Part 1

• Normalising restrictions on academic freedom in Singapore Cherian George Hong Kong Baptist University

  This paper examines the paradox of Singapore’s highly ranked universities operating under in an environment of constrained academic freedom. It is based on an analysis of legal frameworks and institutional policies, case studies of restrictions and survey data on academics’ perceptions of their autonomy. Singapore defines university excellence according to neoliberal benchmarks of economic utility, including international rankings, which are not sensitive to academic freedom. Direct state interventions include a system of political vetting of academic hires. Laws limiting civil rights foster widespread self-censorship. Day-to-day discipline of academic work is institutionalised within universities. Internal policies include political risk assessment protocols for speakers and research. University autonomy has allowed them to develop rapidly but does not spare them from close political supervision. The article also considers Singapore’s role as a regional higher education hub.

• Academic Freedom in Thailand: Candle lighting through the Midnight Midst Pat Niyomsilp Chulalongkorn University

  This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of academic freedom in Thailand. It aims to address a significant gap between its constitutional guarantees and practical implementation. This study argues that its substantive exercise is consistently undermined by a range of legal, political, and institutional constraints. The research begins by tracing the evolution of academic freedom through various constitutions, demonstrating how legal frameworks have introduced vague and restrictive limitations, such as “good morals” and “duties of the Thai people,” which grant authorities wide discretionary power. Then by using the Academic Freedom Index as a framework, the paper maps key factors that impede scholarly work. These include the suppression of research and teaching on politically sensitive topics—particularly those concerning the monarchy, the military, and the government—as well as interference in academic exchange and politically motivated surveillance on university campuses. The analysis further highlights how institutional autonomy has fostered a culture of managerialism, creating precarious employment conditions that indirectly stifle critical inquiry. It argues that the safeguard mechanisms are failed due to three primary issues: the state’s use of content-based restrictions without passing a strict test of necessity; the lack of specific, national-level mechanisms to protect scholars; and the increasing use of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) to intimidate and silence academics. Hence, to uphold academic freedom in Thailand, it recommends establishing precise legal definitions to limit state intervention, creating robust and independent safeguard mechanisms to handle violations, and enacting effective anti-SLAPP legislation to protect scholars engaging in public interest work.

• Judicializing Protection for Intellectual Freedom: Courts’ Role in Safeguarding Indonesian Scholars Herlambang Wiratraman Universitas Gadjah Mada

  The situation of academic freedom in Indonesia has been much influenced by its political context, which is weakening democracy. Universities are often easily co-opted and their positions weakened. Moreover, the oppressive structures are linked to the culture of feudalism in society. In Indonesia, since the establishment of KIKA, the Indonesian Caucus for Academic Freedom, the Surabaya Principles for Academic Freedom have been developed. Interestingly, despite its limited nature, these principles have been used to develop legal and policy advocacy strategies, including efforts to protect freedom of thought, opinion, and critical expression in the public sphere. It is interesting to understand how these progressive efforts to protect the right to academic freedom or intellectual freedom can be tested and enforced by the judiciary. In cases of attacks on student activists, there have been several cases where the protesting students have been acquitted. Similarly, several academics who have pursued critical views in the public sphere have received legal protection from the courts. How does the judiciary truly function to protect intellectual freedom amidst the declining quality of democracy in Indonesia? How do legal and political advocacy efforts utilize the normative framework or legal doctrine of freedom of expression in these legal cases?

• The Relationship between Research Culture and Academic Freedom in Southeast Asia Ying Hooi Khoo University of Malaya

  This study explores the relationship between research culture and academic freedom in Southeast Asia, drawing on a definition that sees research culture as the values, behaviours, and norms within research communities. A healthy research culture supports critical thinking, ethical standards, innovation, and societal development. However, in Southeast Asia, diverse political, social, and institutional factors—particularly growing autocratization—pose challenges to academic freedom and innovation. The study investigates these dynamics through a literature review, interviews, and focus group discussions in Thailand and Indonesia, focusing on research performance, the barriers to a healthy research culture within higher education institutions in the region, its interplay with academic freedom, and pathways for positive transformation.
  The study’s findings illustrate how a positive research culture is shaped by interconnected factors at three levels: individual, institutional, and national. These findings highlight how elements at the micro, meso, and macro levels interact with academic freedom to influence the overall research environment. Using this framework, the paper concludes with recommendations aimed at addressing external restraints, institutional bureaucracy and poor governance, and fostering individual capacity.

Part 2

• The contested terrain of academic freedom in Malaysia Ratnaria Wahid Northern University of Malaysia

  This article examines the decline of academic freedom in Malaysia. It analyses legal, political, economic, and socio-cultural constraints, alongside emerging reform opportunities. The article argues that stronger legal protections and institutional reforms are needed to align higher education with democratic and knowledge-based development.

• The Institutional Autonomy Trilemma: Structural Conflicts in Southeast Asian Higher Education Governance Fuadi Pitsuwan Thammasat University

  This paper contends that the true independence of higher education institutions in Southeast Asia is limited by ongoing conflicts among three key stakeholders: the government, the institutions themselves, and the public. These three players are caught in a three-way tug-of-war, where satisfying one or two stakeholders will require compromising the preferences of the third. In Southeast Asia, efforts to modernize higher education often worsen conflicts over affordability, political stability, and university autonomy, and the relationships among these stakeholders remain structurally contentious, as the paper calls it, the Institutional Autonomy Trilemma. The paper uses case studies from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand to demonstrate the tensions among stakeholders. In Indonesia, the state and universities both subscribed to the marketization agenda, but that came at the expense of students’ affordability and accessibility. On the other hand, university scholars and students in Thailand have historically played a key role in democratic reforms, often destabilizing the central government’s control and prompting reactionary policies from authorities. And in Malaysia, while the government is committed to public affordability and accessibility, meaning it continues to allocate more funding to universities, there are strict controls, including on leadership appointments, by the state authority. The lived experience of higher education governance in Southeast Asia, therefore, falls short of the liberal agenda’s ideal for autonomous universities. The gap between the rhetoric of deregulation and actual practices is structural and not simply due to poor implementation or management.

• Autocratization and Academic Freedom in Southeast Asia: An Assessment Sriprapha Petcharamesree Chulalongkorn University

  This paper aims to inquire whether the different types of autocracies/democracies in Southeast Asia coincide with the level of academic freedom and institutional autonomy. The university world rankings do not pay enough attention to academic freedom but are being used to complicate and curtail academic freedom regardless of regime types. Drawn from literature review and country case studies of Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, the paper reveals that the despite varying shades of autocracy and the ranking that universities are holding at the global level, academics and students in Southeast Asia face similar challenges, regardless.

Abstract

Keywords

• Academic freedom
• Indonesian scholars
• SLAPP
• Singapore
• Southeast Asia
• Thailand
• academic restrictions
• free speech
• governance
• human rights protection
• institutional autonomy
• intellectual freedom
• judiciary
• ranking
• research culture
• self-censorship
• universities
• values