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AbstractThis article directs attention to dynamics of refuge and governmentality in a region of the 'global South', South-East Asia, and brings into focus the major recipients of (forced) migrants, Malaysia and Thailand, neither of which is a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, or the 1967 Protocol. Against the backdrop of the illuminating contrast offered by the Thai case, this article argues that, in the case of Malaysia, the mobilization of 'volunteers of the nation' in campaigns against 'illegal migrants' serves as a performative (re)enactment of ethnic identity and national citizenship in the making of Malays and Malaysians in this postcolonial 'plural society'. The article explores the wider consequences of the (re)production of (il)legality and identity as a social reality experienced not merely by (forced) migrants, and not only at the border, but also by government officials and national citizens actively mobilized in high-profile campaigns to flush out 'illegal migrants' from markets, construction and plantation sites, as well as dwellings inkampongneighbourhoods, city blocks and jungle sites across Malaysia.

This essay explores a revisionist argument about the nature and direction of conflict and refugee movements in Southeast Asia during the Cold War and thereafter. By focusing more systematic attention on processes of national integration in post-colonial state and society, this essay provides an important corrective to perspectives that privilege Cold War geopolitics and ideology. Similarly, a comparative investigation into processes of (re)democratization and (re)centralization reveals critical dynamics not easily captured from the point of view of less methodologically rigorous approaches to understanding 'new wars' and communalism in the post-Cold War era. Against the dominant paradigm of a marked shift in the patterns of conflict and displacement 'before' and 'after' 1989, this essay instead argues for a more careful, comparative consideration of the reordering of state power and its powerful effects through processes of national integration, (re)democratization and (re)centralization upon the mobilization of large-scale violence and refugee movements in post-colonial Southeast Asia.

The year 2005 witnessed much argument and effort—to enact tax reforms, impeach the president, combat terrorism, amend the Constitution, and end long-standing armed insurgencies—and little real change. The outcome of these specific initiatives is likely to remain largely unresolved in 2006, as is the broader issue of the stability and substance of democracy in the Philippines, a question that loomed large throughout 2005.