Lexington Books Unraveling Internal Conflicts in East Asia and the Pacific: Incidence, Consequences, and Resolution

Civil wars and internal conflicts pose the greatest threat to international peace and security in the twenty-first century. Nowhere is this problem more acute than in East Asia and the Pacific, which has far more of its share of such conflicts. Unraveling Internal Conflicts in East Asia and the Pacific: Incidence, Consequences, and Resolution, edited by Jacob Bercovitch and Karl DeRouen, Jr., is a book of originally commissioned essays on civil wars which provide a compelling area of inquiry. Many of the Asia-Pacific region's wars are very long (such as in Myanmar), some tend to recur (also in Myanmar); some involve religion (Philippines, Thailand), and some (Aceh, Bougainville, East Timor) of the longest have ended in the last few years. In short, the region presents a variety of interesting dynamics that merit close attention in one volume. The aim of Unraveling Internal Conflicts in East Asia and the Pacific is to provide an original look at these civil wars. The unique feature of the book is that it brings a variety of perspectives together into one volume. Bercovitch and DeRouen, Jr., do this in four sections: The first, titled "Security and Internal Conflicts in the Region," is an overview of conflict and conflict management in the region. Section Two is called "Features of Conflict in the Region." Here the authors cover conflict contours, including intractability, conflict resolution, recurrence, and Islam. Section Three, "External Involvement in Regional Conflicts," focuses on third party intervention in regional conflicts. The individual chapters cover mediation, peacekeeping, and other forms of third party involvement. The final section ties the chapters together. Unraveling Internal Conflicts in East Asia and the Pacific: Incidence, Consequences, and Resolution, edited by Jacob Bercovitch and Karl DeRouen, Jr., provides a fresh and comprehensive look at conflict in the part of the world where internal conflict is most prevalent. Review This edited volume makes an important contribution to our understanding of the causes of war--and peace--in Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific. It creatively combines case studies of individual conflicts with region-wide conflict trend data enabling a far richer and more comprehensive analysis than either approach on its own.--Andrew Mack, director, Human Security Report Project, Simon Fraser University Internal conflicts and civil war today pose the most serious challenge to the security of nation-states, particularly those that are weak and fragile. Such conflicts are often fought over competing ethnic, religious and ideological identities and beliefs. The Asia-Pacific region is particularly vulnerable as there are hardly any states in the region that are free from such conflicts. But although the problem of internal conflicts in the Asia-Pacific states is acute, systematic comparative and regional analysis of such conflicts have been lacking in the scholarly literature. Bercovitch and DeRouen Jr.'s edited volume plugs this gap in a major way. The book comprises of a collection of first class essays on the various aspects of internal conflicts in the Asia-Pacific region and ways to manage and resolve them. It should become standard reading for students, scholars and practitioners working in this area.--Rajat Ganguly, author of Small Wars and Insurgencies and senior lecturer at Murdoch University This might be the 'Asian Century, ' but this collection reminds us that the action is not all centered on China and Japan and that many of the challenges in the region are internal conflict struggles, not simply those of economics. Yet there are reasons for both optimism and caution on what international conflict management efforts can accomplish.--Paul F. Diehl, editor of International Interactions and Henning Larsen professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-C About the Author Jacob Bercovitch is professor of international relati