About Us
The Empirical Studies of Conflict (ESOC) is a multi-campus, interdisciplinary network of scholars engaged in research on politically motivated and organized criminal violence worldwide.
Currently headquartered at Princeton University, it launched in 2009 at Stanford University in collaboration with the University of California Institute on Conflict and Collaboration (IGCC). ESOC was initially inspired by a desire among its founders to provide evidence-based prescriptions to practitioners wrestling with the challenges of reducing violence and stabilizing conflict zones in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries facing terrorist threats.
As ESOC has grown, its substantive focus has broadened. Today, ESOC’s affiliated scholars have broad interests ranging from sub state political violence (e.g., terrorism and civil wars and their effects) to great power conflict, spanning gray zone activities such as disinformation and cyber attacks, and support of governance through economic and political tools.
Recent Publications
- 2025
How does refugee return shape conflict in migrants’ destination communities? We argue that conditions inducing repatriation bear critically on the…
- 2024Political Communication
How often do political elites in the U.S. share low-quality news sources? Are there differences between the parties? While past work has…
- 2024Behaviour & Information Technology
Does the URL referral structure of websites lead users into ‘rabbit holes’ of unreliable content? Past work suggests algorithmic recommender…
- 2024PNAS Nexus
Does the fact-checking enterprise focus its attention on one party? If Republican or Democratic politicians were systematically more…