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357. Comparative Nation-Building in Postcolonial Southeast Asia: Counterinsurgency, Development and Self-Determination in Malaya and the Republic of Vietnam

Sun, March 19, 10:45am to 12:45pm, Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, Floor: 2nd Floor, City Hall

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel

Abstract

This innovative panel broadens our understanding of the postcolonial state in Southeast Asia through a comparative examination of the struggles over nation-building faced by three noncommunist governments between 1945 and 1975. Rather than focusing exclusively on the communist-anticommunist dichotomy which often frames our understanding of state formation during this period, our panel emphasizes the postcolonial aspirations of both state and local actors as they attempted to build viable, independent nations at the cross-roads of the struggle for decolonization with the global Cold War. This will be an interactive panel where we will pre-circulate our papers for the audience and have each panelist present each other’s work.

In post-war Malaya, we examine how the British and their local allies forged a blend of anticommunism and nationalism from the anti-imperialist impulses teeming within the populations of both countries. In the First Republic of Vietnam (1955-1963), we consider how Ngô Dình Diệm employed the transnational idea of community development as a vehicle for constructing his vision of a viable postcolonial nation in the face of a myriad array of communist and noncommunist opponents. And in the Second Republic of Vietnam (1965-1975), we explore how Nguyễn Văn Thiệu employed urban development and counterinsurgency in post-Tết Offensive Sài Gòn to integrate potential insurgents into the South Vietnamese body politic. Our panel, therefore, goes beyond the simple Cold War paradigm to provide a richer and more nuanced analysis of nation-building in Southeast Asia in which internal struggles over national identity, self-determination and even modernity are central.

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