Staff profile

Dr Dirk Tomsa

Lecturer

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

School of Social Sciences

Social Sciences Building 327, Melbourne (Bundoora)

 

Qualifications

MA (Muenster), PhD (Melbourne).

Membership of professional associations

Asian Studies Association of Australia.

Area of study

Politics
Asian Studies

Brief profile

Dirk joined La Trobe University in January 2010. His main research interests include Indonesian politics and society, democratization studies, political Islam in Asia, as well as comparative Southeast Asian politics, especially elections and party politics.

Research interests

Government and Politics of Asia and the Pacific

- Comparative democratization

- Indonesian and Southeast Asian politics

Teaching units

  • AST1IJI - Intro to Asia: Japan and Indonesia.
  • POL2/3SEA - Southeast Asian Politics: Conflict and Change.
  • POL1DEM - Democracies and Dictatorships: Introduction to Comparative Politics.
  • POL2/3IPS - Indonesian Politics and Society.
  • POL4RSS - Research Skills for Honours.

Recent publications

  • Tomsa, D 2011, ‘Moderating Islamism in Indonesia: Tracing Patterns of Party Change in the Prosperous Justice Party’, Political Research Quarterly, published online 12 may 2011, DOI: 10.1177/1065912911404566
  • Tomsa, D 2010, ‘Indonesian Politics in 2010: The Perils of Stagnation’, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Vol. 46, No. 3, pp. 309-328.
  • Tomsa, D 2010, ‘The Indonesian Party System after the 2009 Elections: Towards Stability?’, Edward Aspinall and Marcus Mietzner (eds), Problems of Democratisation in Indonesia: Elections, Institutions and Society, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, pp 141-159.
  • Tomsa, D 2010, ‘Disdained but Indispensable: Political Parties in Post-Suharto Indonesia’, Thomas Reuter (ed.), The Return to Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia, Monash University Press, Caulfield, pp 89-104.
  • Tomsa, D 2009, ‘Electoral Democracy in a Divided Society: The 2008 Gubernatorial Election in Maluku, Indonesia’, Southeast Asia Research, 17(2): 229-259.
  • Tomsa, D 2009, ‘Uneven Party Institutionalization, Protracted Transition and the Remarkable Resilience of Golkar’, in Marco Buente and Andreas Ufen (eds), Democratization in Post-Suharto Indonesia, Routledge, London and New York, pp 176-198.
  • Tomsa, D 2008, Party Politics and Democratization in Indonesia: Golkar in the Post-Suharto Era, Routledge, London and New York.
  • Tomsa, D 2007, ‘Party Politics and the Media: Creating a New Dual Identity for Golkar’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 29(1): 77-96.
  • Tomsa, D 2006, ‘The Defeat of Centralized Paternalism: Factionalism, Assertive Regional Cadres, and the Long Fall of Golkar Chairman Akbar Tandjung’, Indonesia, 81 (April), pp 1-22.

Research projects

I am currently working on an ARC-funded research project about the nexus between democratization and conflict management in Eastern Indonesia.