Interest, nations, and the state in development: Instability in archipelic Southeast Asia

The Southeast Asian archipelago has become marked by divisions<br />within existing states, placing significant local constraints upon<br />the process of ‘development’. These divisions include ‘vertical’<br />challenges to the state, i.e. they have the capacity to split the state<br />into geographic divisions based on proto-nationalist identity, and<br />‘horizontal’ challenges to the state, defined by ethnic and<br />communal rivalry and conflict. This brief paper will canvas some<br />issues in such divisions.<br />