This article examines the institutional matrix associated with logging and forest pioneering in a district on Sumatra. It draws together theoretical approaches to develop a framework for analysing the operation of competing forms of institutional power and control. The article argues that the governance of local natural resources and the current epidemic of ‘illegal logging’ can be understood in terms of the particular institutional or socio-political structures found in remote forested areas.

Although the Indonesian Marriage Law of 1974 set a minimum age of marriage for females of 16, among some groups – notably Sundanese in West Java and Madurese in East Java – early marriage remained common well after the Marriage Law was promulgated. Early marriage has since declined but certainly not disappeared among these groups. This paper analyses trends in early marriage and reports on a field study among the Madurese.

The declaration of martial law in the Philippines by President Ferdinand Marcos on 21 September 1972 marked the overthrow of the open and competitive Filipino political system that had operated on the principle of institutional checks and balances adapted from the American model of liberal democracy. The Marcos power seizure represented a breakthrough by a coalition of the central Executive and new social forces that had emerged from the Philippines' transition to modernity against the constitutional restraints on presidential power. The new coalition, in which the military, the technocracy, and foreign economic interests were important components, succeeded in destroying the old balance of power, which had rested on the adversary relationship between the Chief Executive and Congress. The disbanding of Congress by emergency fiat reflected the decisive flew of power towards the Executive; for twenty-six years since independence, the legislature had acted as the main institutional check on the presidency.

Cambodia has been governed by the same, relatively fixed, elite since the Vietnamese removal of the Khmer Rouge from power in early 1979. This article provides an analysis of the dynamic interplay of external and internal factors that have contributed to the perpetuation of this elite's rule in the context of a nominal political and economic transition that might have been expected to undermine the bases of their power. It is argued that the patrimonialism of the Cambodian state and the provision of material aid and political legitimacy by external actors have been central to the endurance of this ruling elite.

This article will concentrate on one aspect of a major question in Southeast Asian maritime history: an attempt will be made to describe and determine the origins of the type of ship that was the main form of transport for the trade of the maritime kingdoms of the western half of Southeast Asia until the arrival of the Europeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Surprisingly enough — if the general importance of the commercial network of maritime Southeast Asia is considered — such a study has not yet been attempted. The very few authors dealing with the economic history of the region are usually content to dismiss the problem by saying that the ships are locally called “junks”, and that their tonnage is small. (The reader is thus left with the idea that Chinese ships were being used, since the word “junk” has long been applied almost exclusively to this very specific type of ship.) The general conclusion of this study is that Southeast Asian maritime powers built, owned, and operated ocean-going ships of respectable size as early as the first few centuries of the first millennium A.D. Needless to say, this has a considerable historical significance (which will not be examined here).

To analyze Vietnamese social organization, we must put aside ourimage of it as similar to that of China, with its patrilineal clans. Writings on Vietnam have portrayed a country molded by its northern neighbour in the “thousand years of Chinese domination” of the first millennium A.D. to such an extent that all things Vietnamese must needs be seen in a Chinese and indeed a Confucian light. Socially, this means domination by the male and the father, patrilineal succession, and clan organization, that is, a certain rigidity in social organization.

The rise and fall of a Chinese colonial town within Batavia was closely related to the transmutation in Batavia's function as a capital. In the early seventeenth century it was founded as the headquarters to a — mainly inter-Asian — maritime trading East Indies Company at war with the Iberian enemy. As the staple town to the Company, “het magazijn van derzelven producten”, it served both strategic and mercantile goals. From the late seventeenth century onwards a structural change took place. Wars with European rivals were over and trade with the motherland became emphasized at the expense of the Asian “country trade”. On Java, the Company gradually transformed itself into a territorial power, which derived its main income from a system of contingenten and verplichte leverantiën, or tributary payments. Consequently, Batavia lost most of its dynamic function as a headquarters to a maritime trade empire. The adaptation of the city into its new role, e.g., to function as a capital to a territorial hinterland, did not progress smoothly.

Until 1900 Dutch rule in eastern Kalimantan was little more than nominal. In January of that year, as if to indicate the rapid changes which the new century would bring to this as to other areas of the Outer Islands till then ignored, the Dutch Cabinet gave approval for the Netherlands East Indies government to intervene decisively in the affairs of the states constituting the region. During the year new contracts were signed with the rulers of these states which transferred to Dutch control the external trade upon which the states depended for much of their income. Henceforth Dutch officials would supervise the harbours and levy customs and excise; control of the salt and opium monopolies also passed to the Dutch, and, in some cases, of pawnbroking and gambling. Annual pensions were arranged for the former holders of these rights.

Yuan Buddhism is a particular variant of Theravada Buddhism that prevails among the Tai-speaking people of the upper Mekong region. A salient feature of Yuan Buddhism is belief in ‘holy men’ who gain renown for their charismatic attributes and construction of religious monuments. I argue in this article that the modern ‘holy man’ tradition, initiated by the forest monk Khruba Siwichai, is a form of religious revivalism that combines the bodhisattva ideal with sacral kingship. This form of revivalism condemns the modern state for its failure to uphold Buddhist morality, resists state control and fosters visions of utopian Buddhist realms.

Six months after the historic August 1999 referendum in which the people of East Timor voted to reject Indonesia's offer of broad autonomy, the newly appointed chief of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor, Sérgio Vieira de Mello, commented to CNN on the enormous challenge of setting the territory on the road to independence: ‘It is a test case, therefore it is even a laboratory case where we can transform utopia into reality. But I think we can try and get it right in the case of Timor.’ After 24 years of brutal military occupation, the suggestion that East Timor was to be a laboratory case for the United Nations might have seemed insulting, the notion of utopia absurd. Hundreds of thousands of people were without housing. Basic infrastructure lay in ruins. Commodities were scarce and those goods available were sold at grossly inflated prices. Eleven thousand foreign troops had arrived to restore security. Tens of thousands of refugees were still living in squalid camps across the border in Indonesian West Timor, many against their will. Nevertheless, Vieira de Mello's statement neatly captured the twin aspirations of the time — the independence long-dreamed of by East Timorese and the opportunity for the United Nations literally to build a state from the ground up. In the same CNN report, East Timorese Nobel Laureate José Ramos-Horta emphasised precisely this point: ‘This is the first instance in the history of the UN that the UN has managed completely an entire country; and they have a [Timorese pro-independence] movement that is very cooperative, they have an exceptional people that's cooperating with them, so they cannot fail. They are condemned to succeed because failure would be disastrous for the credibility of the UN, so they simply cannot afford to fail.’ Utopia, it seems, had become a necessity.

Early inscriptions written in Indian languages and scripts abound in Southeast Asia. Literacy in the very early states of Southeast Asia — aside from the portion of north Vietnam annexed by China — began with the importing, by local rulers, of modified cults of Buddhism or Hinduism, and the attendant adoption of Sanskrit or Pali language for the writing of religious texts. Later, in the seventh century, a broader range of texts began to appear on permanent materials, written in indigenous languages. Given the importance of religion in spearheading the development of indigenous literacy in Southeast Asia, it is not surprising that the north Indian languages of Sanskrit and Pali have had considerable long-term impact upon the linguistic and intellectual cultures of Southeast Asia.

In traditional societies, a sense of the “sacred” is often inherent in the form of the urban built-environment, which, in turn, cannot be understood apart from the “mythical-magical concern with place”. According to Mircea Eliade, the act of settlement itself is perceived as a re-enactment of the mythical creation of the world. Ancient Indian cities were designed according to a mandala replicating a cosmic image of the laws governing the universe and, similarly, Chinese cities were conceived as “cosmo-magical symbols” of the universe. These cities were laid out as terrestrial images of the macrocosmos, distinct spaces sacralized for habitation within a continuum of profane space.

This article examines gotong royong as social citizenship in the second half of the twentieth century in Indonesia. Gotong royong was traditionally understood as a collective spirit among neighbours to strengthen economic and social resilience. However, the institutionalisation of the system through massive development programmes since the 1940s has influenced the common people's perception and practice of it. This article argues that the co-option of gotong royong as part of the discourse of nation-state building transformed the popular view of labour and capital mobilisation from an openly critical stance to apparent submission. Gotong royong became a means of social engineering and an ingenious linguistic strategy by which state elites orchestrated control over the making of citizens. Still, Indonesians have remained vigilant of their participation in gotong royong, and about the potential for its misuse by corrupt officials.

This article examines various aspects of the formulation of the Dutch East India Company's treaty and alliance system, based on published and unpublished papers written by, or in the possession of, Hugo Grotius (1583–1645). In particular the study draws on his commentary on the Sultan of Johor in De Jure Praedae, and his submissions to the Indies Conferences of 1613 and 1615.

No reputable historian nowadays maintains that the Portuguese 16th- century thalassocracy in the Indian Ocean was always and everywhere completely effective. In particular, it is widely accepted that there was a marked if erratic revival in the Red Sea spice-trade shortly after the first Turkish occupation of Aden in 1538, though much work remains to be done on the causes and effects of this development. The Portuguese reactions to the rise of Atjeh have been studied chiefly in connection with the frequent fighting in the Straits of Malacca; and the economic side of the struggle has been less considered. The connection of Atjeh with the revival of the Red Sea spice-trade has been insufficiently stressed; though Mrs. Meilink-Roelofsz and Dr. V. Magalhaes Godinho have some relevant observations on this point in their recent and well documented works (Asian Trade and European Influence in the Indonesian Archipelago, 1500–1630, The Hague, 1962, pp. 142–46; Os Descobrimentos e a Economia Mundial, Vol. II, Lisboa, 1967, pp. 111–171). The purpose of this paper is to amplify the facts and figures which they give there, in the hope that someone with the necessary linguistic qualifications will be incited to make complementary researches in the relevant Indonesian, Arabian, or Turkish sources.

After regaining independence from France in 1953, Cambodia was ruled by successive regimes according to specific ideologies which were presented as charters for constructing a modern state. For the past 20 years, however, Cambodian politics has been dominated by the seemingly non-ideological Prime Minister Hun Sen. In his public rhetoric and the stated goals of the current regime, it may be possible to identify if not ideology, then ideas about how the Cambodian people are to be governed in a post-ideological era.

This paper explores the relationship between language and cultural practice in the Fataluku language community of East Timor. A Papuan language and member of what is referred to as the Trans New Guinea Phylum (TNGP) of languages, Fataluku society nevertheless exhibits many cultural ideas and practices suggesting a long period of engagement and accommodation to Austronesian cosmopolitanism. The idea that Fataluku speakers are ‘Austronesians in disguise’ points to the significance of cultural hybridity on the Austronesian boundary.

This article sets out to criticise arguments by scholars such as Charles Keyes and Donald Swearer, who have framed their readings of Thai Buddhism through a lens of ‘civic’ or ‘civil’ religion. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in the southern border provinces, the paper argues that religious tolerance is declining in Thailand, and that anti-Muslim fears and sentiments are widespread among Buddhists. Some southern Buddhists are now arming themselves, and are creating militia groups in the face of growing communal violence. In the rest of Thailand, hostility towards Muslims, coupled with growing Buddhist chauvinism, is being fuelled by developments in the south.

Since the inauguration in 1986 of the reforms known as Đổi Mới, ritual and religious practices have proliferated in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. This renewed interest in religious and ritual practice has been the object of intensive scholarly interest both in Vietnam and outside, and has been interpreted in terms of revival (phục hồi), invention and politics of tradition. This collection of articles deals with this phenomenon of ritual revival in Vietnam as well but attempts to go beyond the – by now common – approaches that connect it with the emerging religious practice and political liberalisation, economic reform and the emerging market in the context of Đổi Mới. Instead, these papers explore in more depth the ritual dimensions of life from the central state down to the individual level.

The five cases of Protestant Christian practice in Indonesia and Thailand presented in this symposium are used to develop a sociology of Protestantism in Southeast Asia. A review is first undertaken of the history of Protestant missionary activity in Southeast Asia. Protestantism, it is observed, insists on the ultimate authority of the Bible. This authority has not been accepted by Southeast Asians until they have access to the Christian message in their own languages and they are motivated to adopt Christian practices as a means to confront deep crises in their lives. The establishment of Protestant Christianity has entailed the interpreting of the Christian message with reference to the non-Christian contexts in which Protestants in Southeast Asia live.