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>