Archives

A volunteer cleaning effort on Queen Sirikit's birthday in 2019 (not part of the Volunteer Spirit 904 initiative)

Cascading royal-nationalism: Bangkok’s “Volunteer Spirit 904” bootcamps

Around 3,000 public servants have volunteered to attend intensive “boot camps” at a military base in Bangkok.

Lost in tongue: the politics of mother tongue education in Myanmar

A glimpse into the current state of mother tongue education and its connections to the broader ethnic reconciliation process.

Politicising the label radical?

Extremist labels are being utilised to repress criticism, strong-arm opponents and silence challengers of the Indonesian government.

How Christianity consolidated royalist, Buddhist “Thainess”

What do the late King Bhumibol and former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra have in common? They're both alumni of Catholic private schools.

Indonesia’s democratic paradox

The co-existence of Indonesia’s competitive elections with illiberal trends appears contradictory but the two are in fact interrelated.

National security and “immunising” Thais to political conflict

On the discourse of "immunity" against partisanship and contestation in Thailand’s 2019–22 National Security Policy

Why good women lose elections in Indonesia

New research shows how patriarchal attitudes and unfriendly institutions inhibit the success of female candidates.

Pracharat welfare depoliticises Thailand’s “political peasants”

สวัสดิการประชารัฐกับการเปลี่ยนแปลงความสัมพันธ์รัฐ-ชนบทไทย

Land, emotions and the durability of power in Cambodia

ដីធ្លី, អារម្មណ៍, និងថាវរកម្មនៃអំណាចនៅកម្ពុជា

An interview with Shamsul Iskandar

Malaysia's Deputy Minister of Primary Industries discusses his political awakening, GE14, and reforming the palm oil industry.

Papal visits in Thailand and “foreign religious subversion”

As Pope Francis lands in Thailand, Katewadee Kulabkaew unpacks hardline fears that the Catholic Church is like "a stealthy python" that will swallow Buddhism.

Illiberalism and democratic illusions in Myanmar

မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရှိ တင်းမာသောအမြင်သဘောထားနှင့် ဒီမိုကရေစီလှည့်စားမှုများ - ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေပြင်ဆင်ခြင်းအား နိုင်ငံရေးစွမ်းဆောင်မှုအဖြစ် အသုံးချခြင်း