Dialogues on Southeast Asia

This episode unpacks the 8 February 2026 snap election and constitutional referendum in Thailand. The results paint a mixed picture: a decisive win for the country’s conservative forces alongside signals of progressive change, particularly regarding the drafting of a new constitution. Dialogues on Southeast Asia sits down with Prof Duncan McCargo, President’s Chair in Global Affairs at Nanyang Tec...

Today’s episode focuses on the intersection of Islam, society, and politics in Indonesia, the world’s single-largest majority Muslim country and the world’s third biggest democracy. Indonesian Islam is notable for its diversity, its associational strength, and its prominent role in both the transition from authoritarian rule to democracy in the late 1990s and in democratic politics in the country...

In this episode, we are joined by Dr Yasmin Ortiga, Associate Professor of Sociology at Singapore Management University, to speak to us about her latest book, Stuck at Home: Pandemic Immobilities in the Nation of Emigration, published by Stanford University Press. Yasmin is mainly interested in how changing ideas about desirable “skill” shape where and why people migrate. This question has led her...

Today’s episode focuses on the mid-term elections in the Philippines which were held in May of this year, including all local elected positions, all seats in the House of Representatives, and twelve of the twenty-four seats in the Senate. The elections have been viewed as a reflection on the administration of President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos, Jr. and as especially consequential for the future...

Today’s episode focuses on the policy challenges and politics of public healthcare in Southeast Asia, a topic which has become increasingly visible and important in Southeast Asia and in the study of the region over the past decades in the context of expanding public healthcare programs in many countries across the region and the recent experience of the global pandemic. To discuss these issues, w...

Today’s episode focuses on a major issue of enduring importance in Southeast Asia and in Southeast Asian Studies: authoritarianism. Even today, various forms of dictatorship remain alive and well across Southeast Asia, raising questions about their origins, their endurance, and the prospects for their evolution. To discuss these issues, we are joined by Dan Slater, one of the world’s leading speci...

This episode focuses on a cluster of issues of longstanding significance in Southeast Asia and in Southeast Asian Studies – plantation agriculture, global commodity chains or supply chains, exploitation of labour and environmental degradation, and resistance. To discuss these issues, we are joined by Dr. Alyssa Paredes, an environmental and economic anthropologist who is an Assistant Professor in...

Today’s episode focuses on Indonesia, the presidential election held in February 2024, and the impending inauguration of the winner of that election, former Army general and current defence minister Prabowo Subianto, in a few weeks’ time. Prabowo’s victory in February, events over the past several months, and the imminent transition to a Prabowo presidency have heightened concerns about the state...

In this episode, host LSE Southeast Asia Centre Director John Sidel speaks with Meredith Weiss, Professor of Political Science at SUNY Albany and a leading specialist on Malaysian politics. In the interview, Professor Weiss provides in-depth analysis and insights with regard to the complex patterns of continuity and change in Malaysian politics since the watershed election of 2018. Meredith Weiss...

In this episode, host SEAC Director John Sidel talks with Dr Qingfei Yin, SEAC Associate and Assistant Professor of International History at LSE. Dr Qingfei Yin talks about her new book State Building in Cold War Asia Comrades and Competitors on the Sino-Vietnamese Border (due out with Cambridge University Press in August 2024), explains how she became interested in her research on China and Vietn...

In this episode of Southeast Asia Forum 2024 Series, Prof John Sidel talks with Dr. Eve Warburton from the Australian National University for a critical reflection on Indonesia's industrial policies under President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) One of the principal economic legacies of Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) is a (re)turn to resource-based industrialization. Over the course of his second...

In Southeast Asia, environmental, labour and human rights (broadly ‘green’) questions have been met by rising scepticism and worry about trade protectionism, just when the region’s record of containing deforestation and its “green premiums” or profits from stricter (Western) criteria exports have never been better. Drawing on fifteen years of observations while embedded with value-chains, this pap...

The 1993 World Bank publication of The East Asian Miracle celebrated the region’s rapid growth and transformation but also obscured important variations within. Japan’s endaka and Big Bang ended its post-war boom and anticipated the 1997 East Asian financial debacle. Meanwhile, coerced economic liberalization from the 1980s gave way to an era of globalization in a seemingly unipolar world followin...

In this episode, SEAC Associate Dr Qingfei Yin talks with Pavin Chachavalpongpun, Associate Professor at the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, about his book. In the twilight years of King Bhumibol Adulyadej (1946–2016), changes to monarchic power were already set in motion. Having been at the centre of political gravity, Bhumibol left a vacuum of power when he died. Vajiralong...

In this episode, host SEAC Director John Sidel talks with Dr Hans Steinmüller, SEAC Associate and Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the LSE. Dr Hans Steinmüller, originally a specialist in China, shares his journey from conducting extensive fieldwork in Hubei province to his recent focus on the Wa State along Myanmar's border with Yunnan Province, China. This episode delves...

In this episode, host Professor John Sidel talks with Dr Thomas Smith, Associate Professor in Environmental Geography at the LSE, about the unique features and significance of Southeast Asia within a global environmental landscape. From the alarming rates of deforestation and the devastating loss of precious peatlands to the concerning trends in greenhouse gas emissions and the pervasive issue of...

During the Cold War, the collision of geopolitics, ideological competition and nationalism were especially traumatic in Southeast Asia. Yet the region was able to carve out space for itself and over several decades was able to effectively keep the region’s security free from geopolitical wrangling. This was due to the efficacy of ASEAN and its offshoots, the grand bargain struck between the US and...

While many today use Cold War 2.0 to refer to the standoff between U.S. and China, it is worth remembering that the first Cold War never ended in Asia, as evidenced by the political situation on the Korean Peninsula and that surrounding the Taiwan Strait. How has Cold War figured into the (controversial) modernisation process of East and Southeast Asia as well as the various (critical) imaginaries...

As the two-term presidency of Joko Widodo (‘Jokowi’) draws to a close, the 2024 parliamentary and presidential elections promise to set the stage for a new phase in Indonesian political life. Against this backdrop, three experts on Indonesian politics will discuss the election campaign, the results, and the implications for Indonesia’s future: Ben Bland, Director of the Asia-Pacific program at Cha...