We engage with the question of how states and societies interact, with a focus on the impact of colonialism on forms and patterns of citizenship – now and then – in former colonies and colonizing countries.
Viewing politics and modes of belonging as a product of history, we conduct research on contemporary and historical struggles – from war and instances of political violence to elections, activism, and governance – in the light of the historical evolution of the relationship between citizens and the state. We also pay attention to struggles over how the colonial past is remembered and how the past becomes a key site of conflict in postcolonial societies.
Expensive elections campaigns are a threat to democracies around the world, because they generate corruption and political inequality. Yet, due to methodological obstacles and a western bias in the current literature, we do not really know what makes election campaigns expensive.
This research project studies comparatively how social media-based public opinion manipulation is organised in Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia. Computational propaganda – the coordinated dissemination of political disinformation by networks of hired social media influencers (‘cyber troops’) – constitutes a considerable and growing threat for the quality of public debate and, consequently, democracy around the world.
What did enslaved people do to gain citizenship rights and what determined their success? By analyzing and linking different archival collections, this project investigates how people in Dutch colonies emancipated over several generations and developed an informal form of citizenship.
This project engages in a first-ever study of general patterns and outcomes of oil palm conflicts across Indonesia. The aim is to provide input for legal reform and governance initiatives that will strengthen the capacity of rural communities to address grievances caused by oil palm expansion.
The aim of this study is to understand the significance of Sultan Hamid to Indonesia’s independence and state formation (from 1945 to 1950), with a special focus on his role as the leader of the federalists and the federal option in the sovereign state of Indonesia.