following “why has the canada military not performed a coup.”
We’ve also been nominated for the OAIS Best Group Blog award for 2014. Two of our posts, “The Four Things We Know About How Civil Wars End (and What This Tells Us About Syria)” by Barbara F. Walter and “Researching While Black: Why Conflict Research Needs More African Americans (Maybe)” by Christian Davenport, were also nominated in the Best Individual Blog Post category. Again, thanks to whoever nominated us.
Finally, we wanted to offer our heartfelt thanks to all our contributors and commenters. The comments are an important part of the discussions we hope to foster, and contribute to the simple, straight-forward analysis we strive to provide.
May 2014 be a more peaceful year for all of us.
