Shane Barter, PhD

Associate Professor of Comparative Politics | Soka University

Aliso Viejo, CA, UNITED STATES

Professor Barter focuses on Southeast Asian politics, Civilians in war, as well as autonomous areas and conflict resolution

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Biography

I am a Political Scientist (PhD: UBC 2011) teaching in International Studies at Soka University of America, where I am the Associate Director of the Pacific Basin Research Center. I have worked for Asian Human Rights NGOs (Forum Asia) as well as the Carter Center, the Canadian Government, and the European Union. My research and teaching interests related to politics in Southeast Asia, armed conflict, state and society, democratization, and religious politics.

My books include Civilian Strategy in Civil War: Insights from Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines (Palgrave 2014, available here), Explaining the Genetic Footprint of Catholic and Protestant Colonizers (Palgrave 2015, available here), and The Pacific Basin: An Introduction (co-edited with Michael Weiner, Routledge 2017).

Areas of Expertise (9)

Islam

Thailand

Democratization

Civil War

Southeast Asia

Conflict Resolution

Indonesia

Separatism

Minorities

Accomplishments (2)

Co-recipient Best Professor Award, Soka University of America (professional)

2013-2014

Best Paper Award, ISA-West Conference (professional)

2013

Education (3)

University of British Columbia: Ph. D., Political Science

University of British Columbia: M. A., Comparative Politics

University of Victoria: B. A., Comparative Politics and Southeast Asian History

Links (2)

Articles (3)

The rebel state in society: governance and accommodation in Aceh, Indonesia

Rebel governance in civil war

Shane Joshua Barter

2015 Rebel organizations cannot be understood solely in terms of their coercive capacities. Many seek to displace the state and usurp its functions. How do rebel groups establish systems of governance? Applying Migdal's state in society approach, I show how rebel governance can evolve through alliances with societal forces...

Strife of the soil? Unsettling transmigrant conflicts in Indonesia

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

Shane Joshua Barter, Isabelle Côté

2015 Challenging conventional wisdom, this article argues that Indonesia — long home to both large-scale transmigration programmes and a range of conflicts — has not witnessed transmigrant conflicts. The vast majority of Indonesian transmigrants were resettled in parts of Sumatra which have remained peaceful. In some conflicts, the role of transmigration has been exaggerated. In others, interethnic violence has involved spontaneous migrants rather than state-led transmigrants...

‘Second-order’ ethnic minorities in Asian secessionist conflicts: problems and prospects

Asian Ethnicity

Shane Joshua Barter

2015 This article provides some conceptual foundations for a special issue of Asian Ethnicity concerned with what we call ‘second-order minorities’. If secessionist conflicts involve minorities resisting abusive, assimilationist states, leading rebel groups to embark on their own nation-building efforts, how does this affect the minorities of aspiring secessionist nations? How do the minorities of secessionist groups respond to secessionism?...