Part 1

• Youth Politics and Transnational Activism in Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia Adhiraaj Anand Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

  In recent years, several countries in East and Southeast Asia have seen the rise of youth-led social movements and political parties that seek to advance youth politics. Politically engaged youth in different countries have engaged in dialogue through various initiatives, including online campaigns and civil society forums. A notable example is the ‘Milk Tea Alliance’, an online pan-Asian solidarity movement of pro-democracy and anti-authoritarian activists. A growing body of scholarly literature has discussed this transnational activism and its meanings. This research, using a case study approach, will investigate the factors driving the avenues of youth politics and its outcomes in Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia. Drawing on theories of social movements and norm diffusion, it will also investigate how views on transnational activism among youth vary across the three countries and whether transnational activism is driving the development of a new regional social movement identity. Data on activists’ motivations and views will be gathered primarily through interviews, which will be followed by a qualitative analysis. Process tracing may also be used to understand the trajectories and differing successes of political parties in each country. The current hypothesis is that shared issues as well as a failure to achieve political aims in national contexts are driving transnational activism and the formation of a new social movement identity among youth activists.

• Limits of Transnational Activism: Pro-Palestine Movements in Southeast Asia Walid Jumblatt Bin Abdullah Nanyang Technological University

  Transnational activism in Southeast Asia has generally flourished in recent years. From pro-democracy to environmental and LGBT-rights movements, activists have developed networks across countries which have proven to be useful in promoting their respective causes in their own countries. However, such trans-national coordination and collaboration has been more limited when it comes to pro-Palestinian activism. Hence, a puzzle arises: why has pro-Palestine activism in Southeast Asia unable to transcend national boundaries as well as other causes? This paper argues that ultimately, domestic politics will determine the nature of transnational activism. The Palestinian issue is something that is of immense concern to some governments in Southeast Asia such as Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and thus, the nature of activism in these countries is highly dependent on domestic political circumstances. In Singapore, the highly sensitive nature of the issue means that activism on it is highly regulated and transnational relationships would have been discouraged. In Malaysia and Indonesia, the governments’ positions are aligned with activists, thus reducing the need for transnational solidarity. The nature and strength of transnational activism thus depends on local politics.

• The transnational dimension of the repression-dissent nexus during elections in Southeast Asia Joakim Kreutz Uppsala University

  Organized criticism of the governments in Southeast Asia has become increasingly transnational in recent years, as activists have been forced into exile, online mobilization has been successful, and the overall greater mobility of citizens across borders. However, regimes have also dedicated resources towards mobilizing support abroad, and themselves used the transnational nature of the opposition to repress or undermine the legitimacy of the critics. This paper explores how transnational anti-governmental activism and state repression and legitimization rhetoric have played out during (some) recent elections in Southeast Asia. Cases of interest include election in Myanmar 2020, Hong Kong 2021, Philippines and Malaysia 2022, and Cambodia and Thailand 2023.

• Platform advocacy and social media’s accountability to dissident voices in the Global South: Evidence from Southeast Asia Mai Van Tran Vrije Universiteit Brussel

  Global social media platforms, mainly from the U.S. and China, have faced widespread criticisms for failing to tackle authoritarian repression of dissident voices, especially in the Global South. In response, human rights defenders have increasingly launched advocacy efforts toward the foreign platforms to defend free speech. Despite the varying forms and effects of such transnational efforts, there lacks research that systematically examines their dynamic. Hence, this study aims to scrutinise the extent to which transnational advocacy might affect social media platforms’ practice to safeguard civic space in the Global South. I expect that such advocacy efforts are more likely to generate significant impact if they actively promote international publicity, network with local marginalized communities, and focus on censorship issues that resonate with Western democracies. The empirical evidence will come from Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia, as there exist similar combinations of digital repression while the human rights advocates adopt varying advocacy approaches during 2020-2024. The research adopts an exploratory mixed-method design, based on an original dataset of semi-structured interviews and social media data. Together, the findings would demonstrate achievements and challenges in Global South advocacy efforts for social media platforms’ human-rights based content moderation.

Part 2

• Resource Nationalism, Climate Justice, and Transnational Civil Society Teri Caraway University of Minnesota

  Activists from the Global South have reframed discussions about climate change from one of green/just transitions to one of climate justice. This reframing foregrounds issues such as carbon debt and “green sacrifice zones” in the Global South, where many critical minerals are located. At the same time, some governments in the Global South—including Indonesia—have sought to harness their mineral wealth to foster economic development through resource nationalist policies. In Indonesia, nickel has been the linchpin of this effort. Yet the nickel boom, while creating tens of thousands of jobs in newly developed industrial estates and billions of dollars in increased exports, has also been fueled by massive amounts of coal-fired power and Chinese FDI, and resulted in dispossession and environmental devastation. Intensifying jockeying for power between the U.S. and China and Indonesia’s “dirty” nickel problem, also threaten to jeopardize its access to American and European markets for its nickel-based green technologies. Indonesian nickel therefore sits at the intersection of core environmental, decolonial, and geopolitical tensions surrounding climate change. This paper documents the transnational activism that has emerged around nickel in Indonesia and analyzes how these activists have navigated this fraught terrain.

• Crossing frontiers of activism: a review of the network “Transnational Palm Oil Labour Solidarity” Oliver Pye Bonn University

  In Southeast Asia, civil society environmentalism is polarised between a wing of professional, conservationist NGOs that are actively integrated into a hegemonic agenda of “green growth” and more grassroots movements which are working towards a more radical social-ecological transformation of society. As the climate crisis impacts the region, these movements will need to cross frontiers of activism in order to forge new rural-urban alliances that can challenge the new authoritarian trend and push for a fundamental shift in the social relations of nature. This paper reflects on the experience of the network “Transnational Palm Oil Labour Solidarity” (TPOLS), with which the author is engaged as a scholar-activist. TPOLS is attempting to cross the boundaries between the labour, feminist and environmental justice movements and at the same time organise across borders. This is easier said than done. Currently the network is working with grassroots organisations to develop a Just Transition perspective that challenges the “stakeholder” model of certified palm oil propagated by mainstream NGOs.

• Local vs Foreign: Political shifts and funding demands of LGBT activism in Southeast Asia George Radics National University of Singapore

  This presentation will discuss the growing challenges in funding LGBT programs in Southeast Asia. Staffed mainly by volunteers struggling to make ends meet, the limited funds these organizations receive ensure that vital programs for LGBT communities continue to exist. As political climates shift, and anti-foreign and anti-LGBT sentiments rise, NGOs must tread carefully as foreign funds fuel mistrust and political violence against LGBT organizations and communities. Furthermore, with new LGBT organizations gradually shifting away from the public health and HIV/AIDS programming that served as a stable source of support in the past, and more towards human and civil rights, programming becomes more intersectional, political, and complicated. In this context, government funds become less reliable, and foreign funds become even more important. At the same time, regional and local organizations are helping to forge alliances and connections to help step in where foreign funding agencies are pulling out. This presentation will outline the challenges and opportunities in LGBT organizational funding as political shifts in the region turn conservative, become more inward looking, and turn against the “West” and LGBT communities.

Abstract