Contemporary Southeast Asia back issues from August 2008:
The essence of hedging: Malaysia and Singapore's response to a rising China.(Report)
Aug 01, 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 to either balance against or bandwagon with ...
Thailand's intractable southern war: policy, insurgency and discourse.(Report)
Aug 01, 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 six month period since late 2007. Though ...
Islamist realignments and the rebranding of the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia.(Report)
Aug 01, 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 Malaysia (PAS: Parti Islam SeMalaysia). The ...
Governing Singapore's security sector: problems, prospects and paradox.(Report)
Aug 01, 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 perceived lack of democratic governance of the ...
ASEAN and multilateralism: the long, bumpy road to community.(Association of Southeast Asian Nations)(Report)
Aug 01, 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, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the ...
The United States and the East Asia Summit: finding the proper home.(Report)
Aug 01, 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 engaging all extra-regional powers to help ensure ...
A people-oriented ASEAN: a door ajar or closed for civil society organizations?(Association of Southeast Asian Nations)(Report)
Aug 01, 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 ... it tries to open doors for people groups. So ...
Sukarno and the Indonesian Coup: The Untold Story.(Book review)
Aug 01, 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 not a single footnote, bibliographical ...
Malaysia: Fifty Years of Diplomacy.(Book review)
Aug 01, 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 a number of former Malaysian diplomats ....
Securing Southeast Asia: The Politics of Security Sector Reform.(Book review)
Aug 01, 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 focus mainly on Thailand, Indonesia, ...
East Timor: Beyond Independence.(Book review)
Aug 01, 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 study of East Timor since independence ...
Globalization, Culture and Society in Laos.(Book review)
Aug 01, 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 present-day Laos. Small in terms of its ...
The Terrorism Ahead: Confronting Transnational Violence in the Twenty-First Century.(Book review)
Aug 01, 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 there have been theories on the whys ...
China's Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation.(Book review)
Aug 01, 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 ago, predictions about the Chinese ...