• Date: October 13th, Monday, 2025, 15:30 – 17:30
• Location: Room 303, SNUAC (Bldg. 101)

Southeast Asia Center at SNUAC has launched the “Current Issues Seminar” series to analyze rapidly evolving political and social issues in Southeast Asia and to foster in-depth discussion of their implications. The first series focuses on Indonesia and Thailand.

In Indonesia, since August 2025, civic protests demanding political and economic structural reforms have spread nationwide. These movements are positively assessed in that they consolidate diverse demands and put forth comprehensive reforms through negotiation with institutional politics. However, concerns have also been raised about elements of excessive patriotism, which, when coupled with religious identity, could potentially turn into exclusive tendencies.

In Thailand, democratic movements demanding reform of the monarchy and the military had taken root across society and developed meaningfully for some time. Yet, as their momentum has recently weakened, the escalation of border conflicts with Cambodia between May and July 2025 has reignited patriotic rhetoric. The rise of patriotism risks serving as a justification for military intervention in politics, thereby raising serious concerns about the weakening of democracy.

This seminar highlights the intersection of reform and patriotism in the current affairs of these two countries, examining how civic aspirations for reform may collide with or merge into nationalist currents, while exploring the prospects for democratic transition and institutional reform in Southeast Asia.