Academic Freedom Movement in Southeast Asian: Threat, Challenge, and It’s Implication in Indonesia

Satria Unggul Wicaksana Prakasa — 2024-10-31

This research focused on analyzing the debates and roles of academic freedom movement in Southeast Asian. The dynamics of protection related to academic freedom cannot be separated from its protection on the one hand and the threats accompanying it. The issue of academic freedom creates a threat to the academic community in producing knowledge, both within universities and those who are active as independent researchers, especially in Southeast Asian. Authoritarianism, in turn, has affected the worse situation of free expression, including academic freedom. In the current situation, the digital sphere has been targeted as well. This article will discuss the following questions: (1). What is the situation of the academic freedom movement and protection for the academic community in Southeast Asia? (2). How are efforts to maintain the movement of academic freedom in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia, amid efforts to subjugate the campus by the state and the practice of authoritarianism? Using an interdisciplinary approach as a part of socio-legal research, this article argued that there is a strong relationship between the threat of academic freedom movement in Southeast Asian countries and the implications in Indonesia. The academic freedom situation in Southeast Asia has been shaped by the political and economic aspects of the region as well as in their respective countries. The role of independent and progressive alliances to struggle for their rights or to understand the role of professor unions in defending academic and scientific freedom. To what extent is academic freedom considered a strong pillar for democratic societies, including providing important scientific, economic, cultural, and social progress from which we may all benefit? This roundtable is also aimed to promote possible strategies in challenging democracy declines, affecting the shrinking civic space, and how academic resilience in the digital space is a keyword that should be strengthened in its social movement since this will be more complicated due to manipulating information and anti-science politics through systematic repression.

Indonesian Democracy: Democracy without the Public

Sugeng Bayu Wahyono — 2024-10-31

Since its independence, the Republic of Indonesia has been a democratic and unitary state. However, democracy has had its ups and downs and been influenced by the characteristics of the leaders from the era of President Soekarno, New Order, to the reform era. This study employed the reflective method to analyse the political phenomena of contemporary Indonesia, based on empirical facts and academic information. This study discusses the issue of democracy. Instead of the role of the middle class or global political constellation, it focuses on the failure of the political process to shape the public, a prerequisite for implementing democracy. This research reveals that three strategic social institutions in the dynamics of contemporary Indonesian politics, namely religion, bureaucracy, and educational institutions also fail to shape the public. It leads to formal, procedural, and less substantive democracy in Indonesia. Therefore, the people need a democracy literacy movement through various strategic social and political institutions.

South-East Asian Journal of Advanced Law and Governance (SEAJ ALGOV)

Academic Freedom Movement in Southeast Asian: Threat, Challenge, and It’s Implication in Indonesia

Indonesian Democracy: Democracy without the Public