The Foundations of Rebel Group Emergence (FORGE) Dataset examines the roots of rebellion by considering the characteristics and activities of the "parent" organizations from which rebel groups emerged, as well as some details about these rebel groups at the onset of conflict (the organization's "birthdate" and founding location, initial goals, ideology, and ethnic/religious foundations).

The FORGE Dataset provides information for rebel groups included in the Non-State Actor Data, active in UCDP intrastate conflicts between 1946 and 2011.


You can download the FORGE Dataset and codebook here:

FORGE codebook version 1 (19 March 2019)
FORGE dataset version 1 - Excel file (19 March 2019)
FORGE dataset version 1 - Stata 13 file (19 March 2019)


When using the FORGE Dataset, please cite our data release article (the most recent working draft is available to download by clicking the title below):

Braithwaite, Jessica Maves and Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham. "When Organizations Rebel: Introducing the Foundations of Rebel Group Emergence Dataset." Forthcoming at International Studies Quarterly.

Here's the link to our article at ISQ 

Number of rebel groups in country with at least one armed non-state parent organization

​Soon we will release a large document containing brief narratives and evidence used to code the quantitative variables for each rebel group in the FORGE Dataset. In the meantime, if you have questions about any of these organizations or believe you've found an error in the data, please feel free to contact me directly: jbraith[at]email[dot]arizona[dot]edu 


In addition to the data provided in this initial release, we also have preliminary information on the following concepts, which we plan to include as variables in a future version of the FORGE Dataset:

• the nature of the rebel group's activities between the time of formation and onset of conflict as coded by UCDP 
• "start-up" assistance provided to the rebel group by third parties prior to the onset of conflict
• whether a parent organization was subjected to state repression prior to rebel group emergence
• whether (political party) parent organizations contested/won elections at the national and/or local level prior to rebel group emergence

We are currently using the FORGE Dataset to examine the following topics:

• determinants of conflict onset across different parent organization types
• escalation from low intensity civil conflict to civil war
• rebel-perpetrated civilian victimization (killings, sexual violence) 
• how rebel foundations shape dynamics of government concessions to rebels

Finally, if you plan to use the FORGE Dataset in your own research, we would love to hear about your project(s) so we can help promote your work in this space! Feel free to send me an email if you'd like us to highlight your FORGE-related research.