Since the publication of the 2005 Human Security Report, scholars and policy-makers have debated the causes, interpretation and implications of what the report described as a global decline in armed conflict since the end of the Cold War. The Human Security Project argues that 'the world is becoming less war-prone. In few regions has the apparent decline in conflict been as dramatic as in the Asia-Pacific, with annual recorded battle deaths falling in the range of 50 to 75 percent between 1994 and 2004. Drawing on such a wide range of case studies, this volume analyses the causes and patterns of this decline in armed conflict by focusing on that sub-set of conflicts that in the Asia-Pacific have been most costly in human lives over the last decade: internal conflicts based on the mobilization of ethnic and nationalist grievances. Diminishing Conflicts in Asia and the Pacific identifies structures, norms, practices and techniques that have either fuelled or moderated conflicts. As such, it is an essential read for students and scholars of international relations, peace and conflict studies and Asian studies.
