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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
British Neo-Colonialism In Malaya And Singapore, And U.S. Empire In The Pacific, Wen-Qing Ngoei
British Neo-Colonialism In Malaya And Singapore, And U.S. Empire In The Pacific, Wen-Qing Ngoei
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This essay places the Vietnam War upon the larger canvas of Southeast and East Asian history by studying the long shadow that Britain’s Empire cast over U.S. entanglements across the region. It shows how British officials in Malaya and Singapore directly contributed to the expansion of US involvement in post-1945 Southeast Asia, as well as the overall pro-US trajectory of the region well before the Americanization of the Vietnam conflict.
Exhibiting Transnationalism After Vietnam: The Alpha Gallery In Pursuit Of An Authentic Southeast Asian Art Form, Wen-Qing (Wei Wenqing) Ngoei
Exhibiting Transnationalism After Vietnam: The Alpha Gallery In Pursuit Of An Authentic Southeast Asian Art Form, Wen-Qing (Wei Wenqing) Ngoei
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This essay examines how the Alpha Gallery, an independent artists cooperative established by Malaysians and Singaporeans, curated and staged art shows in the 1970s that advanced its project to unearth and promote an intrinsically Southeast Asian aesthetic. The cooperative pursuit a transnational vision of inter-regional connections between the Bengali Art Renaissance of the early twentieth century and Balinese folk art. It also harbored ambitions of sparking a cultural renaissance in Southeast Asia, though these were ultimately unfulfilled. Importantly, as this essay shows, the cooperative’s transnational vision mirrored the racist thinking and paternalism of Euro-American colonial discourses about civilizing the region’s …
Conclusion: Comparing Women's Representation In Asian Parliaments, Devin K. Joshi
Conclusion: Comparing Women's Representation In Asian Parliaments, Devin K. Joshi
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This chapter explains important findings from this study while identifying common trends across Asia and the sub-regions of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. It examines to what degree Asian parliamentarians have prioritized substantive representation of women (SRW). It assesses whether SRW was a primary reason or motivation behind why members of parliament (MPs) entered politics in the first place and whether they viewed SRW as a pressing issue for their governments to address. MPs interviewed in this study expressed what they felt were the most important issues today that need government’s attention. MPs were asked whether they make …
Scaling Smartness, (De)Provincialising The City? The Asean Smart Cities Network And The Translational Politics Of Technocratic Regionalism, Lily Kong, Orlando Woods
Scaling Smartness, (De)Provincialising The City? The Asean Smart Cities Network And The Translational Politics Of Technocratic Regionalism, Lily Kong, Orlando Woods
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper explores the case study of the ASEAN Smart Cities Network (ASCN) to uncover the motivations and potential challenges associated with technocratic regionalism, by which we mean technology-driven forms of regional integration and consolidation. In the case of the ASCN, technocratic regionalism is used to spur urban development through the rollout of smart city plans, policies and projects across Southeast Asia. As such, it is a regional strategy designed to scale smartness, and thus deprovincialise the city by embedding it within transnational flows of capital, ideas and expertise. At the same time, however, already existing urban issues have the …
Circuits Broken, Remade, And Newly Forged: Tracing Southeast Asia's Foreign Relations After The Vietnam War, Wen-Qing Ngoei
Circuits Broken, Remade, And Newly Forged: Tracing Southeast Asia's Foreign Relations After The Vietnam War, Wen-Qing Ngoei
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This article (2021) in Diplomatic History's pandemic feature examines how the principles and consequences of Singapore's "circuit breaker" policy offers a conceptual framework for studying the history of Southeast Asia's foreign relations in the 1970s to 1990s. With this approach, the essay considers how a study of Southeast Asia's culture-makers (artists, writers, dramatists), their works and transnational circuits, may open a productive inquiry into a diverse array of regionalisms that compete and complement ASEAN.
The United States And The "Chinese Problem" Of Southeast Asia, Wen-Qing Ngoei
The United States And The "Chinese Problem" Of Southeast Asia, Wen-Qing Ngoei
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This essay examines how US Cold War policy toward all of Southeast Asia arose from American suspicions that the region's Chinese diaspora would align itself with the Chinese communists against the west. In so doing, it explores how US distrust of the Chinese diaspora fell in step with a longer imperialist tradition practised not only by the European powers for centuries, but also the Japanese Empire during its brief ascendancy during World War Two. Additionally, the essay proposes that to move beyond the bilateral studies that dominate the histories of US-Southeast Asian relations to view the region as whole, it …
Screening Southeast Asia: Film, Politics, And The Emergence Of The Nation In Postwar Southeast Asia, Darlene Machell Espena
Screening Southeast Asia: Film, Politics, And The Emergence Of The Nation In Postwar Southeast Asia, Darlene Machell Espena
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
No abstract provided.
The Effect Of Language On Voter Opinion: Results From A Survey Experiment In Thailand, Jacob I. Ricks
The Effect Of Language On Voter Opinion: Results From A Survey Experiment In Thailand, Jacob I. Ricks
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Politicians have long engaged in marketing themselves by employing distinct speaking styles to signal social standing, competence, or a shared background with their audience. What effect does this use of different language appeals have on voter opinion? Utilizing a survey experiment in Thailand, I test a set of hypotheses about the effect of language on respondent opinions. Relying on three distinct treatments, a formal language register, an informal language register, and an ethnic language, I demonstrate the multiple effects of language on political appeal. The use of a formal register has mixed effects, signaling both high education as well as …
Commentary: What Lies Ahead? Considering The Future Of A ‘New’ Vietnamese Higher Education, Yasmin Y. Ortiga
Commentary: What Lies Ahead? Considering The Future Of A ‘New’ Vietnamese Higher Education, Yasmin Y. Ortiga
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In this commentary, Ortiga discusses two main tensions in how the authors in this volume portray the future of Vietnamese higher education. The first tension is the issue of autonomy or how universities must redefine their purpose and role in Vietnamese society as the state loosens its monopoly over higher education. Meanwhile, the second tension is the issue of privatisation or whether for-profit corporations and private agencies should play an increasing role in providing higher education services in the country. In reflecting on the future, Ortiga compares the case of Vietnam to higher education systems in neighbouring countries like the …
There And Back Again: What The Cold War For Southeast Asia Can Teach Us About Sino-Us Competition In The Region Today, Wen-Qing Ngoei
There And Back Again: What The Cold War For Southeast Asia Can Teach Us About Sino-Us Competition In The Region Today, Wen-Qing Ngoei
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Expert commentary today typically focuses on the agendas and actions of the two big powers, the United States and China, which misses the bigger picture. During the Cold War, leaders of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) played a critical role in containing Chinese influence, shaping the terms of Sino-U.S. competition and rapprochement, and deepening the U.S. presence in Southeast Asia. The legacy of ASEAN’s foreign relations during and since the Cold War militates against the popular notion that Chinese hegemony in Asia is inevitable.
Collaborative Governance For The Sustainable Development Goals, Ann Florini, Markus Pauli
Collaborative Governance For The Sustainable Development Goals, Ann Florini, Markus Pauli
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The advent of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals has refocused global attention on the roles of business and other nonstate actors in achieving global goals. Often, business involvement takes the form of collaborations with the more traditional actors-governments and non-governmental organizations. Although such partnerships for development have been seen before, the scale and expectations are new. This paper explores how and why these cross-sector collaborations are evolving, and what steps can or should be taken to ensure that partnerships create public and private value. The arguments are illustrated with reference to cases of market-driven partnerships for agriculture in Southeast Asia …
Review Of Ang Cheng Guan, Southeast Asia’S Cold War: An Interpretative History, Wen-Qing (Wei Wenqing) Ngoei
Review Of Ang Cheng Guan, Southeast Asia’S Cold War: An Interpretative History, Wen-Qing (Wei Wenqing) Ngoei
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Ang Cheng Guan’s Southeast Asia’s Cold War: An Interpretive History makes a welcome scholarly contribution to the field. As he rightly points out in the introduction to his book, the “voluminous” literature concerned with the Cold War in Southeast Asia has too long centered on the United States, European decolonisation, and/or the Sino-Soviet competition for Hanoi’s loyalty.
Doubling Down On Asia Victor D. Cha, Power Play: The Origins Of The American Alliance System In Asia (Princeton University Press, 2016). Michael R. Auslin, The End Of The Asian Century: War, Stagnation And Risks To The World's Most Dynamic Region (Yale University Press, 2017)., Wen-Qing (Wei Wenqing) Ngoei
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
With the Chinese government aggressively militarizing the South China Sea and U.S. President Donald Trump scuttling the Trans-Pacific Partnership, there appears no clear answer to Beijing’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative. In fact, U.S. foreign policy thinkers are casting about for a strategy in Asia. What is to be done? Victor Cha’s Power Play and Michael Auslin’s End of the Asian Century recommends that the United States “double-down,” an expression Cha uses repeatedly, on its time-tested strategy of containing Chinese power in Asia.
A Wide Anticommunist Arc: Britain, Asean, And Nixon's Triangular Diplomacy, Wen-Qing Ngoei
A Wide Anticommunist Arc: Britain, Asean, And Nixon's Triangular Diplomacy, Wen-Qing Ngoei
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
President Richard Nixon’s triangular diplomacy succeeded because a “wide anticommunist arc” of U.S. allies in Southeast Asia had confined the influence of both China and the USSR to the Indochinese states. Beijing and Moscow welcomed détente with Washington in order to accommodate to de facto U.S. hegemony in the region.
Aging In Myanmar, John Knodel, Bussarawan Teerawichitchainan
Aging In Myanmar, John Knodel, Bussarawan Teerawichitchainan
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This spotlight provides an overview of thesituation of older persons in Myanmar, an under-studied country ofover-50-million population. Myanmar is of particular interest to researchersand policy makers, given its overall level of poverty and modestly rapidpopulation aging. Research on older persons, while increasing in recent years,remains sparse. Empirical evidence indicates that Myanmar older persons are inrelatively poorer health compared to those in neighboring countries. Many livein abject poverty and depend on their families for material support.Coresidence is very common and facilitates reciprocal exchanges acrossgenerations. Looking ahead, Myanmar confronts important challenges includingdemographic shifts that reduce availability of family support for older personsand …
Building Participatory Organizations For Common Pool Resource Management: Water User Group Promotion In Indonesia, Jacob I. Ricks
Building Participatory Organizations For Common Pool Resource Management: Water User Group Promotion In Indonesia, Jacob I. Ricks
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
States are increasingly striving to create participatory local organizations for joint management of common pool resources. What local conditions determine success of such state efforts? What effect do these efforts have? Drawing on controlled comparisons between three districts in Indonesia and an original survey of 92 water user groups, I demonstrate that local political contexts condition the effectiveness of participatory irrigation policies. When irrigation is politically salient, local politicians pressure bureaucrats to better engage with farmers. The data also show that training programs are not as effective at increasing water user organization activity as frequent contact between bureaucrats and farmers.
Five Phases Of Brokered International Marriages In South Korea: A Complexity Perspective, Jiyoung Song
Five Phases Of Brokered International Marriages In South Korea: A Complexity Perspective, Jiyoung Song
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The paper examines the evolution in international commercial marriage migration from Southeast Asia to South Korea from a Complexity Theory (CT) framework, originally from natural sciences but vastly entering the field of social sciences. CT stresses the non-linear nature of complex systems that are composed of a large number of individual components operating within a conditioned boundary whose interactions lead emergent properties in an unpredictable way. The study is based on the author’s fieldwork interviews and participatory observations of marriage migrants, government officers, and social workers in South Korea in 2010-2013, which establishes five phases of brokered marriages, namely, (1) …
How Do Living Arrangements And Intergenerational Support Matter For Psychological Health Of Elderly Parents? Evidence From Myanmar, Vietnam, And Thailand, Bussarawan Teerawichitchainan, Wiraporn Pothisiri, Giang Thanh Long
How Do Living Arrangements And Intergenerational Support Matter For Psychological Health Of Elderly Parents? Evidence From Myanmar, Vietnam, And Thailand, Bussarawan Teerawichitchainan, Wiraporn Pothisiri, Giang Thanh Long
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Living arrangements and family support for older persons have become an increasingly important policy concern in developing and rapidly aging Asia. Formulating a sound elderly care policy for the region will benefit from empirically examining how living arrangements, particularly coresidence, and intergenerational exchanges of financial, instrumental, and emotional support are associated with old-age psychological health. This study analyzes data from nationally representative aging surveys in Myanmar, Vietnam, and Thailand for 2011-2012 to offer a comparative perspective from Southeast Asia where various kinship systems coexist. Results suggest that coresidence with a child of culturally preferred gender significantly improves the emotional health …
Palm Oil-Based Biofuels And Sustainability In Southeast Asia: A Review Of Indonesia, Malaysia, And Thailand, Ishani Mukherjee, Benjamin K. Sovacool
Palm Oil-Based Biofuels And Sustainability In Southeast Asia: A Review Of Indonesia, Malaysia, And Thailand, Ishani Mukherjee, Benjamin K. Sovacool
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
By extensively reviewing the current state of knowledge, this paper explores the sustainability implications of palm oil biodiesel in Southeast Asia, with a focus on Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. Both ecological and environmental vitality as well as socio-economic equity are emphasized in the authors' exploration of sustainability in the three country cases. The article observes that the main environmental sustainability considerations of palm oil biodiesel include its capacity to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, its carbon debt and its repercussions on forestry, biodiversity, and soil and water quality. Issues surrounding socio-economic sustainability encompass how palm oil biodiesel affects food security in …
The Transformation Of China’S Agriculture System And Its Impact On Southeast Asia, Phoebe Mingxuan Luo, John A. Donaldson, Qian Forrest Zhang
The Transformation Of China’S Agriculture System And Its Impact On Southeast Asia, Phoebe Mingxuan Luo, John A. Donaldson, Qian Forrest Zhang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The increased role for agribusiness and larger scale production in China’s agricultural system is limited by China’s severe lack of arable land. The Household Responsibility System provides farmers a measure of power, hampering agribusiness from acquiring land needed for expansion. Some Chinese companies have sought cheaper and often more accessible land in nearby regions, including Southeast Asia. While such investments have the potential to deliver benefits, including increased productivity, structural constraints such as weak land ownership and environmental laws, highly unequal distribution of land and underdevelopment of peasant organizations prevent many poorer farmers from benefiting from these investments.
Reaching Out And Beyond: A Review Of Southeast Asian Writing In English [Book Review], Kirpal Singh
Reaching Out And Beyond: A Review Of Southeast Asian Writing In English [Book Review], Kirpal Singh
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
No abstract provided.
Social And Cultural Geographies Of South-East Asia, Tim Bunnell, Lily Kong, Lisa Law
Social And Cultural Geographies Of South-East Asia, Tim Bunnell, Lily Kong, Lisa Law
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The paper is an overview of English language publications that discuss what might be considered 'social' and 'cultural' geographies in Southeast Asia over the past two decades. We have strategically chosen two major themes that help us shape the mass of material into digestible strands: (1) the politics of social and cultural change; and (2) constructing identities. The former addresses various politics: the politics of nationhood; the politics of national development; the politics of cultural sites; the politics of urban change; and the politics of the global-local.