Contemporary Southeast Asia articles from August 2008

Contemporary Southeast Asia archives from August 2008

The essence of hedging: Malaysia and Singapore's response to a rising China.(Report)
August 1, 2008... What do states do when faced with an increasingly strong and/or potentially threatening Great Power? (1) For decades, mainstream International Relations (IR) theorists have offered two broad answers to this central question: states are likely...

Thailand's intractable southern war: policy, insurgency and discourse.(Report)
August 1, 2008... In mid-2008, with the turbulence in Thailand's Deep South halfway through its 5th year, the government, military and police claimed that tangible progress had been made in destabilising insurgent networks and reducing "daily killings" in the...

Islamist realignments and the rebranding of the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia.(Report)
August 1, 2008... During the lengthy tenure of Dr Mahathir Mohamad's premiership (1981-2003), the formal political scene of Islamism (1) was dominated by the incessant rivalry between the ruling United Malays' National Organization (UMNO) and Islamic Party of...

Governing Singapore's security sector: problems, prospects and paradox.(Report)
August 1, 2008... The case of Singapore is somewhat of a conundrum for students of security sector governance in at least two ways. On the one hand, while there is little question over the extent of professionalism within Singapore's security sector, the...

ASEAN and multilateralism: the long, bumpy road to community.(Association of Southeast Asian Nations)(Report)
August 1, 2008... From a geopolitical perspective, the Asian littoral divides into three subregions: Northeast Asia (the People's Republic of China, Japan, North and South Korea, Taiwan and the Russian Far East), Southeast Asia (Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor,...

The United States and the East Asia Summit: finding the proper home.(Report)
August 1, 2008... For the first two decades of its existence, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) had the field of inter-governmental regional bodies in East Asia and the wider Asia Pacific to itself. This suited ASEAN and its objective of...

A people-oriented ASEAN: a door ajar or closed for civil society organizations?(Association of Southeast Asian Nations)(Report)
August 1, 2008... In his report from a civil society conference held in Singapore on 27-28 October 2007, Simon Tay, Chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA), said: "A community is much more than an inter-governmental organization......

Sukarno and the Indonesian Coup: The Untold Story.(Book review)
August 1, 2008... Sukarno and the Indonesian Coup: The Untold Story. By Helen-Louise Hunter. Westport CT: Praeger Security International, 2007. Hardcover: 201pp. This book ought to have been published with two warnings. First, in all its 201 pages, there is...

Malaysia: Fifty Years of Diplomacy.(Book review)
August 1, 2008... Malaysia: Fifty Years of Diplomacy. By Chandran Jeshurun. Kuala Lumpur: The Other Press, 2007. Hardcover: 458pp. The inspiration for Chandran Jeshurun's book came from convivial sessions at the Selangor Golf Club, where the author met with...

Securing Southeast Asia: The Politics of Security Sector Reform.(Book review)
August 1, 2008... Securing Southeast Asia: The Politics of Security Sector Reform. By Mark Beeson and Alex J. Bellamy. Oxford: Routledge, 2008. Hardcover: 218pp. This volume, though enlightening, is limited by its narrow regional scope. Beeson and Bellamy...

East Timor: Beyond Independence.(Book review)
August 1, 2008... East Timor: Beyond Independence. Edited by Damien Kingsbury and Michael Leach. Clayton: Monash University Press, 2007. Softcover: 302pp. On the back cover of this book, the editors confidently claim that: "This is the most comprehensive...

Globalization, Culture and Society in Laos.(Book review)
August 1, 2008... Globalization, Culture and Society in Laos. By Boike Rehbein. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. Hardcover: 171pp. Studies on contemporary Lao society are rare. In his book, Boike Rehbein investigates the effects of globalization on...

The Terrorism Ahead: Confronting Transnational Violence in the Twenty-First Century.(Book review)
August 1, 2008... The Terrorism Ahead: Confronting Transnational Violence in the Twenty-First Century. By Paul J. Smith. New York and London: M.E. Sharpe. Soft cover: 257pp. Since the A1 Qaeda attacks of 11 September 2001, there have been as many experts as...

China's Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation.(Book review)
August 1, 2008... China's Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation. By David Shambaugh. Washington DC & Berkeley: Woodrow Wilson Center Press & University of California Press, 2008. Hardcover: 234pp. Ever since the Tiananmen Square massacre nineteen years...