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Ethnic minorities historically comprised a solid majority of Bangkok's population. They played a dominant role in the city's exuberant economic and social development. In the shadow of Siam's prideful, flamboyant Thai ruling class, the city's diverse minorities flourished quietly. The Thai-Portuguese; the Mon; the Lao; the Cham, Persian, Indian, Malay, and Indonesian Muslims; and the Taechiu, Hokkien, Hakka, Hainanese, and Cantonese Chinese speech groups were particularly important. Others, such as the Khmer, Vietnamese, Thai Yuan, Sikhs, and Westerners, were smaller in numbers but no less significant in their influence on the city's growth and prosperity.
In tracing the social, political, and spatial dynamics of Bangkok's ethnic pluralism through the two-and-a-half centuries of the city's history, this book calls attention to a long-neglected mainspring of Thai urban development. While the book's primary focus is on the first five reigns of the Chakri dynasty (1782–1910), the account extends backward and forward to reveal the continuing impact of Bangkok's ethnic minorities on Thai culture change, within the broader context of Thai development studies. It provides an exciting perspective and unique resource for anyone interested in exploring Bangkok's evolving cultural milieu or Thailand's modern history.
This book gives a brief account of how social and economic changes have an impact on the Singapore education system, bearing in mind that education and national development are closely related. Besides providing a short history of education in Singapore, the book discusses how the New Education System(NES) was implemented, public response to streaming, and the impact of the NES on educational wastage and attainments.
"For observers outside of Southeast Asia, this book opens up a world of conflicts, rivalries, and reconciliations that is terra incognita. It is easy to assume that all is well under the consensual Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) umbrella. These expert authors detail the sometimes stormy and often tense bilateral relationships in the region. In doing so they delineate the profound contribution that ASEAN has made to regional security and cooperation, but at the same time they show the limits of multilateralism as a mode of conflict resolution. Etel Solingen's introductory essay provides an extensive analytical vocabulary for regional politics, and the other authors have fascinating stories to tell about the interrelationships of Southeast Asia's states since 1975."- Brantly Womack, Hugh S. & Winifred B. Cumming Memorial Professor of International Affairs, University of Virginia"The international relations of Southeast Asia has been so dominated by academic studies focusing on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that 'everyday interstate politics' has been eclipsed. This volume by N. Ganesan and Ramses Amer redresses this neglect. International Relations in Southeast Asia: Between Bilateralism and Multilateralism includes nine empirically rich case studies focused on the management of persistent bilateral tensions involving eight of the region's states. This collection will appeal to a wide audience of students, academics, and regional security specialists due to the diversity and expertise of its contributors and its up-to-date analysis."- Carlyle A. Thayer, Professor, The University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra"The volume edited by Ganesan and Amer is a welcome departure from the academic theoretical focus on the regionalist enterprise of ASEAN. As the aspirational goal of an ASEAN community becomes increasingly elusive - if not illusory - this book explains in real policy terms the challenge to the political efficacy of ASEAN's multilateral fora, constrained as they are by consensus, non-interference, and fiercely defended state sovereignty. In detailed and sharply etched studies of the key bilateral interests and issues at the state level, the authors demonstrate that rather than recourse to the multilateral diplomatic platform represented by ASEAN, the preferred national mechanisms for the critical areas of cooperation and conflict will continue to be bilateral and the practices of traditional statecraft."- Donald E. Weatherbee, Russell Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of South Carolina
In the early 1990s, Singapore, the Malaysian state of Johor, and the Riau Islands in Indonesia sought to leverage their proximity, differing factor endowments, and good logistics connections to market themselves as an integrated unit. Beyond national-level support in all three countries, the initiative had the support of state and provincial leaders in Johor and Riau, respectively.Now, however, the situation is markedly different. The Malaysian government and its Johorean equivalent have invested considerable resources in encouraging closer integration with Singapore. For its part, the Indonesian central government has been promoting special economic zones and export-oriented activities. However, the provincial government of the Riau Islands has turned away from export-oriented industrialization, preferring instead to promote cultural sub-nationalism and traditional economic activities such as fishing and small-scale farming. This development is counter-intuitive. Traditional fiscal federalism theory argues that decentralization encourages competition between provinces for investment, jobs, and growth. While Indonesia has undergone one of the world's most far-reaching decentralization reforms, Malaysia has pursued a consistent centralization campaign at the expense of state governments. Thus, we would expect the Riau Islands' entrepreneurial drive to be unleashed, and Johor's to be smothered. However, Johor's drive for capital is undiminished, while the Riau Islands' pursuit of investment has dissipated. This monograph will explore the reasons for this paradox.'This book provides a path-breaking analysis of how Johor and the Riau Islands have competed with each other for FDI from Singapore in the electronics sector. It sheds light on how the institutional and incentive structures facing these regions have encouraged or discouraged policy innovation and dynamism. The rigorous analysis of financial and investment data in this book provides a convincing challenge to the conventional wisdom that proximity and cost differentials inevitably lead to closer economic integration.' - Professor Shujiro Urata, Waseda University
Malaysia’s 13th general election, held 5 May 2013, saw an unprecedentedly close race between the incumbent Barisan Nasional (National Front, BN) and Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Alliance, Pakatan) coalitions. For the first time in Malaysian history, a challenger coalition not only kept the BN from regaining the two-thirds parliamentary super-majority it had lost in the previous election, in 2008, but eked out a slim majority of the popular vote. While many Malaysian election is a big event, this one in particular merits close scrutiny. The present volume offers evidence and analysis with which to probe both the merits of common interpretations of who voted how, and why, and to suggest new readings on Malaysian politics.“This team of well-coordinated young scholars has produced what is, without any argument, the best, most comprehensive and broadly based study ever of Malaysian electoral politics. With a common approach and format, their local case studies highlight not the ‘wholesale’ politics of broad national party strategy but the ground-level ‘retail’ promotion of local candidates. Malaysian electoral politics is local, these closely-focused studies show. Because voters wish to ‘own’ their local representatives, and they can own only those whom they know and can in some measure control. This is how fresh, young eyes see the familiar ‘slog’ of this country's ground-level electioneering. Thanks to them we now have a new base-line for future Malaysian electoral studies.”— Clive Kessler, The University of New South Wales
This book of interviews with Professor Wang Gungwu, published to felicitate him on his 80th birthday in 2010, seeks to convey to a general audience something of the life, times and thoughts of a leading historian, Southeast Asianist, Sinologist and public intellectual. The interviews flesh out Professor Wang's views on being Chinese in Malaya; his experience of living and working in Malaysia, Singapore and Australia; the Vietnam War; Hong Kong and its return to China; the rise of China; Taiwan's, Japan's and India's place in the emerging scheme of things; and on the United States in an age of terrorism and war. The book includes an interview with his wife, Mrs Margaret Wang, on their life together for half a century. Two interviews by scholars on Professor Wang's work are also included, as are his curriculum vitae and a select bibliography of his works.What comes across in this book is how Professor Wang was buffeted by feral times and hostile worlds but responded to them as a left-liberal humanist who refused to cut ideological corners. This book records his response to tumultuous times on hindsight, but with a keen sense of having lived through the times of which he speaks.
Since the 1990s, regional organizations of the United Nations and international financial institutions have adopted a new dynamic of transnational integration, within the framework of the regionalization process of globalization. In place of the growth triangles of the 1970s, a strategy based on transnational economic corridors has changed the scale of regionalization.Thanks to the initiative of the Asian Development Bank, Southeast Asia provides two of the most advanced examples of such a process in East Asia with, on the one hand, the Greater Mekong Subregion, structured by continental corridors, and on the other, the Malacca Straits, combining maritime and land corridors. This book compares, after two decades, the effects of these developing networks on transnational integration in both subregions.After presenting the general issue of economic corridors, the work deals with the characteristics and structures peculiar to these two regions, followed by a study of national strategies mobilizing actors at different levels of state organization. There follows a study of the emergence of new urban nodes on corridors at land and sea borders, and the impact of these corridors on the local societies. This approach makes it possible to compare the effects of transnational integration processes on the spatial and urban organization of the two subregions and on the increasing diversity of the stakeholders involved.
Significant changes have taken place in the major areas of ASEAN economic co-operation. In trade, AFTA has replaced PTA; in industry, AICO replaces AIC and AIJV; while in agriculture an enhanced Food Security Reserve Scheme is being developed. At the same time, new areas of economic co-operation, notably in services and intellectual property, have been mandated. This book will enable the reader to monitor ASEAN's development with better insight and clearer understanding. It will also give policy-makers a clearer perspective of the issues relating to regional economic co-operation and help chart future directions.
Indonesia, the largest country in Southeast Asia, has as its national motto 'Unity in Diversity.' In 2010, Indonesia stood as the world's fourth most populous country after China, India and the United States, with 237.6 million people. This archipelagic country contributed 3.5 per cent to the world's population in the same year. The country's demographic and political transitions have resulted in an emerging need to better understand the ethnic composition of Indonesia. This book aims to contribute to that need. It is a demographic study on ethnicity, mostly relying on the tabulation provided by the BPS (Badan Pusat Statistik; Statistics-Indonesia) based on the complete data set of the 2010 population census. The information on ethnicity was collected for 236,728,379 individuals, a huge data set. The book has four objectives: To produce a new comprehensive classification of ethnic groups to better capture the rich diversity of ethnicity in Indonesia; to report on the ethnic composition in Indonesia and in each of the thirty three provinces using the new classification; to evaluate the dynamics of the fifteen largest ethnic groups in Indonesia during 2000–2010; and to examine the religions and languages of each of the fifteen largest ethnic groups.
'As the euphoria fades from the Jokowi presidency, this timely book reviews the processes that brought him to the top, and the processes that have undermined his initial standing. The nineteen articles by ten writers provide views from along the way, starting with a chapter on the Jakarta governor elections from November 2012 and preceding through the key events up to a contemporary assessment in February 2015. Several major clues to the current disillusion are provided in accounts of the legislative elections and the presidential campaigns. Key topics are vote buying, the Islamic factor, economic platforms, pluralism, economic challenges. Max Lane points to deep alienation from politics and the emergence of new unions and a new political arena. The ISEAS team provides a range of events and analyses that will be most useful to all students of current Indonesian politics; clear, concise, insightful.' – David Reeve, Conjoint Associate Professor UNSW, ILTI Academic Coordinator ACICIS.
'This book effectively captures the dynamics of Indonesian politics by focusing on the various phenomena surrounding the 2014 elections. It begins this political journey with an analysis of the implementation of local autonomy, and the birth of a leader brave enough to challenge extant political elites. It further explores the application of political culture in campaigns, the shortcomings of elected leaders, and the inadequacy of a state obliged to accommodate various interest groups. Beyond all these, this book proves that the political culture approach remains crucial in investigating Indonesia's political realities.' – Sukardi Rinakit, Political Analyst, Special Staff to President Joko Widodo.
Indonesia was founded on the ideal of the 'Sovereignty of the People', which suggests the pre-eminence of people's rights to access, use and control land to support their livelihoods. Yet, many questions remain unresolved. How can the state ensure access_to land for agriculture and housing while also supporting land acquisition for investment in industry and infrastructure? What is to be done about indigenous rights? Do registration and titling provide solutions? Is the land reform agenda - legislated but never implemented - still relevant? How should the land questions affecting Indonesia's disappearing forests be resolved?The contributors to this volume assess progress on these issues through case studies from across the archipelago: from large-scale land acquisitions in Papua, to asset ownership in the villages of Sulawesi and Java, to tenure conflicts associated with the oil palm and mining booms in Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Sumatra. What are the prospects for the 'people's sovereignty' in regard to land?
Indonesia is the largest country in Southeast Asia where there is a significant number of ethnic Chinese, many of whom have played an important role. This book presents biographical sketches of about 530 prominent Indonesian Chinese, including businessmen, community leaders, politicians, religious leaders, artists, sportsmen/sportswomen, writers, journalists, academics, physicians, educators, and scientists. First published in 1972, it was revised and developed into the present format in 1978, and has since been revised several times. This is the fourth and most up-to-date version.
The global centre of gravity continues to shift to the Asia-Pacific, the most dynamic region in the world. These economies have generally grown faster for longer periods of time than any other major region in world history. Their embrace of globalization has been a central feature, and driver, of their dynamism. The management of Asia-Pacific economic integration and globalization is crucial not only for the countries themselves but also for the state of the global economy, including importantly latecomer developing economies who look to the region for analytical and development policy lessons. Twenty-eight leading international authorities in the field, drawn from nine countries, provide a comprehensive examination of the causes, consequences and challenges of globalization, in a volume that celebrates the distinguished career of Professor Prema-Chandra Athukorala.
Among the major issues examined are the region's distinctive approach to trade liberalization, the effects of economic growth on poverty reduction and the labour market, the special challenges of by-passed regions, the role of ideas in influencing policy making, the modalities of connecting to global production networks, and the importance of remittances in economic development. Several country case studies provide in-depth analyses of development processes and outcomes. These include episodes in economic development, the challenges faced by transition economies, the macroeconomics of adjusting to slower growth and rising debt in advanced economies, and the so-called middle-income trap phenomenon.
The fall of the New Order government in 1998 and the political reform that followed posed substantial challenges for Indonesia's bureaucracy to continue fulfilling its mandate. This book analyses the process of bureaucratic reform in the irrigation sector. Using Irrigation Management Transfer policy as the entry point for analysis, it documents and analyses the irrigation bureaucracy's ability to sustain its power and prominence in the sector's development, amidst and against national and international pressures for reform. The book argues that bureaucratic reform in the irrigation sector, rather than attempting to change the bureaucracy's functioning in the image of national and global (good) governance perspectives and priorities, should instead focus on linking the irrigation bureaucracy's everyday practice more effectively with farmers' needs and aspirations. Reform efforts of the past decades show that Indonesia's irrigation sector development cannot be redirected without the irrigation bureaucracy's knowledge, experience and cooperation, and without strengthening its downward accountability to farmer-irrigators.
Over the past two decades, ISEAS has compiled abridged articles that analyse key aspects of Southeast Asia's development and the ASEAN process. The ASEAN Reader was published in 1992 just as the Cold War ended, while The Second ASEAN Reader came in 2003 in the wake of the 1997 Asian crisis and the September 11 attacks in 2001. The past decade has not been spared its share of intense changes, with the rise of China and India bringing new challenges to the region's power equation, and the impact of the 2008 global financial crisis. Despite this, the momentum towards an integrated ASEAN community has been maintained. The articles in The Third ASEAN Reader study the trends and events of recent years, and discuss the immediate future of Southeast Asia.
In 1938, noting that the bulk of the Indian population formed a 'landless proletariat' and despairing of the ability of the factionalized Indian community to unite in pursuit of common objectives, activist K.A. Neelakanda Ayer forecast that the fate of Indians in Malaya would be to become 'Tragic orphans' of whom India has forgotten and Malaya looks down upon with contempt'. Ayer's words continue to resonate; as a minority group in a nation dominated politically by colonially derived narratives of 'race' and ethnicity and riven by the imperatives of religion, the general trajectory of the economically and politically impotent Indian community has been one of increasing irrelevance. This book explores the history of the modern Indian presence in Malaysia, and traces the vital role played by the Indian community in the construction of contemporary Malaysia. In this comprehensive new study, Carl Vadivella Belle offers fresh insights on the Indian experience spanning the period from the colonial recruitment of Indian labour to the post-Merdeka political, economic and social marginalization of Indians. While recent Indian challenges to the political status quo – a regime described as that of 'benign neglect' – promoted Indian hopes of reform, change and uplift, the author concludes that the dictates of political discourse permeated by the ideologies of communalism offer limited prospects for meaningful change.
The central puzzle in the study of Japanese foreign policy has been why Japan has continued to play a passive role in international affairs, despite its impressive economic and political power. Challenging this central puzzle, the core argument of this study is to present an alternative path for the study of Japanese foreign policy. In fact, in recent years Japanese foreign policy has become less dependent on the United States, more strategic towards Asia, and more energetic towards international and regional institutions. One of the main features is multilateralism in Japanese foreign policy, as shown by Japan's active participation in the regional institutions. In pursuing multilateralism, Japan cooperated closely with the only durable regional body in Southeast Asia, to wit, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Given the fact that East Asian regionalism has been driven by ASEAN, it is of utmost urgency to investigate the emerging partnership between Japan and ASEAN. The central thesis of this study is thus to put Japan's ASEAN policy into a proper perspective by asserting that Japan's new policy initiatives towards ASEAN are not reactive, nor are they exceptions in a broader framework of merely reactive foreign policy.
With China's transformation into a republic after two millennia as an empire as the starting point, Ooi Kee Beng prompts renowned historian Wang Gungwu through a series of interviews to discuss China, Europe, Southeast Asia and India. What emerges is an exciting and original World History that is neither Eurocentric nor Sinocentric. If anything, it is an appreciation of the dominant role that Central Asia played in the history of most of mankind over the last several thousand years.
The irrepressible power of the Eurasian core over the centuries explains much of the development of civilizations founded at the fringes – at its edges to the west, the east and the south. Most significantly, what is recognized as The Global Age today, is seen as the latest result of these conflicts between core and edge leading at the Atlantic fringe to human mastery of the sea in military and mercantile terms. In effect, human history, which had for centuries been configured by continental dynamics, has only quite recently established a new dimension to counteract these. In summary, Wang Gungwu argues convincingly that 'The Global is Maritime'.
This book argues that Malaysia's electoral politics have historically been premised on a hybridized model of communalism and consociationalism. Beyond this it posits a newer idea of power sharing based on the dynamic and transformative practice of mediated communalism through six decades (1952_2016) of electoral politics. The strategy of mediating communalism is critically explored throughout the book, serving to test its saliency as a distinct approach to power sharing in a social formation which is ethnically, religiously and regionally divided, yet has remained remarkably and tenuously integrated throughout Malaysia's electoral history. The book delves into this question by narrating and theorizing the complexity of communal politics leading to the emergence of new politics which have attempted to put Malaysia on the track of further democratization. It is further implied that new politics has to work in tandem with mediated communalism to transcend the most deleterious effects of an ethnically divided society.
Islamic Post-Traditionalism in Indonesia offers a unique assessment of the development of the phenomenon of Islamic post-traditionalism using Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the largest mass Islamic organization in Indonesia (and the world) as a case study. Post-traditionalism is a term now widely used to describe the often controversial attempts by progressive reformers to reify and legitimize modern intellectual notions, often from non-Islamic sources, by using reference to terminology and ideas drawn from Islamic tradition. This book discusses the discourse of post-traditionalist thought within Islamic thought more widely, before turning to examine the emergence of new currents of progressive thought within NU in Indonesia and the factors that influence that. In particular, the book explores the sometimes fiery struggle between liberal and conservative thought in NU; and the position of post-traditionalist thought in the wider development of intellectualism in Indonesia. It covers in detail new religious discourses that are being developed and offers important insights into the implications and future for post- traditionalist thought among Muslims. The highly influential Indonesian version of this book was originally published as Post Traditionalisme Islam: Wacana Intelektualisme dalam Komunitas NU by the Fahmina Institute, Indonesia, 2008.