In Malaysia, criminality is a highly political question, and that is mainly why local scholarship on the topic is rare. Yet political participation by outlaws and criminalized groups is not new. Begun in 2008, Dr. Lemière’s research explores uncharted territory: how criminality related to politics in semi-authoritarian Malaysia, with a focus on the ruling party (UMNO) from 2008 to 2018.  She shows how gangs have created umbrella (Malay) NGOs, like Pekida (shown here in caricature), to formalize their ties to political parties. For gangs, political militancy has become a business; political parties (mostly UMNO) have sub-contracted political actions and violence to such groups. Dr. Lemière’s research raises question regarding the nature of civil society and democratization, and offers a new perspective of ethno-religious controversies and clashes in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Sophie Lemière is a political anthropologist at Harvard’s Ash Center for Democracy in its program on Democracy in Hard Places. Her research examines the nexus between religion, politics, and criminality in a comparative perspective. She will be at Stanford in the fall before transferring to the National University of Singapore in the spring.

Dr. Lemière has held research positions in Singapore at the Asia Research Institute (NUS) and the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (NTU).  She has been a visiting fellow at the University of Sydney, Cornell, UC Berkeley, and Columbia. She received her PhD from Sciences-Po in Paris. Her dissertation was the first study on the political links between gangs and umbrella NGOs in Malaysia.  Her master’s research on apostasy controversies and Islamic civil society was awarded second prize for young scholars by the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (1998-2008) in Leiden.

Dr. Lemière believes it is essential for academics to disseminate their research findings widely, especially in the countries they study. Accordingly, her publications have been written both general and academic readers within and beyond Malaysia. She is the editor of a series of books on “Malaysian Politics and People.” Misplaced Democracy was released in 2014.  Illusions of Democracy (2017) will be re-published in 2018, and a third volume is expected in 2019, when her monograph “Gangsters and Masters: Complicit Militancy and Authoritarian Politics” will also appear. She is currently working on a political biography of Malaysia’s current prime minister during his recent campaign: “The Last Game: Malaysian Politics through Mahathir’s Eyes.”

Dr. Lemière maintains a blog on Mediapart and contributes regularly to New Mandala, The Conversation, Le Monde, and Libération among other outlets.  She has also begun to develop several documentary film projects with French production companies, including a series on arts and politics. Her first film “9/43” featuring the Malaysian cartoonist Zunar was chosen one of the 25 best movies at the French short-film festival Infracourt in 2016.

Recent scholarship suggests that, under authoritarian regimes, quasi-democratic institutions such as elections and legislatures—the velvet gloves of autocratic rule—actually enable political stability and economic growth. The political economies of China and Vietnam are indeed remarkably stable and dynamic, and compared with China’s ostensibly democratic institutions, those in Vietnam are open and raucous. That makes Vietnam a likely place to find election and legislatures performing their hypothetically salutary functions.  But are they?

Even in Vietnam, Prof. Schuler will argue, the legislature’s main function is to convey regime strength and cow possible opposition.  Using evidence drawn from more than ten years of fieldwork, survey research, and close readings of legislative debates and the debaters’ lives, he finds that electoral and legislative activity reflect intra-party debates rather than genuine citizen opinion. His results should temper expectations that such institutions can serve either as safety valves for public discontent or as enablers of tangibly better governance. Single-party legislatures are more accurately seen as propaganda tools that reduce dissent while increasing disaffection. That said, Schuler will acknowledge that opponents of authoritarian rule may manage, under certain conditions, to repurpose seemingly democratic institutions toward undermining the regime whose longevity they were developed to prolong.

Paul Schuler is an assistant professor at the University of Arizona, where he studies Southeast Asian politics, Vietnamese politics, and authoritarian institutions. He guest-lectures and publishes widely. His latest article is “Position Taking or Position Ducking? A Theory of Public Debate in Single-Party Legislatures,” Comparative Political Studies (March 2018). Earlier scholarship has appeared in the American Political Science Review and Comparative Politics, among other outlets. He is fluent in Vietnamese and has served as a UNDP consultant in Vietnam. His political science doctorate was earned with distinction at the University of California, San Diego.

 

From Within and Without: Taiwan’s New Security Challenges

Since 2016, Beijing’s pressure campaign on Taiwan has threatened the island’s international space and domestic tranquility. Few, if any, areas of politics have gone untouched. Whether through attempts to pick off Taiwan’s diplomatic partners or lure away the island’s talent, the full range of PRC statecraft is on display. Taiwan’s political dynamics — especially the solidification of Taiwanese identity and collapse of the Kuomintang — also appear to have driven an aggressive shift in Beijing’s approach to political influence operations to include pressure on international companies. The shift in intensity and tactics raises important questions about Taiwan’s future and dealing with an increasingly powerful PRC.

Peter Mattis is a Research Fellow in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and a contributing editor at War on the Rocks. He was a Fellow in the China Program at The Jamestown Foundation, where he also served as editor of the foundation’s China Brief, a biweekly electronic journal on greater China, from 2011 to 2013. Mr. Mattis also worked as a counterintelligence analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. He received his M.A. in Security Studies from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and earned B.A.s in Political Science and Asian Studies from the University of Washington in Seattle. Mr. Mattis’s analysis of China and intelligence has appeared in The National Interest, China Brief, Sydney Morning Herald, The Hill, Jane’s Intelligence Review, Taipei Times, the East-West Center’s Asia-Pacific Bulletin, The Diplomat, War on the Rocks, the Asia Society’s ChinaFile, Cipher Brief, the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, and Studies in Intelligence.  Mr. Mattis is the author of Analyzing the Chinese Military: A Review Essay and Resource Guide on the People’s Liberation Army (2015) and co-author of a forthcoming handbook on Chinese intelligence.

Dr. Kenneth Dekleva's talk is one of the first times that a leadership analysis/political psychology profile of North Korea's Kim Jong Un has been presented in an academic setting.  He will discuss how such a profile can be useful to academic scholars, policy makers, and the national security community.

Dr. Dekleva is McKenzie Foundation Chair in Psychiatry I, Director of Psychiatry-Medicine Integration, and Associate Professor in the Dept. of Psychiatry, Peter J. O’Donnell Brain Institute, University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, TX.  He is board-certified in adult psychiatry, with additional qualification in forensic psychiatry.  Dr. Dekleva received his BA in History at UC Berkeley, and later undertook post-baccalaureate pre-medical studies at Columbia University, NY; he subsequently received his MD at UT Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, TX, and also completed post-graduate/residency training in psychiatry therein.  After working in a variety of academic, clinical and forensic psychiatric settings in the DFW area, he served as a Regional Medical Officer/Psychiatrist and senior US diplomat during 2002-2016, largely overseas (Moscow; Vienna; London; New Delhi; Mexico City), except for a 2-year assignment as Director of Mental Health Services, US Dept. of State, Washington, DC during 2013-2015.  He retired from the US Dept. of State in 2016 with the rank of Minister-Counselor.  Dr. Dekleva has published and/or presented (at local, regional, national, and international conferences) political psychology/leadership profiles of various world leaders since the mid-90s, including Radovan Karadzic, Slobodan Milosevic, Kim Jong Il, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un.  His work has been published in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 38 North, The Diplomat, and the Cipher Brief; he has also given various interviews to media outlets such as NPR, Background Briefing, Smerconish/Sirius XM, and CNN.