The Southeast Asia Research Group
Discipline, Method, Area

More exciting news for Southeast Asia in political science. I am pleased to introduce the Southeast Asia Research Group (SEAREG), a new joint venture with Allen Hicken, Eddy Malesky, and Dan Slater that is designed to promote the best new research on Southeast Asia. Here’s a key quote from our website that will give you a good sense of what we have in mind.

The conveners of SEAREG are committed to a model of Southeast Asian studies that emphasizes the complementarity of discipline, method, and area knowledge. SEAREG seeks to promote research on Southeast Asia that is theoretically informed, analytically sophisticated, and methodologically precise; which is rooted in in one or more Southeast Asian countries (past or present); and which contributes to basic debates in contemporary political science and allied disciplines.

The closest models for SEAREG are probably AALIMS, WGAPE, and IPES, each of which offer a far more specialized and constructive workshop experience than you can find in general disciplinary conference like APSA. These groups also help to develop new intellectual communities, which is something that we all hope SEAREG will do too.

Registration for our inaugural meeting—to be held May 24-25, 2013 at Duke University, and featuring five presentations from our inaugural class of Fellows as well as a plenary lecture by Rick Doner—is open until May 1. We hope to see you there. Until then, browse around our site to learn more about SEAREG and what we have in store for Southeast Asian politics.