The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies is an autonomous research centre for scholars and other specialists concerned with modern Southeast Asia, particularly the multifaceted problems of development and modernization, and political and social change. The Institute is supported by annual grants from Singapore and other governments, as well as donations from international and private organizations and individuals. It has neither students nor teaching functions, being purely a research body. In addition to support staff, the Institute has 25 to 30 academics and other specialists working at the Institute at any one time. About half of these are Southeast Asians, including Burmese, Indonesians, Malaysians, Filipinos, Singaporeans, Thais, and Vietnamese, and others come from as far afield as Europe, Japan and North America. Though from different disciplinary and national backgrounds, all these scholars share a common concern, that is, an interest in the problems of Southeast Asia. They function as a community of scholars and interact among themselves and with the public at large through a series of seminars and professional meetings. Their research findings are published through various outlets of the Institute and distributed all over the world. In other words, the Institute is not the proverbial ivory tower. Its involvement in the region's affairs is both direct and contemporary. It seeks to be not only a research organization devoted to nurturing a scholarly environment conducive to maximum intellectual creativity, but also one that is keenly alive to public issues and needs. In this light it was quite natural that we should get involved in an effort to take stock of some of the critical areas of concern necessary to a proper understanding of Southeast Asia. The setting for this occasion was the Sabah Conference on Southeast Asian Studies held in Kota Kinabalu in 1977.

The Conference attracted a large number of scholars and other specialists from both within and outside the region, and the volume that follows is based on papers specially written for the meeting.