New Mandala
Online/Digital
New Mandala provides anecdote, analysis and new perspectives on Southeast Asia. It devotes its attention to the politics and societies of Southeast Asian countries, and their connections with one another. New Mandala has a proud record of contribution to scholarly and popular debates and played a pioneering role in the digitisation of Southeast Asian studies.
New Mandala is hosted by the Australian National University’s (ANU) Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs in the College of Asia and the Pacific. The editor of New Mandala is Dr Liam Gammon. Source
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| Scope | International |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Country | Australia |
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Recent Articles
Search ArticlesThe backlash against NU’s religious diplomacy
On 24 August 2025, the former academic Peter Berkowitz delivered a lecture at the National Leadership Academy (AKN NU), the highest tier of cadre training by Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia’s largest Islamic mass organisation. Berkowitz, now a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, served as Director of Policy Planning at the State Department during Donald Trump’s first presidential administration and maintains extensive ties to pro-Israel and neoconservative foreign policy networks.
Bangkok’s election puts policy competence over ideological cleavages
On 28 June approximately 4.5 million voters in Bangkok will choose a new governor and Bangkok Metropolitan Council. On the surface the outcome looks predictable: polls consistently show incumbent Governor Chadchart Sittipunt leading his nearest rival by more than fifty percentage points, and analysts have described the atmosphere as quieter than the charged contest of 2022. Yet the gubernatorial election remains one of Thailand’s most closely watched political contests.
ณ จุดปะทะทางอุดมการณ์: การปลูกฝังและการต่อต้านในหลักสูตรรักษาดินแดน
ในประเทศไทย หลักสูตรรักษาดินแดน (รด.) เป็นสิ่งที่ผู้คนคุ้นเคยกันเป็นอย่างดี นักเรียนระดับมัธยมศึกษาของไทยประมาณร้อยละ 15 เข้าร่วมหลักสูตรนี้ โดย รด. รับนักเรียนใหม่ (ซึ่งเรียกว่า “นักศึกษาวิชาทหาร” หรือ นศท.) ประมาณ 100,000 คนต่อปี และเนื่องจากผู้เข้าร่วมต้องศึกษาในหลักสูตรต่อเนื่องหลายปี ทำให้กองทัพมี นศท. อยู่ใต้บังคับบัญชารวมประมาณ 300,000 คนในแต่ละปี อดีตผู้บัญชาการทหารบก พล.อ. อภิรัชต์ คงสมพงษ์ เคยกล่าวถึงความสำคัญของ รด. โดยระบุว่ากำลังพล นศท.
20 years of New Mandala
20 years ago today, Andrew Walker’s post “Some thoughts on the political crisis in Thailand” became the first piece of writing to appear at New Mandala. It was a different era for Southeast Asia, and a different era for Southeast Asian studies. Most of all it was a different (and let’s face it, much better) era for the internet.
Cambodia–Thailand economic conflict and the limits of geoeconomics in Southeast Asia
In mid-2025, both an armed military conflict and an economic conflict broke out between Cambodia and Thailand. The border conflict—which involved land and aerial fights and threats of a naval blockade—killed dozens of people, displaced roughly a million civilians, and reshaped the domestic politics and foreign policy stances of each country. The conflict’s economic dimension has been less discussed, but is no less important.
Singapore’s Albatross File Exhibition is bad history that diminishes Lee Kuan Yew
Editor’s note: this piece was first published by AcademiaSG, a scholarly site promoting scholarship of/by/for Singapore. Its contents draw on the author’s book The Albatross Files Unredacted: What the Official Story Leaves Out (Pagesetters, 2026). • • • • • • • The irony of The Albatross File Exhibition at Singapore’s National Library, and its accompanying book (The Albatross File: Inside Separation) is that, in trying so hard to honour Lee Kuan Yew, it ends up diminishing him.
At the coalface of military indoctrination: the Thai ROTC
In Thailand, the military’s Reserve Officer Training Corps program (Ruk Sa Din Daen—หลักสูตรรักษาดินแดน [ร.ด.]) is something ordinary people are intimately familiar with. Roughly 15% of Thai high school students participate in the program. It recruits 100,000 new members annually, and its multi-year requirement gives the military access to around 300,000 ROTC students at their disposal in any given year.
The Nadiem trial and Indonesia’s “rubber” anti-corruption laws
The corruption trial underway in Jakarta of Nadiem Makarim, Indonesia’s former Minister of Education, Culture, Research and Technology and co-founder of Gojek (Indonesia’s version of Uber), reveals two major problems with Indonesia’s anti-corruption regime. The first is legal–technical. The criminal offences created by Indonesia’s Anti-Corruption Law (Law 31 of 1999, as amended by Law 20 of 2001) are extraordinarily broadly defined.
The Timorese women’s movement continues the struggle
Since the formal restoration of Timor-Leste’s independence on 20 May 2002, the women’s movement has evolved beyond the goal of national liberation to the struggle to secure an equal place for women in the new state.
Buying, boycotting, and the politics of modernity
In Southeast Asia today, consumer choices are becoming increasingly linked to questions of identity, heritage, and even political expression. This connection, however, is not new. Its roots extend to the 1920s and 1930s, when colonial cities such as Surabaya, Penang, and Singapore saw the rapid growth of department stores, fairs, shopping arcades, advertisements, and branded goods.