The third and final public lecture to commemorate ISEAS’s 50th anniversary was delivered by Professor Wang Gungwu on 3 October 2018 at the Orchard Hotel.
Rice has been deeply intertwined with Malaysia’s political economy. The staple crop has typically been a mainstay in political discussions in the run-ups to general elections, whether in terms of farm livelihoods, food availability, or citizens’ living costs. Following the Malaysian 14th General Election (GE-14)’s unprecedented results, public policies surrounding rice are now under renewed scrutiny and negotiation.
Co-organised by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute and the University of Michigan, the “Indonesia Forum 2018: Evolving Political, Economic and Business Environment Going into 2019” took place on Friday, 21 September 2018 at the Orchard Hotel.
In Indonesia’s upcoming presidential elections, to be held in April 2019, incumbent President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo will again face Prabowo Subianto.
Although oil palm is a single crop, the issues arising from this single crop have been multifaceted and complex, often requiring scientific, economic, political, historical, environmental and social lenses to examine, analyse, and understand. Three speakers spoke at a Regional Economics Studies seminar covered some of these issues.
Ms Đỗ Tường Linh spoke at a Politics of Arts in Southeast Asia seminar on the state of contemporary Vietnamese art after the implementation of Đổi Mới (renovation) policies in 1986.
The seminar on Alternative Voices in Muslim Southeast Asia: Discourse and Struggles was held on 4 September 2018.
The latest instalment of the Malaysia Studies Programme Seminar series was delivered by Dr Wolfgang Sachsenröder at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute on 27 August 2018. Entitled, Party Funding and Money Politics in Malaysia and Indonesia, Different Solutions – The Same Dilemma, the lecture overviewed the entrenchment of money politics in the party financing systems of the two Southeast nations.
Over two half-day sessions, our researchers shared with the students some of the current hot topics in Southeast Asia, including the Free and Open Indo-Pacific, Belt and Road Initiative in Vietnam, ASEAN and AEC. This is the 9th consecutive year that ISEAS has hosted the OPUS for Syracuse University.
To trace the organisation’s historical development as well as to analyse some proposed future reforms, ISEAS invited Dr Azeem Fazwan Ahmad Farouk from the Center for Policy Research and International Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia and Mr Zaidel Baharuddin, head of the UMNO Branch for Gombak, Selangor; to deliver a seminar as part of the “Malaysia in Transition Seminar Series”