NEW 🇱🇦 "From flickers to full power: when reliable electricity arrived in Banmai" by Floramante SJ Ponce—part of an essay series supported by ANU College of Asia and the Pacific newmandala.org/from-flickers-…

NEW 🇮🇩 Ahmad Syarif from Johns Hopkins SAIS takes a look at the rise of bankers and investors in Indonesian government—and how they've eclipsed the traditional role of academic economists as a source of technocratic expertise in economic policy making newmandala.org/beyond-the-ber…

NEW 🇲🇾 Putrayaja is taking Malaysia’s universities down the sorry path tread by many other governments towards commercialisation—and the declining research and teaching quality that come along with that. newmandala.org/rescuing-malay…

NEW 🇮🇩🇯🇵 Right-wingers are scapegoating foreigners as part of their campaign for Japan's upper house elections, creating new anxieties for the local Indonesian community—and distracting from the need for reforms to protect migrant worker rights. newmandala.org/japanese-first…

REVIEW: Brian Curtin reviews "Iola Lenzi’s Power, Politics and the Street: Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia after 1970". newmandala.org/review-power-p…

NEW 🇮🇩 "In Surabaya, the ghosts of the Dutch East Indies have not merely lingered; they have been revived through commodification...a certain narrative is quietly whispered: the colonial past was not only orderly and elegant, but perhaps even desirable" newmandala.org/instagramming-…

This article with Edward Aspinall IG @burhanuddinmuhtadi and colleagues explores a desire for more working class legislators: newmandala.org/indonesians-wa…

And this article with Nick Kuipers shows the strong relationship between candidates' income and the probability of winning a legislative seat: newmandala.org/the-price-of-r…

NEW 🇮🇩 "What [the protesters] really stand for, above all, is rejection of the entire ruling elite. And the entire ruling elite, more or less, stands united against them." Edward Aspinall on last week's protests and the limits of comparisons with 1998: newmandala.org/mass-protest-a…

A thoughtful analysis of Indonesia's recent protests by Edward Aspinall, informed by his decades of research on political activism, elections, and representation in Indonesia. This is a must read New Mandala 👇

For those looking to understand protests in Indonesia , this reflective piece by Edward Aspinall is a must-read.

The protests are the clash between two worlds of Indonesian politics: the official representative politics and the subculture of youth protest. The protestors understand the world of the politicians quite well, the reverse seems not to be true newmandala.org/mass-protest-a…

NEW 🇲🇲 The post-coup conflict has repeatedly confounded bold predictions of both swift regime collapse and decisive opposition victory. For now, the grinding reality points less to liberation than to a bloody stalemate, writes Andrew Selth. newmandala.org/myanmar-and-th…

"Indonesia’s energy transition isn’t just about climate—it’s about health, economic opportunity, and national development", states Budy P. Resosudarmo, convenor of this years Indonesia Update conference, in his latest piece for New Mandala. newmandala.org/where-have-ind…

NEW 🇮🇩 With the destruction of landmark Dutch-era buildings in August's protests, Indonesians have lost sites where they have for generations re-signified colonial remains into something simultaneously inherited and all their own, writes Noandha Dhegaska. newmandala.org/indonesias-her…

NEW 🇮🇩 Kadek Wara Urwasi's "Insurgent planning versus discretionary urbanism in Jakarta"—caught between eviction and embrace, residents of Jakarta’s informal settlements are finding new ways to assert their rights and reshape their city from the ground up newmandala.org/insurgent-plan…