Understanding political norms in Southeast Asia requires conceptualising the domain in which politicians, activists, and ordinary citizens exercise and challenge them: political space. We focus here on domestic political space, particularly that in which individuals and organisations champion alternatives to prevailing norms of state and market. This terrain is highly, perennially mutable. In it, we find an array of non-state organisations, from trade unions to non-governmental organisations, as well as media (including online and social media), and a range of structures and associations not inherently political, but potentially so, such as religious bodies. In this chapter, we consider, first, the character of political space, as it extends over both a real-world and virtual landscape; second, who claims or defines that space, and in what ways; and third, how past engagement shapes the discursive and strategic environment for subsequent efforts.

This chapter lays out the conceptual framework for the volume. It begins by offering a working definition of civil society as a space open to ideas and organisations, largely but not exclusively domestic, rather than a set of organisations of a particular ilk - and of violence-tolerating ‘uncivil society’ as operating in the same broad milieu. Surveying the literature on civil society as well as the parameters and key features of local experience over time, the chapter teases out both where the civil society literature offers useful insight or falls short, and what Southeast Asian cases might contribute to it. Importantly, associated with (whatever the direction of causality) a turn towards democratic backsliding or autocratisation across the region has been the (re-)emergence of anti-democratic civil society organisations (CSOs) and social movements - those openly exclusive in their messages and membership, inclined towards violent tactics, or supportive of anti-democratic regimes. While ‘progressive’, pro-democratic, broadly inclusive CSOs remain active and critically important, a spatial perspective on civil society makes clear the ideological, strategic, and aspirational range this sphere subsumes. The chapter concludes with an overview of the contributions to come in the volume.

The Routledge Handbook of Civil and Uncivil Society in Southeast Asia explores the nature and implications of civil society across the region, engaging systematically with both theoretical approaches and empirical nuance for a systematic, comparative, and informative approach. The handbook actively analyses the varying definitions of civil society, critiquing the inconsistent scrutiny of this sphere over time. It brings forth the need to reconsider civil society development in today’s Southeast Asia, including activist organisations’ and platforms’ composition, claims, resources, and potential to effect sociopolitical change. Structured in five parts, the volume includes chapters written by an international set of experts analysing topics relating to civil society: Spaces and platforms Place within politics Resources and tactics Identity formation and claims Advocacy The handbook highlights the importance of civil society as a domain for political engagement outside the state and parties, across Southeast Asia, as well as the prevalence and weight of ‘uncivil’ dimensions. It offers a well-informed and comprehensive analysis of the topic and is an indispensable reference work for students and researchers in the fields of Asian Studies, Asian Politics, Southeast Asian Politics and Comparative Politics. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license. Funded by The Research Foundation for State University of New York, USA and The Stockholm Center for Global Asia, Sweden.

This article introduces the pieces collected in this special issue on the legacies of the Cold War in East and Southeast Asia. Linking to the Journal of Contemporary Asia’s 50th Anniversary volume, it examines the origins and conflicts associated with the Cold War in Asia. In this special issue, the authors collectively examine the enduring legacies for the region of US engagements that established a set of politically authoritarian regimes trumpeting anti-communism while promoting American-style capitalism. While the path-dependence of this historical moment has not by itself bequeathed Asia’s current crop of authoritarian governments, the authors argue that the current situation cannot be fully understood without reference to Cold War legacies. This introductory article contextualises the pieces in the special issue by providing a broad overview of the variety of Cold War political and economic legacies for the region. It concludes by noting the importance of the kinds of detailed, critical, theoretically informed and empirically rich research that Journal of Contemporary Asia has encouraged since its inception.

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses how social and political actors struggle to carve out space for their activism, directed at the state or striving to affect social norms and institutions. The term 'political space' has come into vogue in recent years, among both policy makers and scholars, for instance, in terms of ways to expand participatory frameworks in authoritarian regimes in the name of 'good governance'. Political space is not coterminous with the state; it includes both state and non-state arenas for participation. Asian authoritarian states have used different measures to limit political space, including co-optation, politicization of the judiciary, legal restrictions, securitization, control of media and censorship and manipulation of ethic and communal politics. An analysis of political space necessitates clear analytical distinctions between abstractions such as 'states', 'governments', and 'political regimes'.

A combination of economic transformation, political transitions and changes in media have substantially, if incrementally, altered the terrain for political participation globally, particularly in Asia, home to several of the most dramatic such shifts over the past two decades.

This book explores political participation in Asia and how democracy and authoritarianism function under neoliberal economic relations. It examines changes that coincide seemingly perversely with a participation explosion: with mass street protests and ‘occupations’, energetic online contention, movements of students and workers, mobilization for and against democracy and more. Organized thematically in three parts – political participation in a ‘post-democratic’ context, changes in the scope and character of political space and the policing of that space – this book analyzes economic, regime and media shifts and how they function in tandem and both within and across states.

Closely integrated, comparative and theoretically driven, this book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners in the fields of civil society, contentious politics or social movements, democratization, political economy/development, media and communications, political geography, sociology, comparative politics and Asian politics.