How, then, can we explain the variations observed across Southeast Asia
in the trajectories of nationalism over the past several decades since the transitions
to independence in the 1940s and 1950s? As I have argued, the diverging
fates of nationalism in the region can be understood from a perspective
very different from that suggested by Geertz. The crucial questions, challenges,
cleavages, and conflicts facing the new nation-states of Southeast Asia, it has
been shown, were not those of “national integration” in contexts of “internal”
ethnic diversity, but those concerning (re)integration into the world capitalist
economy and the Cold War geopolitical order. Whether cast in terms of
imposed constraints or ideological choices, the ways in which various nationstates
negotiated their international relations served as critical determinants of
nationalist (de)mobilization, nation-building, and nationhood. How else to
understand the conspicuous similarities between Thailand and the Philippines,
the belated divergence between Burmese and Indonesian nationalism, or the
disparity between successful federation-making in Malaysia and federationbreaking
in Indochina? The consequences of capitalist development and the
circumstances of the Cold War era smiled far more favorably on some
nationalisms than on others.