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. Focusing on the Asia-Pacific region, this book analyses the causes and patterns of this decline.

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 a wide range of case studies, this book looks at...

Updated to cover events between 1986 and 1992, including the destruction of the mosque at Ayodhya in December 1992, the book analyses the secessionist crisis in Punjab which led to Indira Gandhi's murder and examines larger themes of ethnic conflict and threats to Indian unity. The Punjab example sheds light on processes at work in the rest of India, as the introduction to the new edition of the book points out. It also considers the domestic implications for India of a world in which 'socialism' and 'non-alignment' have lost much of their meaning.

In 1990, Kerala on the southwestern coast has India's lowest infant mortality, longest life expectancy and highest female literacy. India's 'problem state' of the 1950s has become 'the Kerala model'. The collapse of a matrilineal social structure and a rigid caste system contributed to widespread politicization. Women retained a circumscribed but influential position in social life. The result is an instructive analysis for students of politics, development policy and women's issues.