Under what conditions are autocratic regimes apt to break down when popular protests against them break out?  Prof. Lee will showcase and explain the decisive role of armed forces in reinforcing or undermining the prolongation of authoritarian rule.  He will offer a theoretical framework and illustrate it with two contrasting cases:  the June 1989 massacre at Tiananmen Square, where the Chinese military suppressed protesters and safeguarded the regime; and the People Power revolt in Manila in February 1986, when the Philippine military swung its weight in favor of liberalization.

Terence Lee is associate editor of Armed Forces and Society.  His writings have appeared in Asian Survey, Armed Forces and Society, Comparative Political Studies, and Foreign Policy.  He studies civil-military relations, military organizations, and international security; other interests include Southeast Asian politics and political science theories.  He was formerly an assistant professor in the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), and a postdoctoral fellow in the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard.  His PhD and MA are in political science from the University of Washington, Seattle.  Other degrees include a master’s in strategic studies from NTU and a University of Wisconsin-Madison BA (with Distinction) in political science and Southeast Asian Studies.

Although its people are mainly Muslim, Malaysia is notably diverse.  Many communities of faith live together in relative harmony.  Yet ethnic tensions and decades of authoritarian rule have undermined national unity and a sense of shared purpose.  Since the watershed election of 2008, a revived political opposition and an active civil society have increasingly challenged the divisive politics of race and religion in Malaysia.  But severe obstacles still thwart full democratization and genuine pluralism. 

In his talk, Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad will analyze the complexities of Malaysia’s race-based political system, the prospects of the country’s multiracial opposition, and what these dynamics imply for the future of democracy in Malaysia.

Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad was elected to the Selangor State Assembly in Malaysia in March 2008 as a candidate of the opposition People’s Justice Party (Partai Keadilan Rakyat).  His roles in Keadilan include membership in the party’s National Youth Executive Committee.  In 2006-08 he served as private secretary to Keadilan’s de facto leader at the time, Anwar Ibrahim. 

Nik Nazmi is a columnist at the Malaysian Insider and the founder of SuaraAnum.com, a web magazine for young Malaysians.  He has been widely published in, and interviewed by, Malaysian and international media.  He read law and earned his LLB (Honors) from King's College, University of London.  While in London he joined British Muslims in protesting the occupation of Palestine and the war in Iraq.  His undergraduate work was done at the UEM Foundation College in Selangor, where he was elected president of the Student Council.  His secondary education was at the Malay College of Kuala Kangsar, which has been called “the Eton of the East.”  During his student career, he was active in multiple extra-curricular settings, including Muslim and social-service organizations and English-language debating teams.  He was born in Malaysia in 1982.

Carolyn A. Mercado is a senior program officer with The Asia Foundation in the Philippines. In this position she manages the Law and Human Rights program. She assists in the development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of other selected activities within the Foundation's Law and Governance program and handles mediation and conflict management, and other forms of dispute resolution processes. She has also served as a temporary consultant to the Asian Development Bank on the Strengthening the Independence and Accountability of the Philippine Judiciary project and the Legal Literacy for Supporting Governance project.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Ms. Mercado was an intern with the Center of International Environmental Law in Washington. Previously, she served consultancies in Manila for the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, the International Maritime Organization, NOVIB, and the Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources. She has served as lecturer on environmental law at Ateneo de Manila University, San Sebastian College of Law, and the Development Academy of the Philippines. She also previously served as executive director of the Developmental Legal Assistance Center, corporate secretary of the Alternative Law Groups, and as a legal aide to a member of the Philippine Senate.

Education: B.A. in political science from the University of the Philippines; LL.B. from the University of the Philippines College of Law. She was also a Hubert Humphrey Fellow in international environmental law, University of Washington and a European Union Scholar in environmental resource management, Maastricht School of Business in the Netherlands.

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