Employment relations systems generally fail to enforce all legal rights of migrant workers. This article illustrates a broader approach to the way labour migration is regulated in practice, using the example of migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong. Political economists have shown that the reality of low-wage migration is either ‘more rights, less access’ or ‘fewer rights, greater access’ in terms of rights enforcement systems. Attention to the effectiveness of such mechanisms and processes reveals another feature of regulation: the divergence of theory from practice. Much scholarly attention has been paid to rights, and this analysis, in which enforcement of those rights is sought, contributes to the literature with a frequently-occurring example of how such regulatory practices effectively restrict migrant rights. The article concludes by arguing that regulation uses employers as a further ‘mechanism of control’ to determine the actual quantity and quality of migrant workers’ employment rights regardless of what is stipulated in the law.

Much has been written about Cambodia's strongman, Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has been in power since 1985. Yet, the history of Hun Sen's early rise to a position of power in the Vietnam-initiated Cambodian revolution after June 1977 remains murky. Relying on Vietnamese and Cambodian archival documents, memoirs and interviews with former veterans of Unit 125 as well as Hun Sen's speeches and personal recollection of his historic journey to Vietnam on 20 June 1977, we make a two-fold argument. First, Hanoi's decision to establish an anti-Pol Pot Cambodian revolution in southern Vietnam to take over Cambodia—after toppling Democratic Kampuchea—was part of Hanoi's strategic plan to handle a double challenge: (1) to avoid being branded as an invader and (2) to establish a capable and friendly regime in Cambodia after the war. This provided an opportunity for a young Khmer Rouge defector, Hun Sen, to change his fortune by quickly earning the Vietnamese military leadership's trust and confidence based on his competence to organize and command the first army unit of the new Cambodian revolution, i.e. Unit 125. Second, as lucky as he was to flee across the heavily militarized border into Vietnam unharmed, Hun Sen's early rise to power is attributed to his survivalist instinct combined with shrewd strategic thinking.

This article reconstructs the history of Kling Muslims’ contribution to the religious and ethnic cosmopolitanism of sixteenth-century Ayutthaya. This study's argument is constructed based on an aggregate of written fragments about the Kling in both Portuguese primary sources and the wider academic literature. We reveal that, amongst the many ways in which Siam benefited from the Iberian invasion of Melaka in 1511, the dramatic geopolitical rupture of the invasion re-routed trade across the Bay of Bengal. As a result, Kling merchants began arriving in Ayutthaya in greater numbers via the new network of Siamese-controlled ports and portages. Moreover, this study demonstrates the utility of greater synergy among South Asian, Southeast Asian, Thai, and Malay Studies through focusing on the exonyms employed in primary and secondary sources. Finally, this article contends that Ayutthaya's ethnic and religious cosmopolitanism was impacted by the arrival of South Asian Muslims, referred to as Kling in the Malay World and Khaek in Siam, approximately one century before Persians arrived in greater numbers. This, among others, was an unintended result of Portugal's sixteenth-century interventions into, and alliances with, the Siamese.

In the last decades, demand-side populist policies (DSPPs) have played a significant yet controversial role in Thai politics. Most Thai economists disagree with DSPPs. They have argued that such policies are inefficient and have suggested the Thai government drop short-sighted DSPPs and replace them with supply-side policies that are more effective in the long run. However, Thai politicians have viewed DSPPs as unavoidable for political reasons and turned a deaf ear on economists’ suggestions to stop issuing them. In this paper, we argue that the domination of the neoclassical economics paradigm prevents Thai economists and politicians from understanding the role of DSPPs in shaping the demand and supply sides of the macroeconomy in both the short run and long run. Based on the theory of transformational growth, DSPPs are endogenous phenomena emerging from Thailand's uneven economic development. Therefore, Thailand could implement the policies to facilitate long-run economic growth. We propose three principles for future DSPPs that can positively impact the economy in the long run: boosting productivity, promoting innovation, and addressing income inequality.

Although allegations of monastic financial embezzlement and sexual misconduct are the most frequent and outrageous monastic scandals reported in Thailand's media outlets, this article discusses a separate category of scandal I label ‘everyday scandals.’ This type of scandal describes the phenomenon of monks committing bodily transgressions, including inappropriate behaviours outside the temple and unacceptable presentations of the body. For Thai Buddhist laity, photos of monks taking trips to the mall and working out at a gym can be indicators that their religion is in decline. A proper male monastic body enacting acceptable behaviour signals the difference of the monastic life from the lay life, ensuring the efficacy of merit and ritual performance. The regulation of everyday monastic life is a fertile topic in Thai media. Because the Buddhist monastic institution is interconnected with the Thai nation-state, the male monastic body is a site of evaluation and critique. At stake is national Thai heritage and pride in Thailand's majority religion: Buddhism. Besides the strength of contemporary Thai Buddhism, everyday scandals also reveal continuity in the discourse of decline and anxiety over monastic behaviour, which began with the earliest Buddhist communities. The threat of Buddhism's decline is part of a continuum of debates within monastic texts and Buddhist history regarding proper monastic behaviours in public.

This article explores authoritarian populist mobilisation and media strategies that political elites who ran in the election advanced and their consequences on journalistic freedom in an emerging democracy. It focuses on Indonesia's democracy and examines the following questions: what types of authoritarian populist mobilisation and media strategies did Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subijanto adopt when contesting Indonesia's 2019 presidential election? To what degree did these adaptations impact the journalistic freedom of those who worked for Indonesian mainstream media, particularly Indonesian private TV news channels? In-depth interviews with four senior journalists associated with Indonesian TV news channels (Kompas TV, CNN Indonesia, TV One, and INews TV) and two senior journalists working for mainstream media owned by influential Indonesian oligarchs used qualitative and thematic content analyses to reveal the following findings. Jokowi and Prabowo adopted secular nationalist and Islamic authoritarian populist mobilisation during the election. However, Prabowo developed Islamic authoritarian populist mobilisation far more than Jokowi. Jokowi advanced an oligarchic authoritarian populist media strategy, while Prabowo established an intensive Islamic anti-oligarchic authoritarian populist media strategy. As authoritarian populist mobilisation and media strategies evolved during their campaigns, the journalistic freedom of those associated with Indonesian mainstream media declined substantially. This article introduces four faces of authoritarian populism — secular nationalist and Islamic authoritarian populist mobilisation and oligarchic and anti-oligarchic authoritarian populist media strategies — as new concepts enriching political elites’ authoritarian populism literature.

This article discusses the relationship between Sekolah Islam (Salafism-influenced Islamic schools) and urban middle-class Muslims. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the City of Serang (Kota Serang), near Jakarta, this paper argues that these conservative and puritan Muslims demonstrate their Islamic identity politics through their engagement with Sekolah Islam. The analysis of in-depth interviews with and close observations of parents of students and school custodians (preachers or occasionally spiritual trainers) at several Sekolah Islam reveals that they have attempted to pursue ‘true’ Islamic identity and have claimed recognition of their identity as the most appropriate. The pursuit of a ‘true’ Islamic identity has infused Islamic identity politics, and there is an oppositional relationship between local Islamic traditions and Salafism, as seen in Sekolah Islam. The relationship between Islam and identity politics becomes intricate when it is transformed into public symbols, discourses, and practices at many Sekolah Islam. This paper shows that through their understanding and activities at Sekolah Islam, these Muslims are avid actors in the contemporary landscape of Islamic identity politics in Indonesia. By taking examples from Sekolah Islam in Indonesia, this article unveils social transformations that may also take place in the larger Muslim world.