Prof. Michael Spagat

Professor of Economics

About Prof. Spagat...

Prof. Spagat is the Chair of two NGOs: Every Casualty Counts and Action on Armed Violence

Michael Spagat is a Professor of Economics at Royal Holloway, University of London.  He gained his Ph.D. at Harvard University and earlier held faculty posts at Brown University and the University of Illinois.  Spagat’s published papers on armed conflict have been published in Nature, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of Peace Research, the Journal of Conflict Resolution and PLoS Medicine among other places.  His current research addresses universal patterns in modern war, the possible decline of war, the measurement of war deaths and the impact of drone strikes.  He teaches two free online courses: “Accounting for Death in War” and Survival Statistics”.  

Projects

Select project for brief description

Analysis of the size distribution of whole wars and violent events within wars including the study of mechanisms that can generate the observed size distributions.

Evaluating methods to account for death in war including casualty recording, sample surveys and capture-recapture and applying these methods to a number of real cases, particularly the Iraq war.

Studying the claim that that there has been a long-term trend toward less, or less violent, war dating back to roughly around the end of World War 2.

Looking for a possible causal link running from drone strikes to suicide attacks in Pakistan.

Publications

2021

“The Impact of Drone Warfare on Suicide Bombing in Pakistan” with Luqman Saeed. [in progress]

Civilian Targeting in African Conflicts: A poor actor’s game that spreads through space
Lis, P., Spagat, M. & Lee, U. R., 8 Feb 2021, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Journal of Peace Research.

The Impact of Drone Warfare on Suicide Bombings in Pakistan
Saeed, L. & Spagat, M., 2021, (Unpublished).

2020

Unifying casualty distributions withing and across conflicts
Spagat, M., Van Weezel, S., Johnson Restrepo, D. D., Zheng, M. & Johnson, N. F., Aug 2020, In: Heliyon. 6, 8,

Excess deaths and Hurricane María
Spagat, M. & Van Weezel, S., 30 Mar 2020, In: Population and Environment. p. 1-16

A computational science approach to understanding human conflict
Johnson Restrepo, D., Spagat, M., Van Weezel, S., Zheng, M. & Johnson, N. F., 3 Feb 2020, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Journal of Computational Science. p. 1-7 , 101088.

The Decline of War since 1950: New Evidence
Spagat, M. & Van Weezel, S., 2020, Lewis Fry Richardson: His Intellectual Legacy and Influence in the Social Sciences. Gleditsch, N. P. (ed.). Springer Chapter

2019

Braumoeller, Bear F (2019) Only the Dead: The Persistence of War in the Modern Age. New York: Oxford University Press. 314 pp. Book Review in the Journal of Peace Research
Spagat, M., 2019

Patterns in Terrorism and Insurgency: From real events and online extremism to a generative mathematical model.
Johnson, N. F., Van Weezel, S., Spagat, M. & Johnson Restrepo, D., 2019.

2018

Dealing with confusion over death “counts”
Spagat, M., Jewell, B. & Jewell, N., Dec 2018, In: Significance. 15, 6, p. 10-10

Fundamental patterns and predictions of event size distributions in modern wars and terrorist campaigns
Spagat, M., Johnson, N. F. & Van Weezel, S., 17 Oct 2018, In: PLoS ONE. 13, 10, p. 1-13 , e0204639.

Accounting for Civilian Casualties: From the Past to the Future
Jewell, N., Spagat, M. & Jewell, B., 11 Jun 2018, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Social Science History. 42, 3, p. 379-410

Attacks on medical workers in Syria: Implications for conflict research
Spagat, M., 24 Apr 2018, In: PLOS medicine. 15, 4, p. 1-3

Terms and conditions still apply: A rejoinder to Hagopian et al
Spagat, M. & van eezel, S., 27 Feb 2018, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Research and Politics. 5, 1, p. 1-3

Estimating Indirect War Deaths Directly
Spagat, M. & Van Weezel, S., 2018.

2017

Half a million excess deaths in the Iraq war: Terms and conditions may apply
Spagat, M. & Van Weezel, S., 11 Oct 2017, In: Research and Politics. 4, 4, p. 1-8Article › peer-review

2016

Censorship and Self-Censorship in Research on the Iraq War
Spagat, M., 2016.

Comment on ”Don’t get duped: Fraud through duplication in public opinion surveys”
Spagat, M., 2016, In: Statistical Journal of the IAOS. 32, 3, p. 293-294

2014

Kosovo Memory Book: A Triumph of Remembering
Spagat, M., 2014, (Unpublished).

2013

Simple mathematical law benchmarks human confrontations
Johnson, N. F., Medina, P., Zhao, G., Messinger, D. S., Horgan, J., Gill, P., Bohorquez, J. C., Mattson, W., Gangi, D., Qi, H., Manrique, P., Velasquez, N., Morgenstern, A., Restrepo, E., Johnson, N., Spagat, M. & Zarama, R., 10 Dec 2013, In: Scientific Reports. 3, 3463.

Iraq Body Count: A Case Study in the Uses of Incident-Based Conflict Casualty Data
Sloboda, J. A., Dardagan, H., Spagat, M. & Hicks, M. H. R., 2013, Counting Civilian Casualties: An Introduction to Recording and Estimating Nonmilitary Deaths in Conflict. Oxford University Press, p. 53-76 Chapter

MSE and Casualty Counts: Assumptions, Interpretation, and Challenges
Jewell, N. P., Spagat, M. & Jewell, B. L., 2013, Counting Civilian Casualties: An Introduction to Recording and Estimating Nonmilitary Deaths in Conflict. Seybolt, T., Aronson, J. & Fischhoff, B. (eds.). Oxford University Press, p. 185-211

2012

Estimating the Human Costs of War: The Sample Survey Approach
Spagat, M., 20 Apr 2012, The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Peace and Conflict. Oxford University Press

Suicide bombing: how to prevent death in civilians? – Authors’ reply
Hicks, M. H. R., Dardagan, H., Bagnall, P. M., Spagat, M. & Sloboda, J. A., 14 Jan 2012, In: The Lancet. 379, 9811, p. e9-e10

2011

Casualties in civilians and coalition soldiers from suicide bombings in Iraq, 2003–10: a descriptive study
Hicks, M. H-R., Dardagan, H., Bagnall, P. M., Spagat, M. & Sloboda, J. A., 3 Sep 2011, In: The Lancet. 378, 9794, p. 906–914

Mainstreaming an outlier: The quest to corroborate the second lancet survey of mortality in Iraq
Spagat, M., Jun 2011, In: Defence and Peace Economics. 22, 3, p. 299-316

Violent deaths of Iraqi civilians, 2003-2008: Analysis by perpetrator, weapon, time, and location
Hicks, M. H. R., Dardagan, H., Serdán, G., Bagnall, P. M., Sloboda, J. A. & Spagat, M., Feb 2011, In: PLOS medicine. 8, 2, e1000415.

Evidence of Potential Fabrication in Iraq Public Opinion Polls from 2005 – 2008
Spagat, M., 2011.

Global Comparison of Civilian Targeting by Warring Actors
Hicks, M., Lee, U. R., Sundberg, R. & Spagat, M., 2011, In: PLoS ONE. 6, 9

Ultrametric Wavelet Regression of Multivariate Time Series: Application to Colombian Conflict Analysis
Murtagh, F., Spagat, M. & A. Restrepo, J., 2011, In: IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Part A: Systems and Humans.41, 2, p. 254-263

2010

Truth and death in Iraq under sanctions
Spagat, M., Sep 2010, In: Significance. 7, 3, p. 116-120

Ethical and data-integrity problems in the second lancet survey of mortality in Iraq
Spagat, M., Feb 2010, In: Defence and Peace Economics. 21, 1, p. 1-41

Conflict deaths in Iraq: A methodological critique of the orb survey estimate
Spagat, M. & Dougherty, J., 2010, In: Survey Research Methods. 4, 1, p. 45-58

Discussion of “conflict deaths in iraq: A methodological critique of the orb survey estimate”
Heald, J., Spagat, M. & Dougherty, J., 2010, In: Survey Research Methods. 4, 1, p. 17-19

*For publications earlier than 2010, please visit Prof. Spagat’s royal Holloway Pure page HERE