COVID-19 has disrupted all aspects of human life. To mitigate the impact of Cthe pandemic, several efforts have been taken, including by Indonesian scholars abroad. This book entitled Indonesia Post-Pandemic Recovery Outlook: Social Perspectives explores social issues and topics related to the COVID-19 pandemic and discusses post-pandemic recovery efforts in Indonesia.Comprising of 15 chapters, this book is divided into three parts. The first part, Indonesia and COVID-19 recovery: an international political economy lens, focuses on Indonesia's role in responding to international issues and the global political economy during the pandemic and post-pandemic period. Second, Indonesia and COVID-19 recovery: socio-cultural perspectives, discusses the impact of the pandemic, government policies, and activism from marginalizedand vulnerable social groups, including people in urban slum areas, women, migrant workers, persons with disabilities, and traditional arts workers. The last part, Indonesia and COVID-19 recovery: insight for future education, explores the future of education in post-pandemic Indonesia with all aspects that need to be considered, including access to technology, the importance of digital literacy, and innovation regarding methods and the potential of metaverse education in emergency situations.We hope that this book can be a valuable reference for stakeholders, policymakers, as well as society to recover from the pandemic crisis and find better solutions to benefit future generations.

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As early as the pandemic has spread to Southeast Asian countries and elsewhere, observers have been tempted to associate regime type with COVID-19 responses. This trend encompasses the debate between democratic vs. authoritarian regimes that has been particularly helpful in identifying the normative basis to global pandemic responses. However, it leads into an inquiry whether the comparison of regime as part of variable isolation is scientifically viable in assessing the public policy, given the fact that the comparative matrix is vague. The comparison between democracy and the authoritarian regime will not bring a fair debate, but only to insinuate epistemological obstacle due to socially constructed dichotomy between the two even if the authoritarian regime has done any good practice. Furthermore, such a dichotomy only reflects a binary oversimplification of reality, which neglects an alternative explanation. Drawing on the framework of typology of COVID-19 responses by Greer et. al. (2020)–which includes four key foci, i.e., social policies and crisis management, regime type, formal political institutions, state capacity–this article will extend the framework by applying to the case of Southeast Asian countries, where these countries share similar structure and challenges, yet some countries arguably have been more successful.