Who is he? Anies Baswedan is the newly elected governor of Jakarta. He most recently served as Indonesia’s minister of Education and Culture from 2014 to 2016 and as rector of Paramadina University from 2007 to 2015. Well regarded for…
By Geoffrey Hartman — Indonesian president Joko Widodo — commonly known as “Jokowi” — in early August addressed criticism that his government is taking an authoritarian turn with a joke, asking the crowd at speeches in East Jakarta and Solo:…
By Murray Hiebert — Much of Vice President Mike Pence’s trip to northeast Asia has focused on containing North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, but when he lands in Indonesia on April 20 his attention will pivot to reassuring the rest…
By Lance Jackson — Identity is often an explicit factor in the politics of many Southeast Asian nations, whether it is the rural-urban divide in Thailand, language in Malaysia or ethnicity in Indonesia. Appeals to identity for political purposes have…
By Alisha Sud — With India’s Parliament beginning its winter session on November 16, domestic political attention is largely focused on bills that will be introduced and considered during the session. Overall, the government’s legislative agenda seems to dispel the…
By Ellen Chambers — Renewed communal violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State underscores the imperative for greater emphasis on peacebuilding in the country’s troubled west. The recently established Rakhine State Advisory Commission, led by former-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, is essential…
By Phuong Nguyen & Conor Cronin — For many Southeast Asian governments, terrorism threats rank among their top security concerns. Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore — no strangers to dealing with violent Islamist threats — have been on heightened alert for…
By Murray Hiebert & Phuong Nguyen — Two months after the National League for Democracy (NLD) government took office, State Counselor and Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi embarked on a process to start addressing the plight of stateless Muslims…
By Richard M. Rossow — The CSIS Wadhwani Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies brings to you a video series featuring some of the world’s top experts on India, tackling critical questions framed to understand the significance of the five state…
By Murray Hiebert & Norashiqin Toh — The election of Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in July 2014 marked Indonesia’s third direct and peaceful selection of the country’s president and seemed to consolidate the archipelago’s democratic gains. Given Indonesia’s impressive political transformation,…
