New Books in Southeast Asian Studies

Politics in Action is an annual forum in which invited experts provided an analysis of the current political situation in Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore and Vietnam, and discussed the broader implications of events in these countries for the region. After the event, each of the six speakers sat for a podcast to chat with Dr Natali Pearson and delve further into the political situation of their respective countries.In this podcast the presenter of the Indonesia update, Ms Navhat Nuraniyah, discusses the political situation in Indonesia.Navhat (Nava) Nuraniyah is a PhD scholar at the Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University. Her doctoral research focuses on how Islamist opposition groups in Indonesia respond to political repression and its broader implications for democratic decline. She was previously an analyst at the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), where she researched extensively on violent extremism, communal conflict and Islamist activism in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Prior to that, she was a researcher at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She has been published in academic journals and media such as Terrorism and Political Violence, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, The New York Times, and Sydney Morning Herald.Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

In 2016, journalist Clare Hammond embarked on a project to study the railways of Myanmar–a transportation network that sprawls the country, rarely used and not shown on many maps, and often used at the pleasure of the country’s military.In her book On the Shadow Tracks; A Journey Through Occupied Myanmar (Allen Lane, 2024), Clare travels the lengths of Myanmar’s railways, from the south of the country through the conflict-riven border areas, finally ending up at Naypyidaw, the nation’s planned capital.In this interview, Clare and I talk about Myanmar’s railways, her travels along them, and how they act as a symbol for Myanmar’s governments, past and present.Clare Hammond is a British journalist. Based in London, she works for non-profit Global Witness, investigating issues relating to natural resources, conflict and corruption. In Yangon, where she lived for six years, Hammond was most recently the digital editor of Frontier, Myanmar's best-known investigative magazine, where she oversaw daily news coverage.You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of On the Shadow Tracks. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at@nickrigordon.Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

With the ever-greater shift of the balance of global power towards the Pacific region, what does this have implications for the geopolitics of the region? How should the rest of the world, especially Europe, address the growing power and influence of the Pacific region? How does the complex interplay of cultural, civilizational, economic, legal, environmental, and political factors affect the Pacific region? These and other questions are the subject of 21st Century as the Pacific Century. Culture and Security of Oceania States in Great Power Competition (Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2023) edited by Dr. Joanna Siekiera.This publication, which is the result of a conference of the same title, aims to explain to the readers culture, political relations and climate conditions in the region of the South Pacific. The authors point to cause and effect relationships, provide figures and in-depth analyses of political, economic and social forces operating in Southeast Asia and Oceania and the influence countries of the region exert on the whole modern world.Dr. Joanna Siekiera is an international lawyer, Doctor of Public Policy from Poland. She is a fellow at the United States Marine Corps University and works as a legal advisor to various military institutions, primarily NATO.Dr. Siekiera did her postdoctoral research at the Faculty of Law, University of Bergen, Norway, and Ph.D. studies in New Zealand, at the Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington.She is the author of over 100 scientific publications in several languages, various legal opinions for the Polish Ministry of Justice, as well as the book Regional Policy in the South Pacific, and the editor of 8 monographs on international law, international relations, and security. Her areas of expertise are Law of armed conflict (Lawfare, Legal Culture in Armed Conflict, NATO legal framework) and the Indo-Pacific region, Pacific law, Maritime Security.Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

Politicians in Southeast Asia, as in many other regions, win elections by distributing cash, goods, jobs, projects, and other benefits to supporters, but the ways in which they do this vary tremendously, both across and within countries. Mobilizing for Elections: Patronage and Political Machines in Southeast Asia (Cambridge UP, 2022) presents a new framework for analyzing variation in patronage democracies, focusing on distinct forms of patronage and different networks through which it is distributed. The book draws on an extensive, multi-country, multi-year research effort involving interactions with hundreds of politicians and vote brokers, as well as surveys of voters and political campaigners across the region. Chapters explore how local machines in the Philippines, ad hoc election teams in Indonesia, and political parties in Malaysia pursue distinctive clusters of strategies of patronage distribution – what the authors term electoral mobilization regimes. In doing so, the book shows how and why patronage politics varies, and how it works on the ground.Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

European colonialism was often driven by the pursuit of natural resources, and the resulting colonisation and decolonization processes have had a profound impact on the formation of the majority of sovereign states that exist today. But how exactly have natural resources influenced the creation of formerly colonised states? And would the world map of sovereign states look significantly different if not for these resources?These questions are at the heart of Fueling Sovereignty: Colonial Oil and the Creation of Unlikely States (Cambridge University Press, 2024), which focuses primarily on oil as the most significant natural resource of the modern era. Dr. Naosuke Mukoyama provides a compelling analysis of how colonial oil politics contributed to the creation of some of the world's most “unlikely” states. Drawing on extensive archival sources on Brunei, Qatar and Bahrain, he sheds light on how some small colonial entities achieved independence despite their inclusion in a merger project promoted by the metropole and regional powers.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

"When the Spanish colonization of the Philippines began in 1565, early reports boasted of mass conversions to Christianity and ever-increasing numbers of people paying tribute to the Spanish crown. This suggests an uncomplicated story of an easy imposition of Spanish sovereignty. But as Stephanie Mawson shows in her book, Incomplete Conquests: The Limits of Spanish Empire in the Seventeenth-Century Philippines (Cornell UP, 2023), the Spanish colonization of the Philippines was contested at every step, went on for centuries, and in many respects remained incomplete. Mawson tells the story of the diverse peoples who resisted Spanish colonization, in some cases for over 300 years. These included the “fugitives, apostates, and rebels, Chinese laborers, Moro slave raiders, native priestesses, Aeta headhunters, Pampangan woodcutters, and many others...Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

What does an inclusive society look like? And what are the challenges and opportunities when the society in question, Timor-Leste, is one of the most resource-constrained in Southeast Asia? My guest today is interested in these questions of inclusion and participation, and argues that people with a disability are a key component of a truly inclusive society – and that employment can be a key policy lever for inclusion. With Timor-Leste recently ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), now is the time, she says, for building an evidence base for employment as a foundational right that has transformational potential not only for people with disability but for the broader community.Dr Kim Bulkeley from the Faculty of Medicine and Health joins Dr Natali Pearson to share the work she is doing ion disability and work in Timor-Leste. Dr Kim Bulkeley is a Co-head of the WHO Collaborating Centre for strengthening rehabilitation capacity in health systems, senior lecturer in the Sydney School of Health Sciences and a stream leader in the Centre for Disability Research and Policy.Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968 (Encounter, 2023) is the long-awaited sequel to the immensely influential Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965. Like its predecessor, this book overturns the conventional wisdom using a treasure trove of new sources, many of them from the North Vietnamese side. Rejecting the standard depiction of U.S. military intervention as a hopeless folly, it shows America's war to have been a strategic necessity that could have ended victoriously had President Lyndon Johnson heeded the advice of his generals. In light of Johnson's refusal to use American ground forces beyond South Vietnam, General William Westmoreland employed the best military strategy available. Once the White House loosened the restraints on Operation Rolling Thunder, American bombing inflicted far greater damage on the North Vietnamese supply system than has been previously understood, and it nearly compelled North Vietnam to capitulate. The book demonstrates that American military operations enabled the South Vietnamese government to recover from the massive instability that followed the assassination of President Ngo Dinh Diem. American culture sustained public support for the war through the end of 1968, giving South Vietnam realistic hopes for long-term survival. America's defense of South Vietnam averted the imminent fall of key Asian nations to Communism and sowed strife inside the Communist camp, to the long-term detriment of America's great-power rivals, China and the Soviet Union.Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

In 1941 and 1942 the British and Indian Armies were brutally defeated and Japan reigned supreme in its newly conquered territories throughout Asia. But change was coming. New commanders were appointed, significant training together with restructuring took place, and new tactics were developed. A War of Empires: Japan, India, Burma, and Britain: 1941–45 (Osprey, 2021) by acclaimed historian Robert Lyman expertly records these coordinated efforts and describes how a new volunteer Indian Army, rising from the ashes of defeat, would ferociously fight to turn the tide of war.But victory did not come immediately. It wasn't until March 1944, when the Japanese staged their famed 'March on Delhi', that the years of rebuilding paid off and, after bitter fighting, the Japanese were finally defeated at Kohima and Imphal. This was followed by a series of extraordinary victories culminating in Mandalay in May 1945 and the collapse of all Japanese forces in Burma. Until now, the Indian Army's contribution has been consistently forgotten and ignored by many Western historians but Robert Lyman proves how vital this hard-fought campaign was in securing Allied victory in the east. Detailing the defeat of Japanese militarism, he recounts how the map of the region was ultimately redrawn, guaranteeing the rise of an independent India free from the shackles of empire.Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

In Mooring the Global Archive: A Japanese Ship and Its Migrant Histories (Cambridge UP, 2023), Martin Dusinberre follows the Yamashiro-maru steamship across Asian and Pacific waters in an innovative history of Japan's engagement with the outside world in the late-nineteenth century. His compelling in-depth analysis reconstructs the lives of some of the thousands of male and female migrants who left Japan for work in Hawai'i, Southeast Asia and Australia. These stories bring together transpacific historiographies of settler colonialism, labour history and resource extraction in new ways. Drawing on an unconventional and deeply material archive, from gravestones to government files, paintings to song, and from digitized records to the very earth itself, Dusinberre addresses key questions of method and authorial positionality in the writing of global history. This engaging investigation into archival practice asks, what is the global archive, where is it cited, and who are 'we' as we cite it? This title is also available as Open Access here.Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies