Guest lectures

FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2022, 14 - 16h CEST

Recording on Lecture2Go

Abstract

Whereas civil society has been described as a `void’ two decades ago (Steinberg), the era of political reforms of the past decade saw an explosion of collective social action. The tutelary regime was confronted with a number of protest movements, which highlighted the growing significance of civil society organizations and social movements. Civil society could gain significant ground and could influence the political process both during the Thein Sein government (2011-2015) and the recent NLD government (2015-2020). Civil society could gain significant political space and could influence the political process in the last decade. Its impact impact, however, was highly ambiguous: On the one hand, we could witness the emergence of the 'dark side of civil society' with the rise of ultranationalist Buddhist monks and the silence of civil society during the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya. On the other hand, we could see the transformative potential in the rise of reformist groups which lobbied for reforms. While the coup in February 2021 unleashed a number of creative protests and collective action, the repression of civic protest forced civil groups to go underground again and led to another exodus of civil society actors. The talk is going to discuss the evolution of political spaces for civil society in Myanmar from a historical perspective. It describes the state’s response to social protest and tries to give an understanding of the spaces that exist after the coup of February 2021.

Presenter

Marco Bünte is Professor of Asian Politics at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen Nuremberg (FAU). His research focusses on comparative democratization, civil-military relations, social movements, civil society. His main region of research is Southeast Asia, here particularly Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar. He is the co-editor of the Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs. His worked has appeared in disciplinary outlets such as Armed Forces&Society, Contemporary Politics, Government&Opposition and regional outlets such as Journal of Contemporary Asia, Contemporary Southeast Asia, amongst others. He is also the co-editor of Presidentialism and Democracy in East Asia (Routledge 2022, with Mark Thompson) and Politics and Constitutions in Southeast Asia (Routledge 2017, with B. Dressel). 

FRIDAY, MAY 05, 2022, 14 - 16h CEST

Recording on Lecture2Go

Abstract

Beginning in July 2020, youth-led protests filled the streets of Bangkok and other cities in Thailand. Fed up with the remnants of dictatorship that lingered despite the elections in March 2019, the protestors made three demands: 1) The current prime minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, who first came to power in the May 2014 coup, must resign and a new election held; 2) The 2017 Constitution, drafted by a junta-appointed body, must be revised; and 3) The institution of the monarchy must be reformed. The third demand is both what has made the protests potentially socially and politically transformative – and has caused the state to respond with repression. Since November 2020, hundreds of people, including many secondary school and university students, have been accused of lèse majesté, or insulting, defaming or threating the king, queen, heir-apparent or regent, a crime that carries a sentence of up to 15 years imprisonment per count. Then, in November 2021, the Constitutional Court ruled that the activists’ peaceful protests and calls for reform of the institution of the monarchy equals overthrow of rule. Through the activists’ protests and the courts’ prosecutions, they are all engaged in imagining and working to create the polity in which they wish to live. This talk examines the ideas and actions of both the activists and the state as a contest over the meaning of sovereignty, rights, and freedom in the Thai present and past.

Presenter

Tyrell Haberkorn is Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is also coordinator of the Justice in Southeast Asia Law and editor of the Justice in Translation series in the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at UW-Madison. She researches and writes about state violence and dissident cultural politics in Thailand from the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932 until the present. She is the author of Revolution Interrupted: Farmers, Students, Law and Violence (University of Wisconsin Press, 2011) and In Plain Sight: Impunity and Human Rights in Thailand (University of Wisconsin Press, 2018). She is currently writing a microhistory of law and injustice during the coup years un¬der the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), the military junta that took power in the 22 May 2014 coup, and translating Prontip Mankhong’s prison memoir, All They Could Do To Us. Tyrell also writes and translates frequently about Southeast Asia for a public audience, including Dissent, Foreign Affairs, Mekong Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, openDemocracy, and Prachatai. She has received fellowships from Fulbright, Fulbright-Hays, Association for Asian Studies, Australian Research Council, Einstein Forum, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Institute for Advanced Study at Central European Uni­versity, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. 

FRIDAY, MAY 13, 2022, 14 - 16h CEST

Recording on Lecture2Go

Abstract

Since the emergence of the Reformasi movement in the late 1990s civil society has had a strong impact on political developments in Malaysia. The creation of a comprehensive coalition of opposition parties and its cooperation with different civil society organizations ushered in the 2018 electoral landslide and the fall of the ruling coalition led by UMNO (United Malays National Organization). Yet, subsequent power constellations have been marked by tumultuous political shifts under three prime ministers. In this lecture, the transition in recent years is analyzed with a focus on political opposition and civil society actors including those promoting autocratization.

Presenter

PD Dr. Andreas Ufen is Senior Research Fellow at the GIGA Institute for Asian Studies. He focuses on political developments in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia and Malaysia.

FRIDAY, MAY 27, 14 - 16h CEST

Abstract

Singapore can be difficult to explain to outsiders. It's a largely efficient, developed Southeast Asian city-state, and its citizens have high levels of trust in the government, dominated by the same party for over six decades. However, civil liberties and rights are also heavily restricted, and the country's tiny civil society scene often face harassment, intimidation, and repression. Tracing the ways in which authoritarianism works in Singapore can provide insight into the more subtle and insidious forms that oppressive governance can take.

Presenter

Kirsten Han is a Singaporean journalist and activist who runs We, The Citizens, a newsletter covering Singapore from a rights-based perspective. She also regularly freelances for international media publications; her byline has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, and more. She received an Honourable Mention in 2018 for the World Justice Project’s Anthony Lewis Prize for Exceptional Rule of Law Journalism, and a Human Rights Press Award in 2019 for her commentaries on "fake news" and freedom of expression.

Outside of journalism, Kirsten is a member of the Transformative Justice Collective, where she advocates for Singapore to abolish the death penalty and move towards harm reduction and transformative justice approaches.

FRIDAY, JUNE 03, 14 - 16h CEST

Abstract

As the total size of palm oil plantations is roughly doubling every decade, rural Indonesians are losing large tracts of their land to these plantations, often with limited or no monetary compensation. In response, they are engaging in demonstrations, lobbying and litigation as well as road blockades, destruction of property and violence. Based on a large collaborative effort to document 150 such conflicts between rural communities and palm oil companies, this presentation discusses the trajectories of the anti-corporate activism sparked by the expansion of palm oil plantations. Palm oil companies are succeeding in dispossessing rural Indonesians of their land because of the ways in which formal regulations and informal machinations have conspired to render rural Indonesians virtually rightless. Communities tend to fail in their efforts to address their grievances because collusion between powerholders and palm oil companies has facilitated the repression of protests and undermined the effectiveness of conflict resolution mechanisms.

Presenter

Ward Berenschot is a professor of comparative political anthropology at the University of Amsterdam and a senior researcher at KITLV. Studying politics in India and Indonesia, his research focuses on informal dimensions of politics, while a second field of research concerns the character of civil society and citizenship in these countries. He has also been involved in efforts to promote legal aid in Indonesia, particularly in relation to land conflicts sparked by palm oil expansion. He is the author of Riot Politics: Hindu-Muslim Violence and the Indian State (Hurst/Columbia University Press, 2011) and Democracy for Sale: Elections, Clientelism and the State in Indonesia (Cornell University Press, 2019, with Edward Aspinall) as well as various articles on governance, access to justice, citizenship and political violence. 

FRIDAY, JUNE 10, 2022, 14 - 16h CEST

Abstract

The Philippines used to have a robust, dynamic, and credible civil society that acted as a force for democratization. However, its power has decreased over time due to partisan choices, internal conflicts, and assaults by the Philippine state. This presentation discusses the evolution of significant groups within Philippine civil society and their relative decline given the populist-authoritarian government of Rodrigo Duterte. It argues that the erosion of Philippine democracy co-existed with the disempowerment of civil society due to direct assaults of the Duterte administration, massive disinformation campaigns, and the rise of authoritarian nostalgia and illiberal political actors. This presentation also analyzes the likely impact of the May 2022 national elections as a critical event of political change to the fate of civil society and trajectory of democratization in the Philippines.

Presenter

Aries A. Arugay is Professor of Political Science (on sabbatical leave) from the University of the Philippines in Diliman. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Regional Strategic and Political Studies Programme of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and Editor-in-Chief of Asian Politics & Policy, published by Wiley-Blackwell and the US-based Policy Studies Organization. His research interests are comparative democratization, civil-military relations, contentious politics, and foreign policy.

He obtained his PhD in Political Science from Georgia State University (United States) in 2014 as a Fulbright Fellow. He obtained his MA and BA (cum laude) in Political Science from the University of the Philippines-Diliman. In 2020, the National Academy of Science and Technology of the Philippines awarded him as an Outstanding Young Scientist (Political Science).

FRIDAY, JUNE 17, 14 - 16h CEST

Abstract

To characterize the state of Cambodia’s democracy since the UN organized election in 1993 the country has been labelled a nascent democracy, a transitional democracy, a competitive authoritarian regime and – more recently – a personalist dictatorship, among others. These labels convey a simplistic, yet widely accepted transition narrative whereby Cambodia first made gradual progress towards a liberal democracy by means of regular elections and the generous support of international democratic donors, only for the country’s Prime Minister Hun Sen to manipulate the system and slowly force a return to authoritarianism. The lecture will discuss which observations underpin these categorizations of Cambodia’s political transformation, which dynamics these labels call attention to, and what they tend to gloss over. Considering Cambodia’s initial status as a model case for the potential of liberal interventionism, the lecture assesses to what extent these classifications capture the nature of past and ongoing struggles for democratic freedoms on the ground and to what extent they are expressive of the changing expectations, hopes, and interests of Cambodia’s democratic donors and international trade partners. The lecture argues that a more thorough understanding of these differences and nuances is crucial to properly identify the material and symbolic sources that Cambodia’s leadership can now draw on to exercise and consolidate its power, as well as to evaluate the potential of opposition actors and their agendas within and beyond Cambodia’s borders.

Presenter

Dr. Katrin Travouillon is a Lecturer at the Department of Political and Social Change (Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs/Australian National University). Her research centres on the discursive and affective dimension of political change in Cambodia after the UN Transitional Authority (UNTAC 1992-1993). She is particularly interested in how the liberal peacebuilding project has shaped political ideas, identities, and interactions between domestic and international actors. Since 2019, Dr. Travouillon is a member of the editorial team of the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, a publication committed to critical analysis of international interventions, focusing on interactions and practices that influence and transform states and societies. Her work has appeared in Contemporary Southeast Asia, Peacebuilding, and Review of International Studies, among others. 

FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 2022, 14 - 16h CEST

Abstract

Lonely Planet describes Laos as “Asia in slow motion” – a place of “glowing emerald rice fields, and glistening tea leaves” where you will find “hundreds of saffron-robed monks gliding through the streets every morning.” Alternatively, Freedom House describes Laos as “a one-party state in which the ruling Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP) dominates all aspects of politics and harshly restricts civil liberties,” while the UNDP emphasises that Laos “has made significant progress in poverty alleviation over the past 2 decades.” This presentation will interrogate these common and competing narratives in order to provide a broad overview of Laos and its place in the world. Focusing particularly on the intersections between politics and development, it will discuss the leading priorities, challenges, and opportunities that Laos faces in its twin-track pursuit of poverty alleviation and economic growth.

Presenter

Kearrin Sims is a lecturer in development studies at James Cook University. He researches regional connectivity and South-South cooperation within Mainland Southeast Asia, with a focus on ethical development. His recent work examines the intersectional violence of large-scale infrastructures, political oppression, and development geopolitics. Kearrin is the author of numerous academic and media publications and a founding member of the Development Studies Association of Australia. More information about his work are available on his website. 

FRIDAY, JULY 01, 2022, 14 - 16h CEST

Panelists

June Tan
Five Arts Centre arts collective

Arkar Oo
Meta Let Kann peace and development organisation

Junya Yimprasert
ACT4DEM - Action for People’s Democracy

Bopha Phorn
Independent reporter

FRIDAY, JULY 15, 14 - 16h CEST

Abstract

This presentation tries to answer the question why the socialist regime in Vietnam does not end but continues to survive from a comparative perspective. In order to do so it will analyze the reform process in Vietnam in all fields including politics, economics, and culture. The main argument is that, compared to European countries, the communist regime of Vietnam had different roots and history, namely nationalism and the national struggle for independence and unification. Especially since 1986, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) could carry out the democratization process from within so as to secure its legitimation. But the future of the CPV will be a question for discussion.

Presenter

Phạm Quang Minh is Professor of History and Politics, and Chair of Department of International Development Studies at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (USSH), Vietnam National University-Hanoi. He got his PhD in Southeast Asian Studies from Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany in 2002. He was visiting professor to Pomona College (California), SciencePo (France), Waseda University (Japan), Chulalongkorn University (Thailand), among others. His main teaching and research interests include world politics, international relations of Asia-Pacific, and Vietnam’s foreign policy. His publications appeared in Journal International Relations of the Asia-Pacific (Oxford University Press), Journal of Vietnamese Studies (The University of California Press), Asia Europe Journal, Asia-Pacific Review, H-Diplo, and East Asia Forum.