Department of Politics and International Studies

Dr Michael Buehler

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Key information

Roles: Department of Politics and International Studies Admissions Tutor: MSc Politics of Asia Centre of South East Asian Studies Academic Staff
Department: Department of Politics and International Studies
Qualifications: MSc (LSE), PhD (LSE)
Building: Russell Square: College Buildings
Office: C412
Email address: mb107@soas.ac.uk

Biography

Michael Buehler is a Reader in Comparative Politics in the Department of Politics and International Studies, SOAS, University of London specialising in Southeast Asian politics, his teaching and research interests revolve around state-society relations under conditions of democratization and decentralisation.

Previously he taught at Columbia University and Northern Illinois University. He has also held research fellowships at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Kyoto University in Kyoto, the Center for Equality Development and Globalization Studies at Northwestern University in Chicago, the Weatherhead East Asian Institute in New York City, and the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies in Leiden.

Michael Buehler has been an Associate Research Fellow at the Asia Society in New York City since 2011.

Research interests

Comparative Politics
Elections and Party Politics
Islam
Local Politics
Southeast Asian Politics
Public Policy

PhD Supervision

Currently open for PhD supervision, offering guidance and mentorship in the areas of Comparative Politics, Democratization, Local Politics, and Southeast Asia.

Name	Title
Christian Jean Bachheimer	"Unpacking Patterns & Concepts of hedging strategies in Indonesia, Asean with the wider Asia Pacific Powers
Dwi Kiswanto	Centre-Periphery Relations: Politics and Informalities in Indonesia's Intergovernmental Budget Allocation
Munalula Ngenda	Explaining the Evolution of Opposition Political Mobilization in Zambia, 1991 - 2021
Ibrahim Nyei	Decentralisation reforms and the implications for power and authority relations in a centralised unitary state. A study of decentralisation reforms in Liberia
Salman Rafi	Intra-Ethnic Fragmentation and the Politics of De-centralising Constitutional Change in Pakistan: A Comparative Study
Mr Chris Weeks	Human trafficking in the wake of natural disaster: the case of Typhoon Haiyan

Personal links

Michael Buehler

Publications

Contact Michael

Email: mb107@soas.ac.uk

Department of Politics and International Studies

The Department provides expert grounding in the study of Politics and International Relations through deep engagement with the historical legacies, political realities, and international affairs of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

Department of Politics and International Studies

BA Politics

BA Politics at SOAS University of London

Department of Politics and International Studies & Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy

Recognising the women who shaped the UN Charter

Recognising the key role of women of the Global South in establishing the equality of the sexes in the UN Charter of 1945.

Dr Michael Buehler

Key information

Biography

Research interests

PhD Supervision

Personal links

Publications

Authored Books Open

The Politics of Shari'a Law: Islamist Activists and the State in Democratizing Indonesia.

Articles Open

Institutional Reforms and Political Context: An Evaluation of the Indonesia Procurement Modernization Project

Unity through Division: Re-evaluating Democracy in Indonesia

Do discriminatory laws have societal origins? The diffusion of anti-Ahmadiyah regulations in Indonesia

Limitations to subnational authoritarianism: Indonesian local government head elections in comparative perspective

Indonesia in 2020: Pestilence and Incompetence

Authoritarian diasporas in Indonesia and the Philippines: comparative perspectives on elite survival and defection

"Try to be more like Norway on a Sunny Day!" Regulatory Capitalism and the Challenges of Combatting Corruption in Indonesia's Upstream Oil and Gas Sector Supply Chains

A research agenda for studying legislative incumbent turnover in new democracies, using Indonesia as a case study

Why do Indonesian politicians promote shari’alaws? An analytic framework for Muslim-majority democracies

Democratization and the Diffusion of Shari'a Law: Comparative Insights from Indonesia

Voter Turnout in Democratizing Southeast Asia: A Comparative Analysis of Electoral Participation in Five Countries

Subnational Islamization through Secular Parties: Comparing Shari’a Politics in Two Indonesian Provinces

Revisiting the inclusion-moderation thesis in the context of decentralized institutions: The behavior of Indonesia’s Prosperous Justice Party in national and local politics

Indonesia's Law on Public Services: changing state-society relations or continuing politics as usual?

Islam and Democracy in Indonesia

Shari’a By-Laws in Indonesian Districts: An Indication for Changing Patterns of Power Accumulation and Political Corruption.

Party-Candidate Relationships in Indonesian Local Politics: A Case Study of the 2005 Regional Elections in Gowa, South Sulawesi Province.

Local Elite Reconfiguration in Post-New Order Indonesia: An Analysis of the 2005 Elections of District Government Heads

Book Chapters Open

The Ephemeral Nature of Local Political Monopolies

Elite Competition and Changing State-Society Relations: Shari’a Policymaking in Indonesia.

Indonesia

Decentralisation and Local Democracy in Indonesia: The Marginalisation of the Public Sphere

Indonesia

The Rising Importance of Personal Networks in Indonesian Local Politics: An Analysis of the District Government Head Elections in South Sulawesi in 2005

Monographs and Working Papers Open

The Protracted Geo-economics of Energy

Book reviews Open

Review of Carlos Gervasoni (2018). Hybrid Regimes within Democracies: Fiscal Federalism and Subnational Rentier States, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Review of Andreas Harsono (2019). Race, Islam and power: ethnic and religious violence in post-Suharto Indonesia. Victoria, Monash University Publishing.

Review of Thomas B. Pepinsky, R. William Liddle, and Saiful Mujani (2018). Piety and Public Opinion: Understanding Indonesian Islam. New York: Oxford University Press.

Review of Menchik, Jeremy. 2017. Islam and Democracy in Indonesia: Tolerance without Liberalism. New York City: Cambridge University Press.

Review of Kanchan Chandra, Ed., 2016. Democratic Dynasties: State, Party and Family in Contemporary Indian Politics. New York City: Cambridge University Press.

Review of David Kloos. 2017. Becoming better Muslims: Religious authority and ethical improvement in Aceh, Indonesia. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press.

Review of Winn, Patrick. Hello, Shadowlands: Inside the Meth Fiefdoms, Rebel Hideouts and Bomb-scarred Party Towns of Southeast Asia. London: Icon Books.

Review of: Hadiz, Vedi R. 2016. Islamic Populism in Indonesia and the Middle East, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Review of: The Ruling Elite of Singapore: Networks of Power and Influence, by Michael Barr. London: I.B. Tauris, 2016

Review of:Illiberal Practices: Territorial Variance within Large Federal Democracies, by Jacqueline Behrend and Laurence Whitehead. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2016.

Review of: Women and sharia law in Northern Indonesia: local women’s NGOs and the reform of Islamic law in Aceh by Dina Afrianty. New York: Routledge, 2015

Review of Political Authority and Provincial Identity in Thailand by Nishizaki, Yoshinori. 2011. Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications

Review of: Indonesia’s Changing Political Economy: Governing the Roads by Jamie Davidson, Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Review of: Indonesian women and local politics: Islam, gender, and networks in post-Suharto Indonesia by Dewi Kurniawati Hastuti, NUS Press, Singapore, 2015.

Review of: Shari‘a and Social Engineering: The Implementation of Islamic Law in Contemporary Aceh, Indonesia by R. Michael Feener. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. 335 pp

Review of: Warlords, Strongman Governors, and the State in Afghanistan by Dipali Mukhopadhyay. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Review of: Boundary Control: Subnational Authoritarianism in Federal Democracies by Edward Gibson. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Review of: Regional Dynamics in a Decentralized Indonesia, edited by Hal Hill. Singapore: ISEAS, 2014.

Review of: Political Change and Territoriality in Indonesia: Provincial Proliferation by Ehito Kimura. London: Routledge, 2013.

Localising Power in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia: A Southeast Asia Perspective.

Review of: Local Politics in Indonesia: Pathways to Power by Nankyung Choi. London; New York: Routledge, 2011.

Review of: Islamism and Democracy in Indonesia: Piety and Pragmatism by Masdar Hilmy. Singapore: ISEAS, 2010.

Political Reform in Indonesia after Soeharto

Review of: State of Authority: the State in Society in Indonesia, edited by Gerry van Klinken and Joshua Barker. Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2009.

Book Review: Pepinsky, T. B. (2009). Economic Crises and the Breakdown of Authoritarian Regimes: Indonesia and Malaysia in Comparative Perspective. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press

Review of: Towards Good Society: Civil Society Actors, The State, and the Business Class in South East Asia: Facilitators of or Impediments to a Strong, Democratic, and Fair Society?" by Heinrich Boell Foundation, 2005.

Other Open

Regulating the regulators: Regulators, contracts and corruption in Indonesia’s upstream oil and gas sector

MCC Indonesia Procurement Modernization Project Evaluation - Final Evaluation Report

Indonesia takes a wrong turn in crusade against corruption: New legislation will undermine the KPK, but the bigger mistake is conceptual

The fault lines between rich and poor inLombok quake: Notes from a research trip interrupted by Indonesia’s most deadly earthquake in years

Dynamism beats dynasties in Indonesia’s local elections

Desperation in the Indonesian diaspora

Informal Networks, Formal Politics and The Politicization of Islam in Indonesia [Online Article]

Soal lobi, pertanyaan yang belum dijawab

Lobbyist questions still unanswered

Waiting in the White House Lobby: Why did a Singaporean consultant pay $80,000 to a Las Vegas PR company to lobby for the Indonesian government?

Indonesia’s dramatic executions hide the real problem: Indonesia’s draconian narcotics laws kill the country’s citizens – not low-level drug traffickers.

The dynamics of centralized procurement reform in a decentralized state : evidence and lessons from Indonesia

The reassertion of the state

Married with Children: The second round of direct elections for governors and district heads shows that democratisation is allowing powerful families to entrench themselves in local politics.

Peer Review of Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance Assessment of Indonesia