Michael Buehler
Postdoctoral Fellow in Modern Southeast Asian Studies 2008-10 at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute.
Michael Buehler received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he also received his M.Sc. in Comparative Politics. He is a political scientist who specializes in local politics under conditions of democratization and decentralization. He also has a special interest in local elections, sub-national authoritarianism, machine politics and political corruption. His current research and applied work in Southeast Asia focuses on the comparative analysis of local politics in Indonesia where he conducted in-depth research 2005-2008.
In recent years, Michael Buehler was a visiting research fellow at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies in Leiden, Holland. He has also been working as a political analyst for the Asia&Pacific Department of Transparency International and at the Asia Research Unit of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin, Germany.
Michael Buehler’s active consulting practice in South East Asia included assignments on the development of an anti-corruption monitoring and evaluation strategy for the World Bank Office in Jakarta, a governance project for the UNDP that was concerned with the evaluation of administrative reform in Indonesian districts and a project on “costing services” in Indonesian regencies for the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ). He has also contributed to political risks evaluations for mining and oil companies operating in South East Asia.
Michael Buehler is a regular contributor to news briefs on political and economic developments in South East Asia for Oxford Analytica, a business consultancy company.
His most recent publication is “The Rise of Shari’a Laws in Indonesian Districts: Indication for Changing Patterns of Power Accumulation and Political Corruption”, South East Asia Research, Vol. 17, No. 2, July 2008
Email: mb3120@columbia.edu