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Research & strategic initiatives

Research publications

New Mandala

Our faculty and students take on challenging and timely research projects from ethnic cleansing in Myanmar to the resurgence of populism in India, as well as regime change, corruption, political party development and gender politics across the region. The Department of Political and Social Change (PSC) has been awarded numerous research grants to investigate important issues like the parliamentary elections in Timor Leste, civil society education efforts in Indonesia, urban transformation in China, presidentialism in Indonesia, and money politics in Southeast Asia – among many other topics.

Research & strategic initiatives
On
Women political representation Sally and Ed PSC

Women’s local political representation in Indonesia
What explains variation in levels of women’s political representation at the local level, and how much does it matter?
entrenched-illiberalism-in-mainland-southeast-asia-conference.jpg

SEARBO: Supporting the Rules-Based Order in Southeast Asia
This project focuses on electoral dynamics in Indonesia and the Philippines as well as democratic and judicial reform options in Malaysia.

Research publications
On
Jokowi book

The Jokowi Presidency: Indonesia’s Decade of Authoritarian Revival

Jokowi's 2014 rise promised clean, populist government. A decade later, he left a fragile economy and hollow democracy, an authoritarian revival of co-optation and repression, at high democratic cost.
War criminals book

Twelve Japanese War Criminals and one Who Got Away

Robert Cribb and Sandra Wilson trace twelve convicted Japanese war criminals from the Pacific War, plus one who escaped justice, examining how ordinary people came to commit wartime atrocities.
Ruling Indonesia

Ruling Indonesia: Jokowi's Presidency in an Age of Democratic Crisis and Great Power Competition

Professor Marcus Mietzner examines Jokowi's decade as Indonesian president, tracing his economic focus, elite grip, and the democratic costs behind his historic popularity.
Governing Urban Indonesia

Governing Urban Indonesia

Indonesia has become a majority urban society. Despite the classic images of rural life we often associate with the country, now almost 60 per cent of Indonesia’s people live in cities & urban areas.
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Ginkgo Village: Trauma and Transformation in Rural China

Ginkgo Village provides an original and powerfully intimate bottom-up perspective on China’s recent tumultuous history.
Myanmar: A Political Lexicon book cover

Myanmar: A Political Lexicon

Across sixteen entries the lexicon stages dialogues about political speech and action in this country at the nexus of South, East and Southeast Asia.

New Mandala

New Mandala

New Mandala blog is a leading forum for academic and policy outreach on Southeast Asia. It devotes its attention to the politics and societies of Southeast Asian countries, and their connections with one another. The blog has played a pioneering role in the digitisation of Southeast Asian studies and attracts an audience of around 2 million readers each year, the majority from the Southeast Asian region.

New Mandala is hosted by the Australian National University’s (ANU) Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs.

Read New Mandala