The Why Project
← All authorities
Political Instability Task Force (PITF) logo

Political Instability Task Force (PITF)

Government-sponsored research panel · USA (academic consortium) · est. 1994 (as the State Failure Task Force)

Government-funded research

Built the historical 'genocide and politicide' dataset and influential statistical models of instability and atrocity risk.

Financing

organization
Money source

Funded by the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence. The Task Force uses only open-source, unclassified data and states its findings are not the official view of the US government.

Institutional alignment

US intelligence-community sponsorship (an important caveat for perceived independence); academics from George Mason and the University of Maryland. Funding for related projects reportedly ended around 2012.

Financing is shown to help readers weigh incentives and constraints. It is not a finding that the source is truthful or false.

Credibility & caveats

Academically influential and peer-reviewed (Goldstone et al., 2010). But CIA funding and historically limited public dissemination are real transparency concerns to weigh.

Membership & leadership

Not a public membership organization. A rotating consortium of academic social scientists was convened under CIA Directorate of Intelligence sponsorship. Participants were selected for the task force — there were no dues, elections, or open enrollment.

Leadership & members

Named individuals reflect leadership at the time of writing; linked names have individual profiles in this record. See membership & leadership above for how they are selected.

People profiled in this record

How this source is used

This profile is used to weigh publishers, investigators, officials, or source material cited inside case evidence. It may not itself issue a genocide determination for a case. See the methodology for the source-weighting rules.

Sources & disclosures