Corporal Punishment in Thai Schools
Panarat Anamwathana
Legal changes have not meaningfully changed long-standing attitudes towards the corporal punishment of school children in Thailand, even among those who teach them.
Articles
World Bank Resurrects Industrial Policy: Ball is in Southeast Asia’s Court
Marco Kamiya
The World Bank has made a volte-face on industrial policy. Southeast Asian countries will need to consider the new policy, but calibrate it across vastly different national contexts.
The State of Southeast Asia 2026 Survey
ASEAN in 2026: Great Expectations, Limited Effectiveness
Melinda Martinus|Indira Zahra Aridati
ASEAN remains central to regional diplomacy, but it continues to be bogged down by structural limitations.
Japan’s Grand Strategy Amid Geopolitical Flux
Kei Koga
Fulcrum editor William Choong talks to Kei Koga about Japan’s grand strategy and approach to the Indo-Pacific amid challenges to the global rules-based order. Prof Koga is Associate Professor and Head of Division at the Public Policy and Global Affairs Programme, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University (NTU).
Trump 2.0 Hollowing US Human Connections to Southeast Asia
Hoang Thi Ha|Eugene R.L. Tan
The US’ human and intellectual connections to Southeast Asia are gradually being undermined.
Danantara’s Patriot Bond and the Unchanged Role of Chinese-Indonesian Conglomerates
Leo Suryadinata|Siwage Dharma Negara
The Patriot Bond issued by Danantara shows that Indonesia’s economic nationalism under Prabowo is a repackaging of long-standing state–business ties using new financial instruments. The dominance of Chinese Indonesian conglomerates among Patriot Bond subscribers highlights their enduring role in Indonesia’s political economy.
The Myanmar Crisis and the Challenge of Maintaining ASEAN Consensus
Jael Tan
It is time for ASEAN to truly reckon with the meaning and practice of consensus-seeking, on issues where its eleven members stand far apart.
From Fragmentation to Cohesion: Charting a Course for Philippine Maritime Security Governance
Dianne Faye Despi
How can the Philippines’ decision-makers on maritime security reduce their ‘seablindness’?
The Economic Fallout from the Thailand-Cambodia Border Conflict
Archanun Kohpaiboon
The Thai-Cambodian conflict has exacerbated economic losses on both sides.
Gender Reassignment in Kelantan: Complex Questions Arising from Institutional Inflexibility
Mohd Faizal Musa
The prosecution of an individual in Kelantan for undergoing gender transition underscores system inflexibility which ignores the higher objectives of sharia.