Introducing the PA-X Tracker

The PA-X Peace Agreements Database and Dataset[1] hosts the largest repository of formal agreements in the world, with over 2,000 formally signed publicly available documents systematically coded by their contents. This data collection can provide valuable insights into peace and transition processes, including the commitments parties have made to end conflict. However, peace agreements in isolation do not provide a comprehensive overview of a process, as there is a plethora of interactions that shape the political context beyond formally signed agreements. Additionally, there is a gap in how to effectively track who is involved in peace processes and to what extent commitments agreed in these documents are being implemented.

To address these gaps, PeaceRep has been developing the PA-X Tracker. The PA-X Tracker is an interactive platform that consolidates a range of widely used data sources through PeaceTech tools that provide snap-shot overviews and insights into the dynamic nature of peace and transition processes. Conceptualised at the beginning of the PeaceRep programme, and iteratively developed with academia and practitioners over the last few years, the PA-X tracker was created with the aim to make peace data more visible, in a time where there is a tendency in the field and industry to focus on conflict data. In PeaceRep, we have a range of data collections from field research, such as surveys on the perceptions of peace in South Sudan[2], or perceptions of authority, legitimacy, and development in Syria[3] – the tracker aims to represent the realities of the ground, whilst situating it amongst large institutionalised global datasets.

The Tracker will enable a variety of users to better understand and visualise transition trajectories. Users who work on peace and transition processes, whether as a negotiator, mediator, activist, or researcher, now have quick and easy access to a vast range of data indicators in a centralised place to support adaptive peace process management. This has been increasingly requiring the use of data as evidence – something crucial in the field, but difficult for many due to the need to download a range of spreadsheets of raw data that require time, skills, and resources to analyse.

What can the PA-X Tracker do?

The PA-X Tracker provides a mechanism for users to track the implementation of peace and transition processes, both currently and historically through indicators of change that are widely used. We have consolidated a range of data sources into the platform through a variety of PeaceTech tools to provide various entry points into the stories that can be found in these data sources. For overviews of the processes themselves, we have developed dashboards that provide a snapshot of processes in PA-X data – denoting how many agreements have been signed, the type of agreements, when they were signed and at what “stage” of the process (for example, ceasefire or substantive-comprehensive), in addition to snapshots of the topics the agreements addressed. This has been done for all processes in PA-X (170 in total as of Version 7).

Users can compare processes in any country in PA-X in the same manner to allow for comparison between processes. Figure 1 illustrates this dashboard with varied country selections. Users can immediately access a recent general overview of processes to point to potential areas for comparative analysis, based on a range of features of the processes.

Figure 1: A comparison of processes across a range of countries
Figure 1: A comparison of processes across a range of countries

To supplement process overviews and allow for analysis of who is involved and at what stage for 15 of our PeaceRep case studies, we have also extracted the actors who were signatories to the agreements in processes in PA-X, in the upcoming Peace Agreement Actors Dataset (PAA-X)[4]. This provides insights into the specific actors who sign (or do not sign) together, and the types of actors that are conflict parties in addition to third parties. This can provide a useful mechanism to find all agreements that have been signed by specific actors in a given process, in addition to finding entry points into new dialogues based on who has co-signed in the past. For example, in Figure 2 below we can quickly toggle between the ARCSS and R-ARCSS agreements in South Sudan to see what actors were involved in both, or only one of the agreements.

GIF toggling between two actor network views of South Sudan peace agreements
Figure 2: actors involved in the ARCSS and R-ARCSS agreements in South Sudan

Peace agreements are not the only events that shape and facilitate the trajectory of these processes. To illustrate other key formal events in processes for the 15 countries we have developed curated country profiles for, we have generated interactive ‘Timelines of Institutional Change’. These timelines of the formal change process denote a range of key events for each country: the signing of an agreement (and local agreements) is contextualised with surrounding constitutional events[5], elections[6] [7], coups d’état[8] and amnesties[9] to illustrate the range of formal events that shape the political context. This enables users to quickly get up to speed in a country’s history and process trajectory since 1990, for example see the number of events on the Democratic Republic of the Congo timeline in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Timeline view showing number of events for Democratic Republic of the Congo
Figure 3: Timeline view showing number of events for Democratic Republic of the Congo

Tracking implementation through the PA-X Tracker

Combining these three components provides a digestible overview of peace and transition processes. However, there is still a remaining gap – how were they implemented in reality? Tracking implementation in a standardised manner is a difficult task as there is little consensus of how this can be measured. However, it is an essential task for many that wish to understand peace agreement implementation and how well peace processes are working.

As we cannot measure direct implementation systematically, we have combined a range of indicators that are commonly used in the field to measure what we refer to as “impact” indicators – how did these processes over time have an impact on levels of conflict, and on levels of peace in the context they intend to address? These data indicators provide proxy measures to get a general idea of how things are going: what is going well, what is going badly, and when and where is this happening? To track these impacts, we have developed dashboards to consolidate these sources[10]. ‘Conflict Impacts’, provides an overview of relevant conflict sources in specific countries, in addition to tracking levels of conflict in UCDP[11] and ACLED[12] to see the conflict impacts directly surrounding the signing of an agreement – ranging from one day to one year after the agreement was signed. The ‘Peace Impacts’ view of the dashboard allows users to quickly compare composite indicators across countries, in addition to a range of security, political, economic and humanitarian indicators to gauge how things have changed. Figure 4 illustrates the overview page of the ‘Peace Impacts’ dashboards across different countries.

GIF showing the peace impacts overview page for a range of countries
Figure 4: Peace Impacts overview page across a variety of countries

Further context

The PA-X Tracker is a living and growing platform – more resources, countries and data will be incorporated into the system over time, with iterative design processes to ensure we appropriately meet our users’ needs. Please explore the now live PA-X Tracker, and let us know your thoughts and feedback! https://pax.peaceagreements.org/tracker/

Useful links:

 

Stuck on how to use the Tracker? Check out our combined user guides in this PDF – each guide can be accessed via the relevant Tracker components in the text below the tool.

Prefer visual aids? Check out our YouTube playlist with videos on how to use the PA-X Tracker.

 


 

Endnotes

[1] Bell, C., & Badanjak, S. (2019). Introducing PA-X: A new peace agreement database and dataset. Journal of Peace Research, 56(3), 452-466. Available at https://www.peaceagreements.org/

[2] Deng, D., Dawkins, S., Oringa, C. and Pospisil, J. (2022) Perceptions of Peace in South Sudan: Longitudinal Findings (Detcro and PeaceRep Report). PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh. Explore the data: https://peacerep.org/2024/03/01/perceptions-of-peace-in-south-sudan-interactive-survey-data-from-south-sudan/ or on the South Sudan profile of the PA-X Tracker: https://pax.peaceagreements.org/tracker/south-sudan/local-case-study

[3] Turkmani, R. et al. (2022), Mapping Syria: Authority, legitimacy and development. PeaceRep: the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, LSE IDEAs Conflict and Civicness Research Group. Explore the data: https://www.mappingsyria.com/ or on the Syrian PA-X Tracker profile: https://pax.peaceagreements.org/tracker/syria/local-case-study

[4] Badanjak, S. and Henry, N. (forthcoming), The Peace Agreement Actor (PAA-X) Dataset, PeaceRep at the University of Edinburgh [work in progress]

[5] Elkins, Zachary and Tom Ginsburg. 2022 “Characteristics of National Constitutions, Version 4.0.” Comparative Constitutions Project. Last modified: October 24, 2022. Available at comparativeconstitutionsproject.org

[6] Hyde, S. D., & Marinov, N. (2012). Which Elections Can Be Lost? Political Analysis, 20(2), 191–210. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23260172 View here: https://nelda.co/

[7] National Democratic Institute – Global Election Calendar. View here: https://www.ndi.org/elections-calendar  [for post 2020 elections not covered by NELDA].

[8] Chin, J. J., Carter, D. B., & Wright, J. G. (2021). The Varieties of Coups D’état: Introducing the Colpus Dataset. International Studies Quarterly, 65(4), 1040-1051.

[9] Mallinder, L. (Creator), Amnesties, Conflict and Peace Agreement (ACPA) Database, The University of Edinburgh, 31 Aug 2020 https://www.peaceagreements.org/amnesties/  [Dataset]

[10] See the full list of external data sources and providers on the PA-X Tracker – “About – External Data Providers” section: https://pax.peaceagreements.org/about/

[11] Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) GED: Davies, Shawn, Therese Pettersson & Magnus Öberg (2023). Organized violence 1989-2022 and the return of conflicts between states?. Journal of Peace Research 60(4). View here: https://ucdp.uu.se/

[12] Armed Conflict Location Event Dataset (ACLED): Raleigh, C., Linke, A., Hegre, H., & Karlsen, J. (2010). “Introducing ACLED: An armed conflict location and event dataset: Special data feature”. Journal of Peace Research, 47(5), 651-660. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343310378914. D. View here: https://acleddata.com/