The Middle East/North Africa region has remained relatively violent over the past fifteen years, as shown in the upper part of the figure below, with internal conflicts in about a quarter of the countries in every year. The lower part of the figure, however, shows that the underlying predictors are very close to those in South and Central America. Infant mortality rates, for instance, are about 25 per thousand, and only 25% are without secondary education. Reflecting the turbulent history of the region, we predict a much higher incidence of conflict than the Americas, but a rapid decrease over the next few decades.
Håvard Hegre 