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Australia’s recently announced Defence Strategic Review promises more of the same in the nation’s defence and strategic thinking. This is concerning when we consider the urgent need for a substantial reconsideration of Australia’s relations with Southeast Asia.

This chapter explains the rise of populist politics and why it takes different forms in Southeast Asia – specifically in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. We see populism as an integral part of larger conflicts over power and wealth that accompany the advance of global capitalism. The failure of governments and elites to deal with structural crises confronting their societies provides the circumstances in which populism can emerge. Populist movements are shaped by different forces and interests operating within cross-class alliances in particular contexts. This explains why populism can sometimes be a vehicle for long-supressed popular demands for the redistribution of wealth and social justice and, elsewhere, effectively protect the interests of established oligarchies by diverting such demands into a politics of identity and culture.

At almost 500 pages and 25 chapters, this is a lengthy and densely packed edited collection. Such a format has advantages. It enables the editors to cover a vast range of topics. We can find assessments of political, economic and military relations between Australia and Indonesia and insights into specific areas of collaboration in policing, military, youth, women and justice. There are also chapters that focus on difficult aspects of the relationship where the potential for misunderstanding and disagreement is high. Among these are chapters on Bali, asylum seekers and people smuggling, Islam, Papua and human rights. We also find assessments of surveys of Australian attitudes towards Indonesia and narratives of academics from both countries...

It was only two decades ago, in the 1960s and 1970s, that popular Western images of Southeast Asia were dominated by rice fields and peasants, military coups and generals. In many ways this was not an unreasonable representation of the social and political realities of the times. However, it is some measure of the rapidity with which changes have taken place in the intervening period that these old icons have been replaced almost entirely by new ones in which factory workers and businessmen, politicians and traffic jams are the central images, at least in Australia, which is the most sensitive barometer of the Asian region in the so-called West.

Populist politics have become more prominent in Indonesia. On the one hand, this is indicated by the presidential elections of 2014, when two rival candidates brandished somewhat different nationalist populist ideas. On the other hand, historically rooted secular nationalist and Islamic-oriented forms of populism have become entangled within elite conflicts. The context is discontent about perceived systemic injustices unaddressed in nearly two decades of decentralised democracy after a prior three decades of centralised authoritarian rule. In the absence of liberal and Leftist challenges to the entrenched oligarchy, politics is becoming characterised by competition between different populisms. But rather than being transformative, these populisms are harnessed to the maintenance of oligarchic domination.

Few countries have been burdened with such great expectations as Indonesia and have failed to meet them in the ways expected. Economists have persistently predicted that Indonesia could be an economic giant in the region, challenging the state-led economies of Northeast Asia on the basis of free market policies. After the fall of Soeharto in 1998, pluralist political scientists saw Indonesia as a shining light for democratic transition. More recently, Indonesia has been hailed as a model for how democracy might work in a Muslim-majority country. Yet, we are still waiting for a new economic giant to emerge while democracy has not been able to resolve growing concentration of power and wealth in Indonesian society or to stem growing social resentment. Reactionary Islamic populism has often threatened Indonesia's reputation for religious moderation. Why have so many analysts had such great expectations of Indonesia and how have they explained the seeming disappointments? We propose that the institutions of markets and democracy are not a good starting point for explaining things. The problem lies in the way economic and social power is constructed and in the interests of powerful oligarchies that continue to dominate the political and economic landscape.

Now available in paperback, this Handbook provides a comprehensive analysis of the major themes that have defined the politics of Southeast Asia. It provides a comprehensive and cutting-edge examination of this important subject. The introductory chapter provides an overview of the theoretical and ideological themes that have dominated the study of the region's politics and presents the different ways the complex politics of the region have been understood. The contributions by leading scholars in the field cover a range of broad questions about the dynamics of politics. The Handbook analyses how the dominant political and social coalitions of the region were forged in the Cold War era, and assesses the complex processes of transition towards various forms of democratic politics. How institutions and systems of governance are being forged in an increasingly global environment is discussed and whether civil society in Southeast Asia has really evolved as an independent sphere of social and political activity. The Handbook examines how national governments are dealing with growing tensions within the region as matters such as labour, human rights and the environment spill beyond national boundaries, and how they are establishing a place in the new global framework. By engaging the Southeast Asian experience more firmly with larger debates about modern political systems, the Handbook is an essential reference tool for students and scholars of Political Science and Southeast Asian studies.