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While community level developments show a rise in engagement with democratic culture, the government appears to extending the reach of repressive legislations and ignore hate speech and intolerance.

A discussion on the power and limits of colonial racial categories; Hadramis, Sayyids and Sharifas in maritime Southeast Asia; modernity and cultural hybridity; the descendants of Arabs in the Malay world today;

In Malaysia, the ‘deep state’ is a shorthand for the perceived institutional inertia exerted by the 1.6 million strong civil service. But is it real?

It's time for an editorial change again! Read on to find messages from the outgoing and incoming editors, Becky Gidley and Elly Kent.

Indonesia's environmental policies are at odds with the rhetoric around palm oil production and Indonesians are not equipped with enough information to understand the risks of a changing climate.

The ILO is making slow but sure progress towards SDGs on human trafficking and forced labour in Myanmar, writes Gary Rynhart.

Indonesia’s labour unions refer to the new omnibus legislation proposed by the government as RUU Cilaka, which sounds like the Bahasa Indonesia word for “wretched”.

Brutal violence and nasty racist politics have a long history in Myanmar. To survive, people compartmentalise.

A critical reflection on the emergence, dominance and legacy of Java’s historic ‘empire’.

The top posts of 2019 and end of year thanks.

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

မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရှိ တင်းမာသောအမြင်သဘောထားနှင့် ဒီမိုကရေစီလှည့်စားမှုများ - ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအခြေခံဥပဒေပြင်ဆင်ခြင်းအား နိုင်ငံရေးစွမ်းဆောင်မှုအဖြစ် အသုံးချခြင်း

Jokowi's controversial new cabinet aims to secure buy-in from elites for large-scale economic reform. Will the wager pay off?

The role of excusing what others find inexcusable is a crucial part of understanding Filipino politics.

During the 1960–70s, Thai government agencies distributed vinyl records to raise awareness of elections. As historical documents, they offer insight into the country's turbulent political history.

How can Thailand “move on” from a decade of mass political contestation—unrest which was halted, but hardly resolved, by large-scale state violence and the military’s eventual seizure of power?

"The advent of the Commoners’ Party represents a more exciting, radical break with the status quo [than the Future Forward Party]—one that has so far kept class privilege of the likes of Juangroongruangkit intact," writes Kriangsak Teerakowitkajorn.

เศรษฐกิจแพลตฟอร์มจากมุมมองของแรงงานในประเทศไทย Platforms such as Uber and Airbnb entice labourers into job insecurities that may not be perceptible in the short term.

Part two of Anon Chawalawan's compilation of the activist inventiveness that has survived the NCPO's four-year rule.

‘Thainess’ only truly laid down its roots at the end of the 1970s. ความเป็นไทยหรือการเป็นคนไทยเพิ่งจะลงหลักปักฐานจริงๆก็ในปลายทศวรรษ 1970 เท่านั้นเอง

Farewell and good riddance to 2017, and thanks to all New Mandala contributors and readers throughout the year.

Revisit our 20 most-read posts published throughout the year.