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Abstract:
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One of the most choking figures of any war is the estimated number of dead especially when this number is concentrated within a specific ethnic, racial, political, or cultural group. Thus, data collection during a political conflict is one of the most challenging tasks. In particular, genocide data adds a twist to the problem due to the ethical perspective and potential political bias. The completeness and quality of the data drive the type of analysis and level of inference that can be done. Assumptions are dropped or imposed upon the data during the analysis which affect both the quality and reliability of the estimates. In this paper, the discussion will cover the data collection challenges, accuracy of some estimates, and the possibility of using them in policy and decision making.
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