The EAP program's core group, Chair of the Advisory Board Peter Wallensteen, and research assistant Susanne Schaftenaar.
(From left to right: Peter Wallensteen, Timo Kivimäki, Isak Svensson, Stein Tönnesson, Elin Bjarnegård, Erik Melander, and Susanne Schaftenaar)

The East Asian Peace Since 1979: How Deep? How Can It Be Explained?

During 2011-16, Professor Stein Tønnesson (PRIO and the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University), leads a program with support from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond under the following heading: "The East Asian Peace Since 1979: How Deep? How Can It Be Explained?"

In the first three decades after World War II, the world's worst civil and international wars occurred in East Asia. More than three out of four people killed in war were killed in that region. Since 1980 it has been relatively peaceful. East Asia s share of global battle deaths from 1980 to 2008 was less than five percent. This transition from widespread intensive warfare to relative regional peace has not yet been subject to any serious research effort, although the East Asian peace - and the question of its sustainability - are being more and more hotly discussed. Our research program seeks, first, to establish the depth of the East Asian peace since 1979 by mapping conflicts, peace processes and other factors: To what extent is peace just due to stalemates, conflict avoidance or government repression? To what extent has it been entrenched through trust, consensus-seeking culture, mutual dependencies, respect for the rule-of-law and legitimate governmental and inter-governmental institutions? Have political opposition movements perhaps shifted from armed to unarmed strategies of protest and rebellion? Second, our program will explore various possible explanations for the East Asian peace by testing realist, liberal and constructivist approaches, and developing hypotheses and theories of our own, with possible implications for general theory.

Program structure and participants

The program has a core group, which in addition to Tønnesson consists of Erik Melander, Elin Bjarnegård, Isak Svensson (all Uppsala University) and Timo Kivimäki (Copenhagen University). Susanne Schaftenaar serves as research assistant. The Advisory Board, which takes care of quality control, has the following members: Peter Wallensteen (Uppsala University), Bates Gill (SIPRI), Thommy Svensson (Stockholm China Alliance and Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen), Börje Ljunggren (former ambassador to Vietnam and China and co-ordinator, Stockholm China Forum), Moon Chung-in (Yonsei University), Robert S. Ross (Boston College), Wang Yizhou (Beijing University) and Kevin Clements (University of Otago, New Zealand). The following research associates will work on time-limited projects under the program: Miriam Coronel-Ferrer (Philippines), Anders Engvall (Sweden), Benjamin E. Goldsmith (Australia), Linus Hagström (Sweden), Hoang Anh Tuan (Vietnam), Andreas Jarblad (Sweden), Jong Kun Choi (South Korea), Rex Li (United Kingdom), Liselotte Odgaard (Denmark), Ren Xiao (China), Song Yann-huei (Taiwan), Henrik Urdal (Norway), Jordi Urgell (Spain), Wang Dong (China), Mikael Weissmann (Sweden) and Zou Keyuan (United Kingdom).