"This book of proceedings is based on several papers presented at the seminar Political Instability in Southeast Asia, organized by the Department of Asian Studies and the Center of Asia-Pacifc Studies at Metropolitan University Prague on April 19th, 2013. This relatively small academic gathering was held as part of the series of workshops organized in the framework of the RESAREAS project, ofcially entitled the Cooperation Network for Research of Non-European Areas. This was the third seminar of the series and had originally been entitled Political Instability in Asia. Interestingly, all the papers which responded to our Call for Papers dealt with the region of Southeast Asia. Our team, based around the Department of Asian Studies at MUP, took this as a good omen that our eforts and area of focus – i.e. a concentration on Pacifc Asia with a strong dedication to Southeast Asian afairs in our research and teaching activities – is heading in the right direction. Therefore, focusing on Southeast Asia in this little edited volume makes it both more specifcally focused and realistic. Furthermore, of course, this region deserves much more attention than it is actually getting. And I daresay this statement bears even more validity in Czechia as well as within post-Communist Central Europe in general. The simple fact is that Southeast Asia has so far been heavily understudied in the Czech Republic. This is something of a paradox since Charles University and other notable institutions have had a long tradition of (mainly linguistic) Oriental Studies programs such as Indology, Sinology, as well as Japanese and Korean Studies. Also Middle Eastern Studies there and at the Oriental Institute of the Academy of Science of (still regarded geographically, if not always culturally, as part of Asia) have been well established for decades. Palacký University in Olomouc and Masaryk University in Brno also have departments which give lectures on East Asian languages and cultures..."