The distribution of violent event and interevent times in conflicts
Physics and Society
2026-04-14 v4 Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
Abstract
Enduring violent conflicts are interrupted by lulls without violence. Studies of interevent times found power law distributions based on coarse-grained data with a resolution of one day. Fine-grained data of violence with a resolution of seconds or shorter is rare. A mathematical theorem predicts that the distributions thereof is lognormal, not power law. However, when violent conflicts are represented as multiplicative processes and fine-grained data is used, the log normal does not fit better than the power law. Therefore, common wisdom is not refuted. Violent events, by contrast, take much energy and their durations are shorter, hence they are lognormally distributed.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2501.00027,
title = {The distribution of violent event and interevent times in conflicts},
author = {Jeroen Bruggeman},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.00027},
year = {2026}
}