1. Introduction to Peace and conflict 2016 / David A. Backer, Ravi Bhavnani and Paul K. Huth -- 2. The cutting edge of research on peace and conflict / Karsten Donnay and Ravi Bhavnani -- 3. Armed conflict, 1946-2014 / Havard Strand and Halvard Buhaug -- 4. Patterns and trends of the geography of conflict / Roudabeh Kishi, Clionadh Raleigh and Andrew M. Linke -- 5. Violence against civilians during Civil War / Hanne Fjelde, Lisa Hultman and Margareta Sollenberg -- 6. Non-state actors in Civil War / David E. Cunningham, Kristian Skrede Gleditsch and Idean Salehyan -- 7. Democracy, ethnic exclusion, and civil conflict : the Arab spring revolutions from a global comparative perspective / Manuel Vogt, Nils-Christian Bormann and Lars-Erik Cederman -- 8. Global terrorism and the deadliest groups since 2001 / Gary LaFree and Laura Dugan -- 9. Defense spending, arms production and transfers : the political economy of defense in a transitional phase / Aude-Emmanuelle Fleurant and Yannick Queau -- 10. Global trends in the implementation of intrastate peace agreements / Jason Michael Quinn and Madhav Joshi -- 11. Why states repress : evaluating global patterns of abuse with the political terror scale / Reed M. Wood, Mark Gibney and Peter Haschke -- 12. Foreign aid and conflict : what we know and need to know / Bradley Parks, Caroline Bergeron and Michael J. Tierney -- 13. The peace and conflict instability ledger : ranking states on future risks / David A. Backer and Paul K. Huth -- 14. New developments in measuring the welfare effects of conflict exposure at the micro level / Tilman Bruck, Patricia Justino and Philip Verwimp -- 15. Active armed conflicts in 2014 / Margareta Sollenberg -- 16. United Nations peacekeeping missions active in 2014 / Deniz Cil -- 17. Criminal justice for conflict-related violations : developments during 2014 / Anupma L. Kulkarni.