The pilot project will define the empirical puzzle of the post 1979 ”East Asian Peace” for the more extensive study that attempts to explain why East Asia has been relatively pacific after 1979, if measured by the number of battle deaths.


This will be done by discussing what it means that the number of battle deaths has gone down and how East Asia distinguishes itself from other regions. The project will establish what alternative conceptual and empirical paths that are available for studying the East Asian Peace by focusing on indicators of one-sided state violence, non-state armed conflict, deaths caused indirectly by armed conflict, criminal violence, non-violent conflict, and militarized interstate disputes.


The review of the alternative ways is not so much meant to guide the larger program to alternative direction, as it is for the mapping of the violence the larger project studies, and for the definition of how the program results should be interpreted and generalized.


Furthermore, the pilot project will undertake a study of the extent to which 1979 was a turning point for East Asian and global peace.


In addition to the ambition of laying conceptual and empirical foundations for a larger project, the pilot study will also produce three articles on the conceptual, empirical and historical aspects of East Asian Peace to be submitted to international peer-reviewed journals.