Reconfiguring Civil Society in Asia amid Global Democratic Recession

How should we conceptualize civil society today: the space it occupies, the modalities of action it enables, the discourses it amplifies or suppresses, and its key actors and antagonists, particularly where the boundaries between state and civil society have grown hazy and remain in flux? Can our concept accommodate the full range of contemporary ideologies and tactics, encompassing both organized, collective mobilization and "spontaneous," atomized action? Or does too capacious a frame erode its analytical utility? This panel takes up these questions with attention to the resources and regulations, enabling and disabling alike, that most shape civil society today. We ask whether the changes now visible in the performative, emotional, and organizational dimensions of activism are ephemeral, generation-specific fads, or more enduring recalibrations of collective life. We anchor the discussion in East and Southeast Asia, a region home to a striking diversity of regime types and protest repertoires, many themselves in transition. Most pressingly, against the backdrop of a deepening global recession that is not merely economic but also political and normative, we ask what it means to speak of societal resilience and civic repair: resilience for whom, and toward which ends?

 

Edmund W. Cheng is a Professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs and Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at the City University of Hong Kong, where he directs the Center for Public Affairs and Law, the Computational Social Sciences Lab, and the Summer Methods School. His research explores how society, science, and government intersect, with particular attention to political sociology, digital governance, the sociology of science, and computational methods. He has written award-winning books published by Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press, as well as more than 60 peer-reviewed articles in political science, sociology, and area studies. From 2020 to 2025, Stanford University ranked him among the top 2% of scientists worldwide, and his work has been supported by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council, the French National Research Agency, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China. He holds a PhD in Government from the LSE and has held visiting positions at Oxford, Michigan, ANU, and Waseda.

 

Meredith L. Weiss is Professor of Political Science in the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy at the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY). In several books—most recently, Politics in a Pandemic: Governance and Crisis Management in Southeast Asia (Cambridge, 2025) and the co-authored Mobilizing for Elections: Patronage and Political Machines in Southeast Asia (Cambridge, 2022)—numerous articles, and over a dozen edited or co-edited volumes, she addresses issues of social mobilization, civil society, and collective identity; electoral politics and parties; and governance, regime change, and institutional reform in Southeast Asia, especially Malaysia and Singapore. She has conducted years of fieldwork in those two countries, along with shorter periods in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Timor-Leste, and has held visiting fellowships or professorships in Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, and the US. Weiss is the founding director of the SUNY/CUNY Southeast Asia Consortium (SEAC) and co-edits the Cambridge Elements series, Politics & Society in Southeast Asia.

 

Jacques Bertrand, is David Chu Professor (Chair) in Asia-Pacific Studies and Political Science at the University of Toronto, as well as Director of David Chu Program. He is also the co-founder of the Postcor Lab at the University of Toronto, a research hub for the study of civil wars and war-to-peace transitions.

Professor Bertrand has worked for many years on issues of ethnic conflict, nationalism and secessionism in Southeast Asia. His research has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the United States Institute of Peace, as well as the International Development Research Centre. His most recent books include State and Sub-State Nationalism in Southeast Asia (Cambridge UP, 2025) and Winning by Process: The State and Neutralization of Ethnic Minorities in Myanmar (w/ Ardeth Thawnghmung and Alexandre Pelletier, Cornell UP, July 2022). He is also the author of Democracy and Nationalist Struggles in Southeast Asia: From secessionist mobilization to conflict resolution (Cambridge UP, 2021); Political Change in Southeast Asia (Cambridge, 2013) as well as Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Indonesia (Cambridge, 2004). Finally, Professor Bertrand has co-edited two volumes: Multination States in Asia: Accommodation or Resistance (Cambridge, 2010); and Democratization and Ethnic Minorities: Conflict or Compromise? (Routledge, 2014), in addition to numerous articles and book chapters.

His work has been funded by several grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and twice by the United States Institute of Peace. Professor Bertrand was also co-investigator and executive member of a SSHRC Major Collaborative Research Initiative on Ethnicity and Democratic Governance. He was the recipient in 2024 of the Dean’s Research Excellence Award recognizing sustained excellence and achievement in research. In 2022-23, he was the Lee Kong Chian Visiting Scholar at Stanford University and the National University of Singapore (2022-23). He has also been a visiting professor at the London School of Economics.