Dominique Caouette’s research while affiliated with Université de Montréal and other places

Whether one looks back at armed insurgency movements, the Philippines’ People Power, or Jakarta’s riots against Suharto, transnational ideas, models of collective action, and activists have been keys in inspiring and fostering civil society mobilization and organizations in Southeast Asia. What are some of the common characteristics of Asian civil society activism, and what are some of the differences? Can we explain these similitudes and differences across countries, especially within Southeast Asia? Are there themes for activism that are more dominant than others? To answer these questions, we first undertook a short historical and comparative review of social activism in the region before conducting a preliminary analysis of a database on NGOs, networks, and coalitions in various Southeast Asian countries. Our results seem to show that national organizations tend to be influenced by agenda setting on the part of regional organizations, to the point where it might trump the importance of national/local issues, such as the regime type, and might homogenize the issues on which organizations work across countries. At the same time, national/local animosities also influence regional organizations, whether they want it or not. In sum, regional and national organizations shape each other, and that the influence is far from going only in one single direction.

The Philippines represents a fascinating and singular case of collective action in Southeast Asia. Rooted in the long struggle against the Marcos dictatorship (1972-1986), the country has been recognized and renowned in the region for its citizen's protest and organizations. In fact, a quick survey at the range of regional organizations reveals the significant presence of Filipino activists. At the same time, the Philippines is lagging behind regionally in terms of its development index and socioeconomic equity and in deepening its democratization. How can one understand such level of collective action and social movement organizing? What does this tell us in relation to broader political struggles for democracy, political participation, and left politics? This chapter addresses these questions arguing that one can understand and explain such extraordinary level of social organizing by examining the specific conditions under which a whole generation of activists came about, namely, the constitution of the large and multisectoral social movements led or influenced by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its umbrella organizations and the National Democratic Front (NDF). Over the years, the CPP-led revolutionary movement has demonstrated both a skillful understanding of political opportunities and political struggles combined with a highly instrumentalist approach to social mobilization. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. All rights reserved.

Recent dramatic strategic manoeuvres in the South China Sea (SCS) sent shock waves around the world, and many consider it the harbinger of a Sino-US competition for regional and global hegemony. Would a counter-China alignment prevent or provoke a regional conflict and what should Canada's policy be? This research examines the nature and logic of China's claims, strategies, and policies in the SCS to understand China's intent and interests as well as viable solutions to the dispute. We find that: 1) China has not changed its SCS claims, strategies or policies since 2002 and most Chinese actions are reactive responses to perceived threats to its claims; 2) the SCS dispute has significant implications for Canada's economic and strategic interests and security in the Canadian Arctic; 3) Canada can play a unique role in a multilateral solution.

Southeast Asia has witnessed dramatic transformations in the rural sector over the past 60 years, first with the Green Revolution, and more recently with diverse multi-scalar economic and socio-political processes including the growth of cash crops, export processing zones, land conversions, genetically modified crops, free trade agreements, and the growing complexity of rural-urban connections. With such a multiplicity of changes, many directly linked to globalisation, come numerous forms of resistance, as individuals and communities struggle against what they see as unjust consequences. These different resistance measures to rural transformations are the focus of this article. While critiquing the literature on different conceptualisations of resistance, from rural resistance at the micro level, through to collective action and open protest, revolutionary movements, and even regional and global transnational movements, we propose three core arguments. First, in order to capture the diversity of forms of contemporary rural resistance, one needs to use a multi-scalar approach. Previous analytical constructs such as ‘local’ and ‘global’ are inadequate to examine and explain the forms of resistance taking place. Second, rural resistance comes in a complexity of forms, is diversifying rapidly, and is never static. Resistance measures are context contingent, shaped by different worldviews and shift according to local circumstances, the opening and closing of opportunities structures, and the endogenous peculiarities of resistance dynamics. Third, a focus on resistance to contemporary agrarian change in Southeast Asia must recognise agency. We demonstrate that there is much to be gained by taking an interactive standpoint, arguing that local, national, regional, and even global resistance has as much to do with how the actors’ themselves define their field of protest as with the specific nature of their targets.

In Southeast Asia, especially since the 1997 financial crisis, there has been a growing tendency, for NGOs, social movements and activist networks to organize and work transnationally. This paper explores one specific component of Sidney Tarrow's most recent work on transnational activism, namely “the political processes that activists trigger to connect their local claims to those of others across borders and to international institutions, regimes, and processes.” In doing so, I will try to answer the following questions: Is the emergence and expansion of transnational activism in Southeast Asia comparable to other regions of the world? What are the reasons that motivate local activists and how do they inscribe their demands and claims in transnational coalitions, networks and campaigns? And, in what ways does this participation in such form of collective action affect local level activism and influence for public policy changes?> Using a process tracing approach, the proposed paper will discuss transnational activism in four East Asian countries, namely the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Hong Kong. The analysis of each transnational network reveals that different methodologies and processes that are deployed to link local concerns to global advocacy. These reflect certain organizational choices linked to certain conception of social change as well as different types of domestic structures.

In recent years, international nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and transnational networks involved in knowledge creation have become key civil-society actors in Southeast Asia. How and why has such form of transnational activism expanded significantly in the region? The author suggests that this type of activism is a response to socioeconomic and political processes associated with globalization, as well as a consequence of the relative and limited political liberalization that has characterized some Southeast Asian countries. The specific combination of these two factors is peculiar to the region since contemporary transnational activism in Western Europe and North America takes place within open democracies with well-established civil-society organizations. Moreover, trade liberalization and other global economic processes have not marked domestic dynamics as rapidly and suddenly as the economic boom of the 1980s and, eventually, the 1997 financial crisis did in certain Southeast Asian countries. To explore this argument, the paper traces the genealogy and analyzes the objectives and activities of four transnational activist organizations. Common to the four organizations is the central place of discourse and knowledge production and its linkages to mobilization, network building and constituency building, and a growing awareness that they are confronted with common challenges and share common targets.