The panel explores contemporary instances in which constitutional law interacts with politics in leading jurisdictions in Southeast Asia. It adopts a dual take as to the meaning of politics. On the one hand, it showcases how courts and other institutions grapple with potentially explosive ‘high politics’ questions that go towards a polity’s self-understanding and the fundamentals of its system, such as the place of religion or the structure of government. On the other hand, the papers in this panel explore the social and political identity of those who have been asked to decide those questions, allowing for provocative reflection on the role of non-legal factors and non-classical institutions, like the monarchy, in shaping a country’s constitutional future.