Comparative Peacebuilding in Asia: Liberal and Illiberal Transitions from Ethnic Conflict and Authoritarianism This project seeks to build a new academic-policy bridging network to promote high quality comparative scholarship and knowledge transfer on conflict resolution and peacebuilding in South and Southeast Asia. We focus on Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Indonesia, Cambodia, Nepal, Northeast India, Timor-Leste and Thailand, all of which are at the cusp of a historic transformation, but where the pathway to peace is contested, fragile, and frequently illiberal.  Our network has three objectives: (i) to promote and network academic research on comparative peacebuilding in Asia; (ii) to enable knowledge sharing and policy advocacy among scholars, practitioners, and policy makers; (iii) to advance rigorous scholarship through collaborative publications and research proposals.   The primary activities, outputs, and expected outcomes of this network will be threefold: (i) three workshops in Asia and the UK that bring academics and policy-makers together between June 2017 and May 2018; (ii) establishing a new website to promote research and knowledge exchange that is rigorous, evidence based, but also accessible; and (iii) developing collaborative research projects on comparative peacebuilding in Asia, to form the basis for joint publications and future large research grants.  The PI and co-investigators piloted a 'workshop-field visit' format in 2015, with internal seed funding from LSE, York and ANU, and held a very successful two-day event for scholars, practitioners, media and policy-makers at the University of Yangon, followed by a three-day field visit. With this proposal we seek to scale up that successful pilot experience and intensify dialogue with multiple stakeholders in the region. We plan two workshops with a field visit component, in Sri Lanka (June 2017), and Indonesia (December 2017); with a final workshop in London (May 2018). These events will include distinct components for academic research presentation, policy dialogue, stakeholder conversations, and knowledge-exchange.   The intellectual content of our network events is structured around two key policy themes that make peacebuilding in South and Southeast Asia particularly significant and challenging:  (1) These 'post' conflict countries are going through political, social and economic transformations that are not linear and liberal, but often troubled, inconsistent and illiberal.   (2) Peacebuilding is in most cases happening amidst a parallel transition from authoritarian rule that can be counter-productive to ethnic conflict resolution.   Our network draws on an international consortium scholars working on conflict and peacebuilding across area studies, anthropology, criminology, development studies, political science, sociology and law.  Since we initiated our dialogue, we have developed close links with our collaborators who will help us expand country, sectoral and topical expertise, and who bring significant institutional depth to our work.   Existing members of our network, who participated in the earlier pilot in Myanmar, include Professor Alex de Waal (Tufts), a seminal author on peacebuilding and dialogue in Africa, Professor Jayadeva Uyangoda (Colombo), the pre-eminent political scientist on the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict, Professor Caroline Hughes (Bradford) on peacebuilding in Cambodia and Timor-Leste, Dr Rachael Diprose (Melbourne) on ethno-religious conflict and inequalities in Indonesia, Professor Chaw Chaw Sein (Yangon) on the dynamics of authoritarian transition in Myanmar, Dr Terence Lee (NUS) on the role of the military in authoritarian transitions in Asia, Dr Stefano Ruzza (Milan) on counterinsurgency, criminology and peacebuilding, Professor Duncan McCargo (Leeds/Columbia) on the ethno-nationalist dimensions of conflict in Southern Thailand, Dr Lars Waldorf (York) on the comparative legal aspects of peacebuilding in Asia and Africa, and Professor Sanjib Baruah (Bard), on peacebuilding and politics in Northeast India. The Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) supports cutting-edge research to address challenges faced by developing countries. The fund addresses the UN sustainable development goals. It aims to maximise the impact of research and innovation to improve lives and opportunity in the developing world.