Liberalism and Its Discontents in Southeast Asia

Liberalism and populism have been pitted against each other in Southeast Asia in both political discourse and day-to-day political contestation. This roundtable offers a rare opportunity to explore the patterns of commonality and difference within and across Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and the Philippines. Panel Participants:

Sandra Hamid, The Asia Foundation's Country Representative to Indonesia, is a cultural anthropologist and development specialist focusing on political participation and civil society.

Associate Prof. Dr Faisal S. Hazis is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies, and his research interests include electoral politics, democratization and rural informatics. He is the author of Domination and Contestation: Muslim Bumiputera Politics in Sarawak.

Dr. Lisandro Claudio, Associate Professor of History at De La Salle University and of Political Science at Ateneo de Manila University. He is the author of  Liberalism and the Postcolony: Thinking the State in 20th Century Philippines.

Dr. Marcus Mietzner, Associate Professor at the Australian National University’s College of Asia and the Pacific, is a scholar of Indonesian politics and has written extensively on the Indonesian military and the struggle to build democratic politics. 

Elliot Prasse-Freeman is a PhD candidate in anthropology at Yale University and Founding Research Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy's Human Rights and Social Movements Program at Harvard University. His work focuses on Myanmar and the role right-wing social movements have played in ratifying the state’s recent ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya.