I have conducted a comparative research on local governance in Southeast Asia, a comparative and rather comprehensive research on local elite in three Southeast Asian countries (Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia) with a quantitative method and also a historical transformation of local politics in Indonesia. The second quantitative research is the first trial in the world and show the characteristics of local governnance in three countries with a quantitative and comparative perspective. The thrid one shows the continuity and discontinuiry of local politics in Java since the colonial period. The intreguing fact is the survivavility of local bureaucrats as local heads and vice local heads in Java.

The haze caused by the fire on peat swamp in Indonesia was devastating not only in Indonesia but also in the archipelago Southeast Asia in 2015. That prompted the Indonesian government to start the peat swamp restoration project. This research aims to analyze the politics of the project from the national to the village level. Most of the government projects have been implemented without detailed information on the realities and, therefore, they have tended to be going badly. The peatswam restoration project is not exceptional. The research aims to find out the political bottlenecks that hamper the smooth implemantation of the project and give some policy recommendations.

ICT-zation has been giving siginificant impacts on Southeast Asian societies and politics. Without understanding the cyber-space politics, we fail to understand the newly developing politics in Soutehast Asia. As a first step, I have started to conduct the cyber-space politics during the 2019 presidential election in Indonesia. It is a phenomenal post-truth politics. Based on this analysis, I am hoping to expand my research by including ICT politics in other Soutehast Asian countries.