ABSTRACT
Southeast Asia is a vast sea of ethnic groups, across the region as well as within individual countries, where we find numerous ethnolinguistic families, races, and religious identities. Within this region of the world are found Sino-Tibetans, Tai-Kadai, Austronesians, Melanesians, South Asians, and even Caucasians, as well as most of the major world religions in the role of both majority and minority populations. This ethnic diversity has played, and continues to play, an important part in the politics of every country in the region. Southeast Asia, then, can contribute much to our understanding of how ethnicity affects democracy processes.
