Khoo Ying Hooi, PhD, is an Associate Professor of International Relations and Human Rights at Universiti Malaya (UM), where her work sits at the intersection of human rights, democracy and Southeast Asian politics. Her research focuses particularly on civil society, social movements and protest, civic space, and the domestic politics of Malaysia and Timor-Leste. A growing strand of her work examines how shifting geopolitical dynamics in Southeast Asia shape domestic politics, rights discourses, civil society, institutional contestations and the conditions under which political and social actors operate. She also works extensively on academic freedom, human rights education and the politics of knowledge and higher education in Southeast Asia. She is the author of Civic Reimagination: The Life and Death of Protests in Southeast Asia (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2027), Between Giants and Grassroots: Geopolitics and Civil Society in Southeast Asia (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2026), The Bersih Movement and Democratisation in Malaysia: Repression, Dissent and Opportunities (SIRD/ISEAS/Lexington Books, 2020), and Seeds of Dissent (Gerakbudaya, 2015). She has also co-edited several volumes, including Timor-Leste in ASEAN: Voices, Future and Imaginations from Within (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2027), Social and Political Deglobalisation: Covid-19, Conflict and Uncertainties in Malaysia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), Marginalisation and Human Rights in Southeast Asia (Routledge, 2022), and Rethinking Human Rights and Peace in Post-Independence Timor-Leste through Local Perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). Her