The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) constitutes the most ambitious programme of economic cooperation in the developing world. Its goal is to create no less than a free flow of goods, services, foreign direct investment, and skilled labour, as well as a freer flow of capital, throughout the region. Implementing this agenda will be technically and politically difficult. Hence, understanding the potential economic "payoff" is of the essence. The goal of this book is to assess empirically the likely economic effects of the AEC on the ASEAN Member States and associated stakeholders. It mobilizes a number of techniques to do so, and finds that the likely effects will be large, even greater than the anticipated effects of the Single Market Program in Europe, for example. The AEC will help the region improve competitiveness, facilitate the creation of production networks, foster the diffusion of 'best practices', and help ASEAN project its interests more effectively in an increasingly integrated, global economy.

Alternately lauded as a democratic success story and decried as a flawed democracy, Indonesia deserves serious consideration by anyone concerned with the global state of democracy. Yet, more than ten years after the collapse of the authoritarian Suharto regime, we still know little about how the key institutions of Indonesian democracy actually function. This book, written by leading democracy experts and scholars of Indonesia, presents a sorely needed study of the inner workings of Indonesia's political system, and its interactions with society. Combining careful case studies with an eye to the big picture, it is an indispensable guide to democratic Indonesia, its achievements, shortcomings and continuing challenges.

"This book makes an important contribution to understanding the ongoing political evolution of politics in Sarawak. It also provides a case study of the engagement of a dominant state with social forces in a multi-ethnic society."— Prof Harold Crouch, Emeritus Professor, Department of Political & Social Change, School of International, Political & Strategic Studies, Australian National University "Taking off from Joel Migdal's notions of 'the strongman-politician, 'strong society, weak state' and 'the state in society', the author discusses how the federal government accommodates Taib Mahmud's chief ministership over Sarawak, and how his long tenure is anchored in winning political support from the Sarawak Muslim Bumiputera community. An insightful book on contemporary Sarawak politics."—Prof Francis Loh Kok Wah, School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia"This volume will go a long way in explaining why a single Melanau family has been able to dominate Sarawak politics for the past four decades."—Prof James Chin, Head of School of Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University, Malaysia Campus

This admirable book contains fascinating autobiographical accounts, by some of Southeast Asia's most eminent scholars, concerning their struggle to find their own voices in interpreting the region to which they belong. The book should be indispensable to anyone interested in thinking about knowledge production and its politics in a postcolonial world. In the views of these scholarly Southeast Asians, we are made to see, in very personal terms, the link between the global crisis in the social sciences and the need to find remedies for it that are neither Eurocentric nor parochially anti-Western.-Professor Alexander WoodsideProfessor of Chinese and Southeast Asian HistoryUniversity of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. This book marks the shift of the centre of Southeast Asian Studies from the West to Southeast Asia. The insights provided by the authors are not simply explanations of colonial and postcolonial experiences of major Southeast Asian scholars. Rather, the book provides a unique set of intellectual genealogies that show that distinctions between humanities and social sciences are less important than the development of distinctive local and regional traditions and practices of scholarship. Goh Beng-Lan's introduction frames the collection through her subtle deconstruction of international discourses on Southeast Asia. This introduction then allows the reader to view the different generations of Southeast Asian scholars in their social, political, and academic contexts. The end result is a combined view of the state of the art of Southeast Asian Studies, a view that is greater than the sum of its national parts. - Professor Adrian VickersChair of Southeast Asian StudiesUniversity of SydneyandDirector, Australian Centre for Asian Art and Archaeology The collection represents a coming of age of scholars from Southeast Asia. What we hear is not bluster that comes from a wounded pride or doctrinal certainties, but a quiet confidence that acknowledges the multiple currents in which their scholarship has been formed, and a willingness to engage the perspective of the 'other', both within and without. The reflexivity in this volume sets the stage for scholars from the region to develop perspectives and concepts to address the challenges of the new configuration of the Asia being ushered in by ASEAN. - Professor Prasenjit DuaraRaffles Professor of Humanities and Director of Research, Humanities and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore

After a two-month stand-off between Red Shirt protestors and the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, violence and arson scarred central Bangkok in mid-May 2010. This shocking turn of events underlined how poorly understood the deep divisions in the society and politics of Thailand remained, even five years into the country’s prolonged crisis. This volume collects analysis and commentary on those divisions from an unusually large and prominent group of Thai and foreign scholars and observers of the country. Contributions examine socio-economic, political, diplomatic, historical, cultural, and ideological issues with rare frankness, clarity, and lack of jargon.

This book discusses three major elements - MTV, the Music of Malaysia, and the Music of Indonesia - and how these three interact in the modern cultural setting. The research objective behind the book was to study the impact of globalization, in the form of the MTV onslaught on the youth musical culture and identities of Indonesia and Malaysia, and to determine what theoretical basis could explain the new cultural products which have risen in response to this process. The book goes on to examine whether the nasyid and irama Malaysia music genres in Malaysia and dangdut in Indonesia are part of this process and how it is achieved

Islamization and Activism in Malaysia examines aspects of the increasing political and social profile of Islam in Malaysia and describes how different kinds of activists in Malaysia have sought to protect fundamental liberties and to improve the state of democracy in Malaysia. In particular, focus is paid to activists who engage with electoral process, the law and the public sphere, and in particular, to movements that cut across or combine these realms of action.Spanning the period of the Prime Ministership of Abdullah Badawi, Julian C. H. Lee's grounded analysis examines the most important issues of that period including the freedom of religion case of Lina Joy, the Islamic state debate, and events surrounding the 8 March 2008 general elections.

The early years of the twenty-first century have been characterized by a sense of widespread anxiety and fear because of the violent activities of groups of terrorists who claim they act in the name of Islam. Their acts of terrorism, viewed by a majority in the Muslim world as crimes which must be subject to the law, are in tragic contrast to the efforts of many Muslim intellectuals who have been working for the past several decades to find common ground between people of all faiths based on the universality of humankind. This book aims to bring to the attention of non-Muslims, in particular, the range of views which Muslims in the Middle East and in South and Southeast Asia hold on six topics of importance to life in the twenty-first century. The topics have been addressed from the internal Muslim point of view to provide readers with a sense of the main debates within Islam on each of the issues. The topics addressed are: the new world order; globalization and modernity; banking and finance; the nation-state; the position of women; and law and knowledge. The chapters have been written by Muslims and non-Muslims, each of whom is an expert on the area about which they write. The chapters are presented in pairs which offer Middle Eastern (and in one case South Asian) points of view which are matched by Southeast Asian perspectives on each of the six topics. While the media is quick to report on the more violent expressions of Islam, including terrorism, the vigorous debates, which now characterize the intellectual discourse in Muslim communities, are rarely if ever reported. This book not only describes and analyses those debates but also reflects the views of many Muslims across the world, emphasizing the connections and contrasts between the Middle East and Southeast Asia.