Inside Asia

Dr. Niloufer Siddiqui joins the podcast to spotlight the stakes of Pakistan's recently announced January 2024 election. There is much uncertainty over the elections, most prominently the legal status of ousted populist leader Imran Khan. The country continues to confront a persistent economic crisis, and political violence remains a threat. Just before our taping, dozens died in terrorist attacks on religious observances in the country. Siddiqui helps make sense of the links between elections, violence and religion in the country.

Dr. Ishani Dasgupta, Andrew W. Mellon HILLS postdoctoral Fellow in Anthropology at Case Western Reserve University, joins the podcast to update us on her recent fieldwork among Tibetan communities in India. Dasgupta recently completed her term as Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Asian Democracy, which supported her Summer 2023 return to the field. The conversation covers political changes within the community since the Covid-19 pandemic, the impact of the China-India relationship on Tibetan politics, and how her book manuscript, tentatively titled Refugee Nation: Citizenship, Resistance, and the Deterritorialized Tibetan Polity, evolved during her year at CAD.

Dr. Janjira Sombatpoonsiri joins the podcast to give us the inside scoop on the dynamics shaping Thailand's upcoming election. On May 14, 2023, voters in Thailand head to the polls for national elections. These elections mark the latest stage in the country’s turbulent politics, pitting military allies against opposition parties, most prominently the Pheu Thai Party, linked to exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Newer parties, especially the Move Forward Party, will try to break through this polarization with appeals to urbanized, younger voters.

Jawad Patwal joins the podcast to reflect on the legacy of Afghanistan's period of democracy before the country's return to Taliban rule. Jawad Patwal was a Fulbright Scholar, and worked for a decade on democracy and governance in Afghanistan. This included staff work for a range of NGOs and international programs aiming to build good governance, rule of law, and gender equality in the country, as well as governmental work for the Office of the President and National Security Council.

Steven Feldstein, the winner of the 2023 Grawemeyer Award for World Order, joins the Inside Asia Podcast to discuss his book The Rise of Digital Repression: How Technology is Reshaping Power, Politics, and Resistance. Feldstein is a former State Department official, and currently Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In The Rise of Digital Repression, Feldstein documents how advanced digital tools bring new dimensions to political repression. This episode focuses on Asian cases in his research, especially Thailand, the Philippines, and China. The conversation also touches on the Biden Administration's Summit for Democracy, which was in progress while we spoke.

In late November 2022, Malaysia held its general election. The landmark result brought longtime opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to power, although leading a complex coalition. Dr. Meredith Weiss discusses what happened on election day, and the result's implications throughout the region.

Meredith Weiss is a Professor of Political Science and director of Rockefeller College’s Semester in Washington Program. She has published widely on social mobilization and civil society, the politics of identity and development, electoral politics and parties, institutional reform, and subnational governance in Southeast Asia, with a particular focus on Malaysia and Singapore. Her books include The Roots of Resilience: Party Machines and Grassroots Politics in Southeast Asia (Cornell, 2020); and the co-authored Mobilizing for Elections: Patronage and Political Machines in Southeast Asia (Cambridge, forthcoming). Current projects include collaborative studies of urban governance and public goods delivery, civil society in Southeast Asia, pandemic governance, and of democratic representation and political elites in Southeast Asia; and a monograph on Malaysian sociopolitical development.

In late November 2022, a deadly apartment fire in China’s Xinjiang region touched off contentious protests throughout the country focusing primarily on China’s continued COVID-19 lockdowns. Dr. Darren Byler, Assistant Professor of International Studies at Simon Fraser University, joins the podcast to discuss the protest dynamics and governmental response. We discuss the intersection of ethnicity with protest, the role of technology in the protests’ spread, and the implications of this episode for the broader stability of Communist Party rule.

On November 26, 2022, Taiwan held local elections commonly referred to as its "midterms." Dr. Kharis Templeman of the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific at Stanford University's Hoover Institution joins the podcast to explain the results. We discuss the implications for the balance between the governing DPP and the opposition KMT, the country's rejection of an amendment to lower the voting age, and the implications for cross-strait relations.

Check out our website for an election briefing by CAD researchers that provides more detail on Taiwan's race and the status of democracy on the island: https://louisville.edu/asiandemocracy/

On November 20, 2022, Nepal will hold its national election. Dr. Jeevan Sharma, Director of the Centre of South Asian Studies at the University of St. Andrews, joins the podcast to talk about the stakes of this race. We discuss the fragmentation of Marxist parties in the country, the role of Hindu nationalism, the consolidation of democratic institutions under the country’s new constitution, and the politics of gender and affirmative action.

Check out our website for an election briefing by CAD researchers that provides more detail on Nepal’s race: https://louisville.edu/asiandemocracy/

The Center for Asian Democracy hosted Prof. Sheila Coronel for our 2022 Annual Lecture. Prof. Sheila Coronel is the Director, Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at the Columbia University School of Journalism. In 1989, Coronel and her colleagues founded the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. In 2003, she won the Ramon Magsaysay Award, Asia’s premier award for advocates of good governance, often referred to as “Asia’s Nobel Prize.”

In this podcast, Coronel addresses the recent election of Ferdinand "Bongbong" Romualdez Marcos Jr., and what that means for the Philippines, and democracy, disinformation and the struggle for historical memory across Asia and around the world.

Check out our website to see visuals of the Annual Lecture, and upcoming events: https://louisville.edu/asiandemocracy/news-and-events/2022-annual-lecture-on-asian-democracy