Organized violence 1989–2025, and violent political protests

Abstract This article examines global trends in organized violence from 1989 to 2025 using new data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP). In 2025, fatalities increased sharply to 244,600, up from approximately 187,000 in 2024. This marked a significant rise, with one-sided violence seeing a fivefold increase, largely driven by large-scale violence against civilians in Sudan, resulting in the highest fatality levels since the Rwandan genocide in 1994. The number of state-based conflicts reached a record high of 65, with interstate conflicts doubling for the second consecutive year, highlighting an increasing trend in international tensions. State-based fatalities, though slightly lower than in previous years, remained high at 153,600, reflecting the intensity of ongoing armed conflicts, particularly in Ukraine, Israel, and Sudan. Non-state violence, on the other hand, continued its decline, with fatalities dropping to their lowest level since 2013. These developments take place in a broader context of mass mobilization, where some events escalate into violence or are met with repression, sometimes overlapping with patterns of organized violence. To capture this dynamic, the article also presents updated data on violent political protests, an established but intermittently published UCDP category, extended here to 2025.