Collaborative Research: Subnational Nonstate Actor Governance

NSF Award Search · 01002526DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT · $90,504 · view on nsf.gov ↗

Abstract

The Sub-national Nonstate Actor Governance (SNAG) project introduces a new measurement strategy and public dataset to measure territorial control at the local level within conflict zones, tracked over time. Understanding how groups gain or lose territorial control, and thus how conflicts begin, evolve, and end, is essential to national security and preparedness. Yet scholars, policymakers, and military strategists lack reliable and accessible techniques to measure and monitor territorial control within conflict zones. Existing empirical research is focused on a limited number of conflicts for which there happen to exist reliable measures of local-level territorial control over time. This limits ability to understand conflict more generally, and to apply knowledge to new threat environments. This research draws upon open-source information to ensure a transparent process that is easily replicated across contexts and adapted to new measurement challenges. The project uses machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) tools to automatically detect mentions of belligerent activity and control in a corpus of open-source texts, which are then used to produce spatially and temporally disaggregated estimates of rebel and government territorial control. The Subnational Nonstate Actor Governance (SNAG) project measures nonstate actors’ territorial control and governance at the local level, capturing temporal variation throughout conflict, comparable across contexts. This p

Key facts

NSF award ID
2446387
Awardee
University of North Carolina at Charlotte (NC)
SAM.gov UEI
JB33DT84JNA5
PI
Benjamin J Radford
Primary program
01002526DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
All programs
Machine Learning Theory
Estimated total
$90,504
Funds obligated
$90,504
Transaction type
Continuing Grant
Period
07/01/2025 → 06/30/2028