Books and Monographs

The past five years have held tremendous significance for the process of nation building in Malaysia. Civil society and voters, especially in urban areas, are making new and strong demands on the government, in fact on governance per se; the opposition parties that managed to pull off successful electoral upsets in 2008 have formed a viable coalition to challenge the long-term federal government; and the federal government itself has been trying to adopt a reformist image without alienating its numerous conservative supporters. Although the government's slogan of 1Malaysia was meant to signify national unity, it lacked credibility because many of the systemic deficiencies of sustained one party - 1Party - rule still remained. This collection of articles studies various aspects of change now pushed into the foreground for discussion.

Indonesia is the world's largest archipelagic state. In 2001 it embarked on a "big bang" decentralization involving a major transfer of administrative, political and financial authority to its districts, now numbering more than 500. Together with the rapid transition from authoritarian to democratic rule in the late 1990s, this initiative has transformed the country's political, social and business life. While national government is the major area of contestation, power has shifted irreversibly away from the centre. How this significantly increased regional autonomy works will have a crucial bearing on the future of the Indonesian nation-state.This volume features contributions by over 40 writers with deep expertise on Indonesia. The book provides a timely, comprehensive and analytical assessment of the country's regional development dynamics in the post-decentralization environment. It explores historical, political and development patterns at the regional level; the relationship between decentralization and governance; local-level perspectives; migration, cities and connectivity; and the challenges confronting the peripheral regions of Aceh and Papua.

Written in a format and style that is easily readable, Regional Outlook provides succinct yet substantive overviews and insights into the current geopolitical and economic situations in the individual countries as well as the region, together with the likely trends over the next year or so. This year's issue also includes an expanded overview of the Asia-Pacific setting with a special focus on the 1997 transition in Hong Kong. Regional Outlook serves as a useful and handy guide to the region's aspirations and prospects each year, in addition to casting a look ahead.

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 is a comprehensive survey of Singapore's dominating regional role as provider of petroleum refining, blending, and storage services, exporter of refined petroleum products, port of call for bunker and jet fuels, and spot market for the Asia-Pacific petroleum trade. Substantively based on industry data sources, this book is conceived of as an initial step in a continued and independent research interest on one of the Pacific Basin's most dynamic and strategic industries.

The book addresses questions such as: how should historians treat the earlier pasts of each country and the nationalism that guided the nation-building tasks? Where did political culture come in, especially when dealing with modern challenges of class, secularism and ethnicity? What part do external or regional pressures play when the nations are still being built? The authors have thought deeply about the issues of writing nation-building histories and have tried to put them not only in the perspective of Southeast Asian developments of the past five decades, but also the larger areas of historiography today.

"Ninety-nine percent of Filipinos are waiting for a telephone and the other one percent for a dial tone..." - Lee Kuan Yew, November 1992. A decade after the above quote, far reaching reforms in the telecommunications sector has dramatically changed the situation in both the Philippines and Malaysia. By looking at the institutions and actors that drove these changes, this book examines state capacity, market reform, and rent-seeking in the two countries. In doing so, the study challenges conventional depictions of the Malaysian and Philippine states. It contends that despite the weakness of the Philippine state, reform occurred through a coalition that out-manoeuvred vested interests. In Malaysia, although considered a strong state, patronage and rent-seeking played key roles in policy adoption and implementation. The study also demonstrates how the nature of groups supporting reform shapes policy implementation and its outcomes. Finally, while liberalisation removes monopoly rent, this book shows that it can also create other types of rents.

"A welcome and timely volume that realistically considers the challenges that the rapid increase in older persons pose for the family, community and society at large in the context of Southeast Asia. Most importantly, it shifts the focus from viewing older persons simply as liabilities to one that recognizes their value as an asset that can be enhanced through appropriate actions at each of these levels, especially ones that take into account the rapidly changing socio-economic and technological environment in which population ageing is taking place." - Professor John Knodel, Research Professor Emeritus, Population Studies Center and Professor Emeritus, Sociology, University of Michigan