New Mandala

New Mandala offers stories, insights, and fresh viewpoints on Southeast Asia. It focuses on the political and social dynamics of Southeast Asian nations and their interrelations. With a strong history of enriching both academic and public discussions, New Mandala has been a trailblazer in the digital transformation of Southeast Asian studies. Hosted by the Australian National University’s Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs within the College of Asia and the Pacific, New Mandala is edited by Dr. Liam Gammon.

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Making Mainland Southeast Asia safe for autocracy

4 weeks ago | newmandala.org | Grégory Raymond |J Hlaing |Nino Viartasiwi |Antje Missbach

At the end of 1992 and after the dissolution of powerful friend the Soviet Union , the Ho Chi Minh National Political Academy, a major organ of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) with responsibility for ensuring continued CPV rule, assigned its Institute of International Relations to study ASEAN countries and their political systems. When the report landed on the desks of CPV comrades they read that ASEAN governments were pro-West and anticommunist. But what came after was reassuring.
New Mandala in 2024

Dec 23, 2024 | newmandala.org | Liam Gammon

Dear readersThis is just a short and sweet message to let you know that New Mandala is taking a break for the Australian Christmas and New Year holidays and will resume publishing after 20 January 2025. I want to extend my most sincere thanks to everybody who had a role in keeping New Mandala an essential space for accessible scholarly analysis of Southeast Asia in 2024.
A most militarised cabinet

Dec 5, 2024 | newmandala.org | Adhi Priamarizki |Muhamad Haripin |Edward Aspinall |Fauziah Mayangsari

In the days following his inauguration on 20 October, President Prabowo Subianto moved quickly to appoint a total of 136 coordinating ministers, ministers and their deputies, agency chiefs and their deputies, and special envoy/advisor posts. With 48 of these being ministerial or ministerial-equivalent positions, no New Order or post-reformasi cabinet has had more members than what Prabowo has dubbed his “Red and White” cabinet.
Population loss in Portuguese Timor during WW2 revisited

Oct 30, 2024 | newmandala.org | Douglas Kammen |Gatra Priyandita |Wang Lezhi |Edward Aspinall

For Timor-Leste, the 20th century was a century of repeated mass violence. While the Manufahi Rebellion of 1911–1912 is celebrated by East Timorese as the last great uprising against Portuguese rule, and the terrible loss of life under the Indonesian occupation (1975–1999) is viewed as the tragic price of freedom, the impact of the Japanese occupation (1942–1945)—both demographic and social—has been all but neglected.
Jokowi broke the 'Reformasi coalition'

Oct 17, 2024 | newmandala.org | Edward Aspinall |Wang Lezhi |Nick Kuipers |Fauziah Mayangsari

One of the legacies Joko Widodo leaves Indonesia is a dramatically changed relationship between government and civil society.
The growing contradictions of Singapore's HDB scheme

Apr 11, 2024 | newmandala.org | Chua Beng Huat |Hallam Stevens |Liew Kai Khiun |Terri Teo

This piece is co-published with AcademiaSG, a scholarly site promoting scholarship of/by/for Singapore. ••••••••Singapore’s public housing program is sui generis, un-replicable in its entirety anywhere. During the 1959 election campaign for the first fully elected parliament for domestic self-government, the People’s Action Party (PAP) promised to improve the living conditions of Singaporeans.
Continuity was the surprise in Indonesia’s legislative elections

Apr 1, 2024 | newmandala.org | Stephen Sherlock |Sana Jaffrey |Eve Warburton |Edward Aspinall

On 14 February Indonesians did not only elect a new president, but also 580 members of the parliament, the Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat (DPR). The first four post-Suharto parliamentary elections were subject to great scrutiny, being scheduled months before the appointment of the president (in 1999) and the direct election of the president (from 2004).
Introducing the HI-RES SIKAP of Indonesian voters

Mar 4, 2024 | newmandala.org | Nathanael Gratias Sumaktoyo |Nicholas Kuipers |Eve Warburton |Edward Aspinall

“Data! Data! Data! ― I can’t make bricks without clay,” Sherlock Holmes was described saying in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Copper Beeches. For students of Indonesian politics, public opinion data is the clay we need to make sense of this year’s national and local elections. The stakes are high: over the past few years, Indonesia has experienced what many observers regard as a democratic erosion.
Explaining the Prabowo landslide

Feb 16, 2024 | newmandala.org | Sana Jaffrey |Eve Warburton |Nava Nuraniyah |Edward Aspinall

According to all credible quick counts, Prabowo Subianto will be the next president of Indonesia. He and his running mate, President Joko Widodo’s son Gibran Rakabuming Raka, won the three-way race with a convincing 58% of the votes, easily clearing the 50% threshold required to win in a single round.
From polarisation to opportunism: organised Islam and the 2024 elections

Jan 21, 2024 | newmandala.org | Alexander R Arifianto |Aisah Putri Budiatri |Jacqui Baker |Trissia Wijaya

In Indonesia’s 2019 presidential election, the flow of support from Islamic groups to the two presidential tickets was distinctly polarised. Conservatives rallied behind Prabowo Subianto and Sandiaga Uno, whereas Nahdlatul Ulama (NU)—the country’s biggest Islamic organisation, which claims to represent up to 90 million Muslims—unequivocally endorsed Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and Ma’ruf Amin.