RESEARCH @ RSIS

Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies

1. HADR Database - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Mr Keith Paolo Catibog Landicho, Associate Research Fellow

The programme will collect data primarily on military HADR contributions by countries in Southeast Asia. This will provide an avenue to build more informed assessment on HADR and the evidence for periodic briefings on HADR developments.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

2. Climate Security in the Indo-Pacific

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Ms S. Nanthini, Associate Research Fellow

Dr Mely Caballero-Anthony, Professor of International Relations and Associate Dean (International Engagement); Head of Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies; President’s Chair in International Relations and Security Studies

This project will investigate climate security in the Indo-Pacific and its implications on regional affairs: the role of climate change as a crisis multiplier, the perceptions of climate security, and implications for defence and foreign affairs in the region. It will evaluate the place of climate change within national contexts, paying particular attention to the military by looking at its position within national discourse, the interpretations of climate security by military and civilian actors as well as its implications for regional security.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

3. Humanitarian Futures - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Dr Lina Gong, Research Fellow

This project explores what is meant by strategic futures thinking and its importance for organisations with a humanitarian mandate committed to being prepared for the future. It will map out the current humanitarian landscape primarily in Southeast Asia within a global context, analyse the strengths and weaknesses of organisations with humanitarian responsibilities in coping with the humanitarian challenges today and discuss the necessary transformation for related organisations to be better prepared for future scenarios.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

4. Humanitarian Policy and Action in Asia

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Dr Lina Gong, Research Fellow

Dr Sandeep Singh, Research Fellow

This project investigates the current dynamics of humanitarian policy and action in Asia. Humanitarian crises that have taken a back seat in the past three years are once again in the news. How did humanitarian policy adapt during the COVID-19 peak? What have decision-makers learnt from dealing with humanitarian crises converging with a global pandemic? How have affected communities developed strategies to navigate competing priorities at the global level? How have neighbours and diaspora mobilised support, under what conditions, and to what ends to those most affected in humanitarian crises? These are important considerations that this project investigates to understand the emerging humanitarian policy landscape in Asia, its challenges, and the new dynamics of reform.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

5. Malaysia’s Foreign and Security Policies under the Anwar Administration: Opportunities and Challenges - [COMPLETED]

Dr David Han Guo Xiong, Research Fellow

Mr Nawaljeet Singh Rayar, Associate Research Fellow

This research project examines Malaysia’s foreign and security policies under the Anwar administration. This examination assesses the government’s conduct of foreign policy in seeking trade and investment opportunities to boost economic performance for domestic gains, while coping with strong political challenges to the government’s legitimacy and resource constraints. Also, the project explores the Anwar government’s efforts to sustain Malaysia’s position as a notable voice in regional and international affairs concerning vulnerable Muslim populations. In particular, the project focuses on developments in Malaysia’s key political, security, and economic relations with its ASEAN neighbours, China, the United States and its allies, and countries in the Middle East.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

6. Interrogating Responses Towards Chinese influence: A Comparative Analysis of Australia and South Korea - [COMPLETED]

Dr Dylan Loh, Assistant Professor, Public Policy and Global Affairs, School of Social Sciences, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, NTU

Chinese influence activities have attracted widespread scrutiny from governments across the world in recent years. While the literature has chiefly been concerned about the modes and methods in which China has conducted these practices, far less attention has been paid to the "how" and the "why" of recipient countries’ reactions. We add to this tentative literature by examining the responses of Australia and South Korea towards Chinese influence activities. In explaining their different responses, we suggest that the perceived strength and/or weakness of certain dynamics predisposes recipient actors to adopt either more ambivalent or assertive strategies.

Theme: International Politics and Security

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific

7. Turning to “Like-mindedness”: Examining Middle-power Partnerships in the Indo-Pacific - [COMPLETED]

Dr Sarah Teo, Assistant Professor

As Sino-US rivalry accelerates and debates continue on the decline of the liberal rules-based order, middle powers have advocated the establishment of “like-minded” networks that would contribute towards regional and global stability. While the literature has focused primarily on the form of such cooperation, such as minilateralism, less attention has been given to understanding the nuances of “like-mindedness”. Using Australia, Indonesia and South Korea as case studies, this project seeks to offer a typology of “like-mindedness”—focusing on the specific areas and functions—in middle-power networks.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

8. Southeast Asia in 2022 - [COMPLETED]

Dr Tan See Seng, Research Adviser

A survey of political-economic-security developments in Southeast Asia and ASEAN in 2022. This was submitted to ISEAS Yusuf Ishak Institute on 01/12/2022 as a book chapter, entitled: “The Southeast Asian Region in 2022,” in Southeast Asia Affairs 2022, edited by Daljit Singh (Singapore: ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, 2022-23), by See Seng Tan. The draft chapter is currently under review by the editors, with the possibility of a minor rewrite if the editors think it necessary. I do not know what the official date of publication is.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Political Economy / International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

9. Exercising the ASEAN-Led Regional Order - [COMPLETED]

Dr Sarah Teo, Assistant Professor

This project seeks to examine the extent to which ASEAN-led exercises bolster the regional order in the Asia Pacific. Relying on a conceptual framework that establishes the pathways through which multilateral military exercises can support regional order, the project will focus on exercises convened by the ARF and the ADMM-Plus, as well as the various ASEAN+1 exercises.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

10. The (Missing) Strategic Dimension in ASEAN-South Korea Relations: Networking the Indo-Pacific - [COMPLETED]

Dr Sarah Teo, Assistant Professor

Why has the strategic dimension of ASEAN-South Korea relations remained largely absent amidst the rise of the Indo-Pacific? Using the lens of network analysis, this project explores how ASEAN’s approach towards South Korea has been shaped by considerations of relational and social power, including the extent of both actors’ connections to regional nodes such as Australia, China, Japan and the United States.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

11. Climate Security in the Indo-Pacific - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Ms S. Nanthini, Associate Research Fellow

Ms Margareth Sembiring, Associate Research Fellow

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

12. Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Mr Christopher Chen, Associate Research Fellow

This project will assess the current work underway to develop HADR cooperation initiatives at the regional level and whether current crises and converging risk events necessitate an evolution of current CMCOORD. It will examine civil-military perspectives on disaster response, analyse case studies and assess the state of civil-military coordination in the Indo-Pacific. This will inform the identification of areas for improvement as well as assess attempts to develop HADR cooperation initiatives at the regional level.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

13. Artificial Intelligence in Asian Armies: Technologies for Next Major Wars - [COMPLETED]

Dr Michael Raska, Assistant Professor

As part of the 2021 NTU-MOE AcRF Tier 1 grant call, Dr Michael Raska, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the Military Transformations Programme at RSIS, has been awarded $61,812 for a research project titled, “AI in Asian Armies: Technologies for Next Major Wars”. The book project seeks to explore the varying conceptual, organisational, and technological underccurrents of AI-defence innovation, development, deployment, and use in select militaries in East Asia. Comparative case studies of military AI innovation trajectories in the region may help Singaporean defence policymakers to detect a change in new approaches to combat, and prompt a debate of the validity of established strategic paradigms and operational art, and ascertain the character of future warfare.

Theme: Conflict and Stability / Technology and Future Issues

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Global

14. Steering a Middle Way: Great Power Technological Competition in Indonesia and Vietnam - [COMPLETED]

Dr Leonard C. Sebastian, Senior Fellow

Dr Amir Sulfikar, Associate Professor, College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, NTU

This research project looks at the role technological innovation plays in shaping power transitions and its impact on Southeast Asia. Technological competition between US and China will likely intensify over the bulk of 4th Industrial Revolution technologies over the next decade, as many of these technologies are dual-use technologies with both economic and military implications. Therefore, domination and leadership over these technologies could determine the outcome of great power competition between China and the US.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Technology and Future Issues

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global

15. Knowing and Doing Regionalism in Asia - [COMPLETED]

Dr Tan See Seng, Research Adviser

A survey on the theory and practice of regionalism and regionalization in Asia from post-1945 to the present. This is to be published in November 2022 as a book chapter, entitled: “Knowing and Doing Regionalism in Asia: Theoretical Diversity and Pragmatic Conduct in the ASEAN Regional Project,” in The Edward Elgar Handbook on Regionalism and Global Governance, edited by Jürgen Rüland and Astrid Carrapatoso (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2022), pp. 203–219, by See Seng Tan.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / Country and Region Studies / International Political Economy

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / East Asia and Asia Pacific / South Asia

16. Singapore’s Stand on Russia’s War on Ukraine - [COMPLETED]

Dr Tan See Seng, Research Adviser

An analysis of Singapore’s policy stance on Russia’s war against Ukraine and its political-economic-security implications for Singapore and the region. This was submitted as a scholarly article entitled: “Singapore’s stand on Russia’s war on Ukraine: Hobson’s choice?”, by See Seng Tan. The article is part of a special journal issue entitled, “Indo-Pacific Perspectives on the on the War between Russia and Ukraine,” guest edited by Raj Verma and Alex Dueben, for the internationally peer-reviewed journal International Politics.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Singapore and Homeland Security / Conflict and Stability / International Political Economy

Region: Global / East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

17. Getting Inside the Head of War Leaders: The Critical Decision Method and Historical Case Studies - [COMPLETED]

Dr Pascal Vennesson, Senior Fellow ; Head of Research, RSIS and Professor of Political Science, University Panthéon-Assas, Paris II (on leave)

Ms Wendy He, Senior Analyst

Steven Robert Adam,

A behavioral revolution has expanded experimental research in IR. Yet in the study of real-world decisions, political scientists still face challenges to establish empirically how cognitive processes work. The sources they use may contain valuable clues to understand how decision-makers perform cognitive tasks, but methodological guidance is needed on what to look for. The critical decision method (CMD), an influential knowledge elicitation method in cognitive psychology, provides useful tools to approach real-world individual mental processes. It helps probe how decision-makers interpret situations, make perceptual discriminations, solve problems, and use their cognitive skills to carry out challenging tasks. We show how the CMD captures key cognitive processes in IR such as overconfidence, the (mis)use of analogies and reliance on intuition. We illustrate CMD’s viability for historical case studies by using it to assess General MacArthur's Incheon landing decision in the Korean War.

Theme: International Politics and Security / General / Conflict and Stability

Region: Global

18. Malaysia’s Rising Political Fragmentation and Contestation, and the Implications for Governance and Statecraft - [COMPLETED]

Ms Ariel Tan, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Malaysia Programme

Ms Nadiah Binte Isa, Research Analyst

This project aims to monitor and analyse the drivers and players in Malaysia’s evolving political system. It seeks to discover the key implications of rising political instability for the governance of Malaysia. Themes of interest include party and coalition politics, state-federal relations, public health and security, race and religion, and the mobilisation of youth and civil society. To contribute to research and public awareness, the Programme produces papers and commentaries, collaborates with experts, and organises events to discuss current developments of interest. More details may be found on the Malaysia Programme’s webpage: https://www.rsis.edu.sg/research/idss/research-programmes/malaysia-programme/#.Yd98ci8Rrj0

Theme: Maritime Security / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / Religion in Contemporary Society / Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

19. Southeast Asian Perceptions on European Growing Security Interests in Asia - [COMPLETED]

Dr Olli Pekka Suorsa, Research Fellow

This project is the second part of a larger project studying European powers’ security interests in the Indo-Pacific with focus on Southeast Asia and the South China Sea. In this part of the project, I will look at Southeast Asian perspectives and perceptions about European growing security interests and presence in Asia. The study aims to unravel regional perceptions and concerns, on the one hand, related to European powers entering the increasingly congested and contested maritime space in the South China Sea and, on the other hand, European powers’ ability to contribute to regional security and capacity building.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / General / Country and Region Studies

Region: Europe / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

20. Strategic Positioning: A Study of Malaysia’s Foreign and Security Policies - [COMPLETED]

Mr Nawaljeet Singh Rayar, Associate Research Fellow

The project studies Malaysia’s foreign relations and security policy by paying close attention to its postures in bilateral, regional and global issues. It is also attentive to the interplay between domestic and foreign policy imperatives. In doing so, the project aims to discover the nuances that give rise to Malaysia’s complex foreign policy decision-making process and its choice of security partners. To contribute to research and public awareness, the Programme produces papers and commentaries, collaborates with experts, and organises events to discuss current developments of interest. More details may be found on the Malaysia Programme’s webpage: https://www.rsis.edu.sg/research/idss/research-programmes/malaysia-programme/#.Yd98ci8Rrj0

Theme: Maritime Security / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / Religion in Contemporary Society / Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

21. Strategic Positioning: A Study of Malaysia’s Foreign and Security Policies - [COMPLETED]

Mr Nawaljeet Singh Rayar, Associate Research Fellow

Theme: Maritime Security / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / Religion in Contemporary Society / Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

22. Germany and Europe in the Indo-Pacific: Balancing Economic and Strategic Interests - [COMPLETED]

Dr Frederick Kliem, Adjunct Fellow

With its Indo-Pacific Guidelines, Germany demonstrated determination to overcome its reluctance to engage in foreign and security policy beyond its neighbourhood. This research project will anlayse Berlin’s strategic objectives in the Indo-Pacific region, its opportunities and limitations. Germany’s hard power capabilities are limited. But Berlin seeks to capitalise on its strength by contributing to the region’s multilateral architecture and working with local partners on non-traditional security challenges. Strategically, especially pertaining to China, Berlin faces manifold challenges: it must balance national interests with the demands of a normatively conscious public and an industrial lobby that seeks economic opportunities; the US seeks to instrumentalise Germany’s China policy; and Berlin must embed its approach within a European framework and reconcile own objectives with a diverse set of EU partners. Deliverables include a book and several seminars and papers.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security / Maritime Security / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / General / Conflict and Stability

Region: South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN / East Asia and Asia Pacific / Europe

23. Conflicting Narratives Regarding Japanese Maritime Security Activities in Southeast Asia - [COMPLETED]

Mr John Bradford, Adjunct Senior Fellow

A 2020 "Asian Security" article was the first dedicated study to detail the fifty-year history of Japanese maritime security capacity-building initiatives in Southeast Asia. It uniquely demonstrated that this history could be clearly divided into three historic phases and suggests that the Japanese initiatives may not be transitioning into a fourth phase. This history provides empirical evidence that the existing narratives regarding the evolution of Japanese policies are inadequate. This article will group the existing narratives into four clusters organised by the key variables they consider to be the predominant policy drivers. In this case, clusters are more useful than rigid categories because there is notable variety among the explanations and some are quite complex. It will then show that, given the inadequacy of all four clusters, analysis is best mostly when broadly sourced data is subjected to an eclectic approach.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / General / Country and Region Studies

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

24. European Security Interests in the Indo-Pacific - [COMPLETED]

Dr Olli Pekka Suorsa, Research Fellow

This project looks at major European powers’ security interests in the Indo-Pacific, with specific focus on Southeast Asia and the South China Sea. In this project, I will study the British, French, German, Dutch, EU, and NATO’s general interests and, in particular, security concerns and interests in the Asian region. The study will assess each country’s capacity to operate and maintain presence in the Indo-Pacific. It will also identify and assess each actor’s ability to build regional security capacity and add value to regional security cooperation. This is the first part of a two-part project.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / General / Country and Region Studies

Region: Europe / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

25. Lightning Carriers: The New Capital Ships of Asia - [COMPLETED]

Mr John Bradford, Adjunct Senior Fellow

The USA recently forward-deployed USS America to Japan. With a complement of F-35B Lightning aircraft, she is being called a “Lightning Carrier.” Japan is converting its Izumo class ships to also be Lightning Carriers. The ROK recently stated intent to build an even larger 40,000-ton Lightning Carrier. The Royal Navy has revealed desire to make their second Lightning Carrier, USS Prince of Wales, a permanent presence in Asia. Finally, there are rumours about Australia and Singapore, both F-35 partners, considering developing similar capabilities. It seems that Lightning Carriers will soon be the new capital ships of Asia’s Navies.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / General / Country and Region Studies

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

26. Civil-Military Relations - [COMPLETED]

Dr Anit Mukherjee, Associate Professor

This is a book chapter in a proposed handbook on Indian politics. The chapter provides an overview of the state of civil-military relations in India. This is especially germane as India is currently undertaking its most transformative post-independence defence reforms by creating a post of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), among other measures. What are the sources of continuity and change in India's civil-military relations? How can India guard against politicisation of the military while consolidating civilian control and military effectiveness? While answering these questions, this chapter provides an overview of contemporary trends and debates in India's civil-military relations.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: South Asia

27. Expanding PRC Maritimes Security Partnerships in the Lower Mekong - [COMPLETED]

Mr John Bradford, Adjunct Senior Fellow

The presence of PRC security forces in the Lower Mekong region has been growing and is expected to expand even more rapidly. For example, China, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand have been carrying out joint patrols on the Mekong River since 2012. There are also reports that a quiet deal will allow PLAN ships to regularly visit new Chinese-constructed piers at Cambodia’s Ream naval base and suspicions that expansion of the Dara Sakor airfield will enable the deployment of military aircraft. The US has expressed concerns over these developments through both unofficial and official channels. However, these developments and their implications are poorly understood and under-analysed by in the public record. This study seeks to understand the nature of PRC security involvement in the Lower Mekong and explores the impacts for regional relationships and explore include the implications for the US military access and consequences for other ASEAN states.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / General / Country and Region Studies

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

28. At the Cusp of a Transformation: Reforming Defence for Increased Military Effectiveness - [COMPLETED]

Dr Anit Mukherjee, Associate Professor

This proposed book chapter in an edited volume examines the measures to enhance the effectiveness of the Indian military. It begins with a short discussion about India’s current strategic scenario emphasising the challenges posed by the rise of China, amidst constraints posed by tightening budgetary outlays. Next, the chapter engages with the concept of military effectiveness, disaggregating it into three levels—strategic, operational and defence industry. The next section explains the problems at these three levels. Thereafter, the chapter describes some of the recent changes in India’s higher defence organisation to argue that it is currently at the cusp of a significant military transformation. The penultimate section explains the measures that can be undertaken to attain such a transformation, building on these reform initiatives. In conclusion, the chapter discusses the importance of political management of the military.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: South Asia / Global

29. Taiwan under the COVID-19 - [COMPLETED]

Dr Wu Shang-Su, Research Fellow

This research is to review the impacts of the COVID-19 on Taiwan and its governmental responses. Furthermore, how the island uses regional and global networks to deal with the outbreak and related policy for future outbreak will be discussed as well.

Theme: Country and Region Studies

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific

30. Indonesia’s Potential as a Maritime Leader - [COMPLETED]

Mr John Bradford, Adjunct Senior Fellow

Indonesia has recently captured headlines by "standing up to" the PRC and "setting limits" on PRC maritime ambitions. Are these assessments accurate? If so, do they indicate an Indonesia that is willing and able to take a leadership position on multinational maritime issues disputes? Possessing the world's 4th largest population, a vibrant democracy, an incredibly rich maritime heritage, and a strong voice in ASEAN, Indonesia would seem well-positioned to offer such leadership. However, watchers of Indonesia's recent maritime history tend to see false starts, missed opportunities and unfulfilled potential.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / General / Country and Region Studies

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

31. Maintaining Peace in Cross-Strait Relations - [COMPLETED]

Dr Wu Shang-Su, Research Fellow

This research is to identify the nature of peaceful changes in the cross-Strait relations. Either for the unification with China or for the de jure independence, peaceful approaches are taken by different parties, both inside and outside Taiwan. Although the military is often seen as the focus of this issue, it is usually for shaping the situation instead of the main method determining the course of development.

Theme: Country and Region Studies

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific

32. US-Japan Alliance Activities in Southeast Asia - [COMPLETED]

Mr John Bradford, Adjunct Senior Fellow

The US-Japan Alliance is often referred to as the lynchpin of East Asian security. This Alliance is intensely maritime in nature. Japan hosts the US 7th Fleet in the ports of Sasebo and Yokosuka. The highly-capable Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) operates hand-in-glove with these forward deployed US forces. However, for much of its history, these Navies have focused their cooperation in Northeast Asia. In the Cold War, they sought to contain the Soviet forces operating from the Russian Far East. More recently, they have been focused on responding to PRC activities in the East China Sea. However, the 7th Fleet and JMSDF are increasing cooperation in Southeast Asia. Bilateral exercises have become frequent in the South China and Japan is increasingly participating in US-sponsored exercises and events such as Balikatan, Cobra Gold, and CARAT. This paper explores the scope, strategic intent, and likely future development of these activities in Southeast Asia.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / General / Country and Region Studies

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

33. Singapore’s Relations with North and South Korea: In Pursuit of Pragmatism and Principles - [COMPLETED]

Dr Sarah Teo, Assistant Professor

This chapter seeks to provide a comprehensive overview of Singapore’s approach towards relations with North and South Korea, focusing on the post-Cold War period.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

34. Getting Inside the Head of War Leaders: A Data Collection Strategy for Historical Case Studies - [COMPLETED]

Dr Pascal Vennesson, Senior Fellow ; Head of Research, RSIS and Professor of Political Science, University Panthéon-Assas, Paris II (on leave)

Steven Robert Adam , Mr

This project seeks to demonstrate how the use of the critical decision method (CDM) can help qualitative International Relations (IR) scholars systematically collect data about cognitive processes in historical case studies. The project illustrates the novel and focused methodological contribution of CDM to international studies by revisiting the decision of President Harry Truman and his advisers in responding to the North Korean attack in June 1950. Through the use of CDM, the project demonstrates how the U.S. decision to intervene in Korea can be reinterpreted as a recognition-primed decision (RPD) – a decision reached quickly by experienced decision makers through adhering to a satisficing strategy of decision making. As part of its developmental phase, the project has been presented at the RSIS luncheon seminar on 16 February 2021 and at the IUS conference on 13 October 2023.

Theme: International Politics and Security

Region: Americas / East Asia and Asia Pacific

35. ADMM/ADMM-Plus in an Evolving Strategic Environment - [COMPLETED]

Dr Sinderpal Singh, Senior Fellow and Assistant Director of Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies; Coordinator of Regional Security Architecture Programme, and South Asia Programme, IDSS

Dr Sarah Teo, Assistant Professor

Dr Wu Shang-Su, Research Fellow

Mr Shawn Ho, Associate Research Fellow

Mr Tsjeng Zhizhao Henrick, Associate Research Fellow

This project examines the approaches of selected ADMM and ADMM-Plus countries towards the development of defence diplomacy and cooperation in the region. Even as the ADMM-Plus marks its 10th anniversary in 2020, both mechanisms continue to face persistent challenges that affect their internal cohesion and ASEAN centrality. Key challenges include Sino-US competition, the ambivalent attitudes of some ASEAN member states towards multilateralism vis-à-vis their relations with extra-regional partners, as well as the rise of alternative, non-ASEAN-centric forms of multilateral security cooperation. More broadly, black swan events (as seen in the COVID-19 outbreak, where governments focus inwards to address domestic challenges) could have an impact on the perceived efficacy of the multilateral order. Given this context, the project seeks to forecast the trajectory and potential problems of the ADMM and ADMM-Plus, and identify the next steps for the two platforms.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

36. ASEAN as a Source of National Security - [COMPLETED]

Dr Sinderpal Singh, Senior Fellow and Assistant Director of Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies; Coordinator of Regional Security Architecture Programme, and South Asia Programme, IDSS

Dr Wu Shang-Su, Research Fellow

Mr Shawn Ho, Associate Research Fellow

Mr Tsjeng Zhizhao Henrick, Associate Research Fellow

This project examines the importance of ASEAN as a source of national security to its member states. Despite ASEAN’s achievements in maintaining regional peace and stability over the past five decades, the perennial question of the commitment of member states to the association continues to pose challenges for ASEAN. In light of developments such as the rise of non-ASEAN-centric forms of multilateral cooperation and the ongoing ASEAN-China talks for the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, the project narrows in on whether and why some ASEAN countries would leverage ASEAN as a source of national security. The project aims to enhance the understanding of where ASEAN is located in various national security strategies, and identify the opportunities and challenges to move forward on ASEAN security and defence cooperation.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

37. Emerging Humanitarian Technologies and their Impact in Southeast Asia - [COMPLETED]

Mr Richard Bitzinger, Visiting Senior Fellow

Mr Christopher Chen, Associate Research Fellow

This project will explore how countries in Southeast Asia use new technologies – specifically, Artificial Intelligence (AI) – to support Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) missions and strengthen existing HADR systems. It will also explore forms of cooperation in the region on this issue. This project seeks to learn more about how civil and military actors draft their respective AI, data, and cloud strategies, specifically in relation to humanitarian operations and how this impacts humanitarian thought leadership in the Indo-Pacific.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

38. Impact of Disaster-Conflict-Pandemic Nexus on Humanitarian Leadership in the Indo-Pacific - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Ms S. Nanthini, Associate Research Fellow

This research project aims to explore the conflict-disaster-pandemic nexus of the Rakhine state in Myanmar and Marawi in the Philippines. Based on the previously completed individual rounds of research on the humanitarian situations in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and Philippines’ Marawi, this report seeks to identify developments in HADR mechanisms in these areas that have been affected by conflict, natural disasters and well as pandemics. By assessing the HADR mechanisms in place as a result of the humanitarian situations and dynamics in these two areas, it will allow for a comparison with conditions in disaster settings to uncover the parameters and understandings of humanitarianism in Southeast Asia at local, national, regional and international levels. This project will also as assess progress made in terms of capacity to protect to protect and assist vulnerable communities in conflict-affected settings. This project will result in the production of a policy report.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global

39. Middle Powers as a Source of Peace in East Asia - [COMPLETED]

Dr Sarah Teo, Assistant Professor

Amid the transitions in power and order occurring in East Asia, this paper examines how middle powers such as Australia, Indonesia and South Korea could help to contribute to regional peace and stability.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

40. Middle Powers in Asia Pacific Multilateralism: A Differential Framework - [COMPLETED]

Dr Sarah Teo, Assistant Professor

Middle powers and multilateralism are often regarded as concepts that go well together, but what makes middle powers behave the way they do in multilateral platforms? Drawing from insights offered by differentiation theory and power politics, this book puts forth a new framework to explain middle power behaviour in multilateralism. This differentiation-based theoretical framework is applied to the behaviour of Australia, Indonesia and South Korea in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the East Asia Summit.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

41. Regional Organisations in the Indo-Pacific - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Mr Christopher Chen, Associate Research Fellow

This research project intends to assess the trajectory of HADR commitments to inform the crafting of an evidence-based strategy for the region. It aims to evaluate the feasibility of political commitment to a region-wide agreement, the institutional implementability and the technical correctness needed for such a strategy or agreement. It will therefore examine the role of (i) major powers; (ii) regional organisations and multi-stakeholder partnerships that cover South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific; and (iii) community needs of those most exposed to natural hazards. The research project builds upon previous HADR research on national assessments of the five most at risk countries to natural hazards – Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Philippines and Indonesia – as well as two countries of particular interest to Southeast Asia due to their exposure and limited capacity – Papua New Guinea and Timor Leste.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security

Region: South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

42. China and its Closest Strategic Allies - [COMPLETED]

Dr Hoo Tiang Boon, Associate Professor

Asst Prof Hoo Tiang Boon, Coordinator of the MSc (Asian Studies) Programme at RSIS, has received the MOE AcRF Tier 1 grant of $79,730 for a research project titled “Inner Circle: A Study of China's Relations with its Closest Strategic Allies." This project seeks to better understand the nature and substance of China’s relationship with its closest strategic allies in global politics. In particular, it investigates two key puzzles: Who are China’s closest strategic allies in global politics, and what is the extent of these countries’ alignment with China? Conceptually, the project introduces the notion of the “strategic inner circle” to distinguish China’s closest allies, and addresses limitations in existing concepts such as security alliances, military coalitions, clients, and formal partnerships.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security / General / Conflict and Stability

Region: Central Asia

43. From Chabahar to Kaladan: Assessing India’s Connectivity Ambitions in the Indo-Pacific - [COMPLETED]

Dr Sinderpal Singh, Senior Fellow and Assistant Director of Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies; Coordinator of Regional Security Architecture Programme, and South Asia Programme, IDSS

Ms Sumitha Narayanan Kutty, Adjunct Research Associate

The Modi government views the Indo-Pacific as “a positive construct of development and connectivity.” It has worked to advance its footprint beyond its immediate neighbourhood. Its strategy prioritises both home, i.e., developing its own road and railway networks in its north-eastern states; and abroad, through regional transit initiatives. New Delhi has engaged partners to its east and west through multilateral infrastructure initiatives and developed “strategic alliances”, primarily with Japan, to finance and build projects. The paper focuses on this latter component of India’s connectivity ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region. What are the factors driving New Delhi’s connectivity ambitions? Is it merely a reaction to China’s own mammoth infrastructure drive via its Belt and Road Initiative? The paper will critically assess regional expectations, India’s capacity to deliver and how these projects impact future cooperation and contestation in the Indo-Pacific region.

Theme: International Politics and Security

Region: South Asia / Global

44. India’s Strategic Responses to the Rise of China - [COMPLETED]

Dr Anit Mukherjee, Associate Professor

Dr Dr Yogesh Joshi, Research Fellow, Institute of South Asian Studies, NUS

This co-authored book chapter examines India's military response to the rise of China. It begins by elaborating on India’s military objectives and strategy vis-à-vis China from the 1962 war till the end of the Cold War. Next, it focuses on the changes in the military balance in the last quarter century, the shifts in India’s conventional military strategy, and consequent changes in force structures in the Indian armed forces. The last section delves into the nuclear balance between the two countries and analyses its relationship with the conventional military balance in the Sino-Indian military equation.

Theme: International Politics and Security

Region: South Asia / Global

45. Shadow Realism in the India-China Strategic Rivalry - [COMPLETED]

Dr Rajesh Basrur, Senior Fellow

India and China are caught between competitive “structural” pressures and high levels of interdependence produced by the possession of nuclear weapons. The former engenders a tendency to act as if military power is a usable commodity, while the latter constrains its actual usability. The outcome is a “shadow” realist form of strategic behaviour that is the result of uncertainty, the ideational structure of ingrained realist thinking, strategic habit, and forms of symbolic behaviour – all of which overlap. Realism helps explain the security-driven aspects of strategic behaviour, but not the severe constraints on it. Liberalism helps explain the influence of strategic interdependence, but not the persistence of high levels of competition. Constructivism helps bridge the gap. It explains the persistence of an ideational structure – shadow realism – of realist-oriented strategic thinking and action in an increasingly post-realist setting.

Theme: International Politics and Security

Region: Global / East Asia and Asia Pacific / South Asia

46. When Distinct Technology Areas Collide: Catalysts for Abounding National Security Threats - [COMPLETED]

Ms Zoe Stanley Lockman, Associate Research Fellow

While each technology constitutive of the Fourth Industrial Revolution could be considered a game-changer on its own, the more likely technological game-changer will be one where advancements in one technology area amplifies other, separate technology areas. Examples include the nexus between synthetic biology and artificial intelligence, between human-machine learning and cognitive manipulation, and between nuclear weapons and artificial intelligence. In these and other examples, the intersection of distinct technology areas can be expected to not only accelerate innovation, but also imply cascading national security risks that may arise more quickly than governments or militaries are prepared for.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Conflict and Stability / Cybersecurity, Biosecurity and Nuclear Safety

Region: Global

47. Offensive Defence: India’s Strategic Responses to the Rise of China - [COMPLETED]

Dr Anit Mukherjee, Associate Professor

This co-authored book chapter, to be published in a Handbook on India-China relations, focuses on the Indian military and its strategy vis-à-vis China. More specifically it argues that India has gradually shifted its military strategy from a defensive to an offensive posture. The chapter begins with a historical analysis of India’s military strategy against China from the 1962 war to the end of the Cold War. During this time, the focus was primarily on “deterrence by denial”—which meant that the forces were largely defensive in their orientation. Next it examines a shift in the military strategy to “deterrence by punishment”, which was in response to China’s rapid military modernisation and infrastructure development. Currently, the Indian military has a much more offensive posture along the China border and in the maritime domain. The penultimate section examines the interaction between the conventional and the nuclear strategy and India’s overall nuclear posture towards Beijing.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: South Asia

48. India and Minilateralism: Negotiating the Indo-Pacific - [COMPLETED]

Dr Sinderpal Singh, Senior Fellow and Assistant Director of Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies; Coordinator of Regional Security Architecture Programme, and South Asia Programme, IDSS

This project examines Indian approach to and perceptions of the role of minilaterals as part of India’s broader strategy towards the Indo-Pacific region. It will analyse the extent to which these minilaterals have been successful in furthering broader Indian strategies within the Indo-Pacific and the reasons for their success and/or relative failure.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security / Maritime Security / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / General / Conflict and Stability

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Middle East and North Africa (MENA) / Global / East Asia and Asia Pacific / South Asia

49. The Evolution of India’s Iran Policy - [COMPLETED]

Ms Sumitha Narayanan Kutty, Adjunct Research Associate

This book chapter, to be published in a Handbook on South Asian Foreign Policy, focuses on India’s policy toward Iran. The chapter will cover foreign, security, defence and nuclear dimensions of India’s engagement as it evolved over time from pre-independence to the present day. The country’s position on developments in the broader Middle East, energy security, ties to Arab Gulf states, interests in Afghanistan and growing strategic alignment with the United States have all played a key role in determining the trajectory of its Iran policy as will be captured in this chapter.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: South Asia / Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

50. Middle Power Awkwardness? Indonesia’s Norm Entrepreneurship in ASEAN - [COMPLETED]

Dr Sarah Teo, Assistant Professor

This book chapter examines Indonesia’s influence as a middle power in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), focusing particularly on its regional initiatives since the early 2000s. In light of the shortcomings in the extant position, identity and behaviour approaches in the middle power literature in assessing Indonesia’s status, the chapter draws on the idea that middle powers could be norm entrepreneurs and applies this framework to explore Indonesia’s influence in its promotion of democracy and the Indo-Pacific concept in ASEAN.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

51. The Absent Dialogue: Politicians, Bureaucrats and the Military in India - [COMPLETED]

Dr Anit Mukherjee, Associate Professor

This book project, soon to be published by Oxford University Press, focuses on civil-military relations and military effectiveness in India. Its main argument is that the pattern of civil-military relations in India has hampered its military effectiveness. In making this claim, the book closely examines the variables most associated with military effectiveness—weapons procurement, jointness (the ability of separate military services to operate together), officer education, promotion policies, and defence planning. India’s pattern of civil-military relations—best characterised as an absent dialogue—adversely affects each of these processes. While the book focuses on India, it also highlights the importance of civilian expertise and institutional design in enhancing civilian control and military effectiveness in other democracies.

Theme: International Politics and Security / General / Country and Region Studies

Region: South Asia

52. AI in Defence Strategies of Small States: Paths, Patterns, and Challenges - [COMPLETED]

Dr Michael Raska, Assistant Professor

The United States is only one of many players in artificial intelligence (AI), and many nations are taking steps to ensure their competitiveness in AI. Increasingly, nations worldwide are mobilizing policy support for advances in AI technologies and applications, recognizing its importance to future economic dynamism and military capabilities. Although some experts predict the emergence of a “duopoly” between the U.S. and China as AI superpowers, there will be opportunities for a range of contenders, including small and middle powers, to take advantage of AI to enhance their national power. At the same time, developing and integrating AI into military affairs, particularly for small states, poses significant challenges – AI is not be just about the technology itself, but about how military organisations manage the technology.

Theme: Conflict and Stability / International Politics and Security

Region: Global

53. Chinese Liberal Thought and Diplomatic Practice - [COMPLETED]

Dr Benjamin Ho, Assistant Professor

This project will examine how Chinese liberal scholars (particularly those in the field of political science) seek to understand China’s national interests and the normative conduct of China’s international relations. Given that liberal scholarship is traditionally associated with values of open internationalism, globalisation and free market principles, it is generally believed that a greater affinity liberal principles would generate positive relations between China and the rest of the world (particularly the West). Hence, this project seeks to interrogate further how Chinese international relations scholarship understand liberalism. What are the similarities and differences between Chinese political conceptions of liberalism from those of the West? To what extent can liberalism be said to be a normative preference to act as a basis for the conduct of international politics? How does Chinese liberal thought seek to frame Chinese national interests vis-à-vis those of the wider world?

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: Global / East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

54. Development of AI Ethics and Norms: Future Paths, Issues, and Challenges - [COMPLETED]

Ms Zoe Stanley Lockman, Associate Research Fellow

From fielded applications of artificial narrow intelligence to the looming prospect of future superintelligence, human dependency on and collaboration with machines are increasingly fraught with questions over ethics and norms. With artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) already in use in the civilian and military spheres today, present experiences are progressively shaping the norms that will come to define the human-machine collaboration of the future. Building on these fundamentals, governments and militaries are also seeking guidance on AI/ML ethics. Not only is this an indispensable question of operational safety, but it is also an important signal to programmers and engineers whose criticism of “unethical” or questionable military action may short-circuit militaries’ access to cutting-edge dual-use technologies. As militaries themselves seek to systematise their usage of AI/ML, this study will analyse norms and principles for ethics and safety.

Theme: Cybersecurity, Biosecurity and Nuclear Safety / International Politics and Security

Region: Global

55. Religious Power Brokers, Local Politics, and Growing Islamism in Indonesia - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alexander Raymond Arifianto, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Indonesia Programme, IDSS

Mr Jonathan Chen, Associate Research Fellow

Mr Dedi Dinarto , Research Associate

The Indonesia Programme is conducting research on the role of local Islamic leaders that often ends up as influential power brokers within their localities. There is little known about when do influential clerics start gaining power and influence to become power brokers, how do power brokers form networks and alliances with the above actors, how do such networks actually work, and how do such networks exert influence on policy outcomes (e.g., Islamic regulations) at the regional and local levels. This study will identify the regional power brokers, the impetus for their regulations, and the impact of these regulations on the mainstream Muslim community and the religious minorities within the localities.

Theme: Religion in Contemporary Society / Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

56. The Southeast Asian Military Modernisation under the Indo-Pacific Strategic Context - [COMPLETED]

Dr Wu Shang-Su, Research Fellow

Southeast Asian countries with their central location between the Indian and Pacific Oceans have obviously important roles in the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) Strategy. Aside from geographic locations, these Southeast Asian countries gradually build up their navies. Despite their relatively inferior maritime power, the Southeast Asian countries with their home field advantage could affect the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region, an important factor for the FOIP. Based on their non-alliance tradition and economic interests with China, Southeast Asian countries show no sign of joining FOIP, especially when the content of the FOIP is still under development, but the existing cooperation between Southeast Asian countries and the Quad (United States, Japan, India, Australia) would facilitate further development for the strategy connecting the two oceans.

Theme: International Politics and Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / East Asia and Asia Pacific / South Asia

57. Pacific Islands HADR Research Project - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Mr Christopher Chen, Associate Research Fellow

This project aims to track the emergence of new humanitarian actors (both state and non-state) and to map particular successes, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in preparing for disaster relief and conflict response in the Pacific Islands. The project also focuses on the relationships between civilian and military actors and the emerging points of difference and convergence between the two in responding to HADR in the Asia Pacific. In the process, it will evaluate the quality and impact of both military and civilian organisations’ emergency responses. Fieldwork will be carried out in Fiji and Tonga.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific

58. China’s Social Credit System: Contexts, Impacts and Challenges - [COMPLETED]

Dr Gulizar Haciyakupoglu, Senior Associate Fellow

Dr Wu Shang-Su, Research Fellow

The gradually forming social credit system (SCS) is make up of comprehensive surveillance and popular participation, which would not only promote certain socialisation set by the Chinese government, but also pose some challenges to the current political paradigm of liberal democracy. Despite the deep governmental intervention and lack of privacy, Chinese people’s positive responses to the SCS may reflect their various social conditions, such as legacies of Confucianism and Communist movements. This paper will elaborate the related cultural and historical elements that could be compatible with the SCS. However, its current political system is not perfectly suitable for the SCS, and thus some challenges which would appear when Beijing eventually proceeds it national wide will be reviewed. Therefore, the impacts of the SCS in both domestic and international arenas will be presented in a relatively balanced way.

Theme: Country and Region Studies

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific

59. Challenges and Opportunities for ADMM/ADMM-Plus - [COMPLETED]

Dr Bhubhindar Singh, Associate Professor and Associate Dean (Academic Affairs); Head of Graduate Studies

Dr Tan See Seng, Research Adviser

Dr Wu Shang-Su, Research Fellow

Mr Shawn Ho, Associate Research Fellow

Dr Sarah Teo, Assistant Professor

Mr Tsjeng Zhizhao Henrick, Associate Research Fellow

This project focuses on the prospects of the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) and ADMM-Plus to continue managing regional security challenges, as well as their contributions towards defence diplomacy and shaping the regional security architecture. It will also review the achievements of Singapore’s ADMM Chairmanship in 2018, and the progress of these initiatives in the year ahead. The scope of this project includes: (i) exploring how the ADMM and ADMM-Plus could continue contributing to regional security challenges, including the potential adoption of the Guidelines for Air Military Encounters by the ADMM-Plus; (ii) examining the pros and cons of the ADMM-Plus exercises thus far, and their impact on defence diplomacy; and (iii) reviewing the progress of initiatives that were implemented during Singapore’s ADMM Chairmanship.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

60. Change and Continuity: Domestic Politics in Malaysia “Baru” - [COMPLETED]

Mr Eugene Mark Min Hui, Associate Research Fellow

Mr Prashant Waikar, Senior Analyst

Ms Piya Raj Sukhani, Research Analyst

This project is a study of domestic politics under the new Pakatan Harapan government. It is two-year study which aims to understand and explain the manifestations of change and continuity across three broad areas of domestic politics: (i) the system of patronage in order to identify networks of power brokers; (ii) the issues and challenges concerning governance; and (iii) the ways in which party politics in both the ruling coalition and the opposition can be expected to evolve.

Theme: Country and Region Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

61. Contested Multilateralisms: Lessons for ASEAN - [COMPLETED]

Dr Bhubhindar Singh, Associate Professor and Associate Dean (Academic Affairs); Head of Graduate Studies

Dr Tan See Seng, Research Adviser

Dr Wu Shang-Su, Research Fellow

Mr Shawn Ho, Associate Research Fellow

Dr Sarah Teo, Assistant Professor

Mr Tsjeng Zhizhao Henrick, Associate Research Fellow

Critics have pointed out the apparent ineffectiveness of the ASEAN-centric regional security architecture in managing East Asia’s evolving strategic dynamics, particularly where major power relations are concerned. Given this context, the project will explore the implications and lessons that other regional security architectures, particularly in Europe, Middle East and South Asia, could hold for the ASEAN-centric regional security architecture in East Asia. The scope of this project includes: (i) examining the objectives and functions of multilateral mechanisms that constitute the regional security architectures in Europe, Middle East and South Asia, as well as the Indo-Pacific Concept; (ii) exploring how these other regional security architectures are similar or different from the East Asian regional security architecture; and (iii) identifying lessons and implications that could support or undermine the ASEAN-centric regional security architecture in East Asia.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Middle East and North Africa (MENA) / East Asia and Asia Pacific / Europe

62. Future of Conscript Armies and National Service - [COMPLETED]

Mr Richard Bitzinger , Adjunct/Visiting Fellow

While many developed countries have transitioned to professional, all-volunteer armed forces, many others have kept some form of conscript-based militaries. These countries could provide valuable lessons for the SAF as it seeks to keep National Service relevant and effective in the 21st Century. Important issues to explore and assess include: universal conscription vs. selective service; length of initial service (basic training plus standard service); costs of conscription and military service; exemptions and alternative service; how military training is carried out and maintained throughout national service; types, length, and requirements for reservist duty; and how countries deal with the economic impact of reservist duty. Case studies would include three Nordic countries which have had similar experiences (to the SAF) with conscription and national service: Norway, Finland, and Sweden. In addition, if resources are available, one Asian country (either South Korea or Taiwan) could

Theme: International Politics and Security

Region: Global

63. Humanitarian Technology: RSIS-ICRC Data Protection Project - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Mr Christopher Chen, Associate Research Fellow

This project examines the field of humanitarian technology (HUMTECH) as applied to a broadly defined context of crises encompassing both natural disasters and conflict zones. This project seeks to identify the impact technology has on humanitarian responses as well as the emergent challenges of information technology, big data and technological innovations in humanitarian action. Specifically, it will explore technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Digital Identity, and Machine Learning. This project stems from a need for practitioners and researchers to learn how to engage with these new forms of technology, and to sensitise themselves to emerging avenues of information and data collection.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Non-Traditional Security / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global / East Asia and Asia Pacific / South Asia

64. India and China: Managed Rivalry? - [COMPLETED]

Dr Rajesh Basrur, Senior Fellow

The China-India “reset” marks a new warmth that appears to confirm the judgment of many analysts that the India-China competition has been well managed by a process of regular political engagement. But there is another side to the story. The underlying sources of tension between the two countries remain unaddressed, while new problems are looming. A useful framework for understanding the strategic relationship is that of comparative nuclear rivalries, a surprisingly under-explored phenomenon considering the enormous effort expended on the study of inter-state rivalry.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: Global / East Asia and Asia Pacific / South Asia

65. India as a Malacca Straits Power? Examining Indian and Southeast Asian Perceptions of India’s Role in the Malacca Straits - [COMPLETED]

Dr Sinderpal Singh, Senior Fellow and Assistant Director of Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies; Coordinator of Regional Security Architecture Programme, and South Asia Programme, IDSS

This research project attempts to understand recent Indian moves to play a more visible role in maintaining the security of the Straits of Malacca (SOM). It will examine Indian perceptions about India’s preferred role in the SOM. It will also examine the perceptions of Southeast Asian states, specifically Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, towards Indian attempts to play a more active role in the SOM.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security / Maritime Security / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / General / Conflict and Stability

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / East Asia and Asia Pacific / South Asia

66. Malaysia’s Foreign Policy under the New Government - [COMPLETED]

Mr Nawaljeet Singh Rayar, Associate Research Fellow

This project will focus on the changes and continuities in the foreign policy that are being adopted and will come to fruition in the coming years by the Pakatan Harapan government. Although much of the rhetoric put forth by the government has been overtly about domestic policies, there are some important cues within their rhetoric to signal their foreign policy intentions.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

67. Race and Religion in Contemporary Malaysia - [COMPLETED]

Ms Piya Raj Sukhani, Research Analyst

Ms Najwa Abdullah, Research Analyst

This project is a study the evolution of racial and religious relations under the new Pakatan Harapan government. It shall study structures such as party politics, racial politics, ethno-religious governance, and racial and religious non-governmental organisations, and the role they play in impacting how race and religion can be understood in Malaysia.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

68. Southeast Asian Military Modernisation after the Cold War - [COMPLETED]

Dr Wu Shang-Su, Research Fellow

Southeast Asian military modernisation since the end of the Cold War requires an overall examination. Since convenient arms supplies and military aid flowing from the previous bipolar confrontation are generally no longer available, regional militaries have had to face the cruel reality of financial affordability, and consequently develop different practices for modernisation. As some regional militaries add new capabilities, such as submarines, some are struggling to maintain basic functions, such as airlift. This project will additionally explore trends in procurement and the impacts of new assets on existing capabilities. The period more than a quarter of century since the end of the Cold War should be sufficient for Southeast Asian countries to demonstrate certain models or patterns in their defence acquisition. Feasible scenarios based on the current geopolitical environment present a useful ground for elaborating on the integration between newly added and existing assets.

Theme: Country and Region Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

69. Modi’s India and Japan: Explaining Strategic Continuity - [COMPLETED]

Dr Rajesh Basrur, Senior Fellow

Ms Sumitha Narayanan Kutty, Adjunct Research Associate

The strategic partnership between India and Japan, strengthened under Modi, demonstrates a substantial degree of continuity from preceding governments. Policy continuity and nuanced change are better understood as being shaped by both systemic factors and by domestic politics. The ongoing transition from an anarchic system to one characterised by growing complex interdependence has produced a consistently mixed pattern of strategic behavior in strategic rivalries While this accounts for a high degree of continuity, shifts in extractive capacity at the domestic level help explain a degree of change. The paper examines three dimensions of India-Japan strategic relations: the developing bilateral partnership, the somewhat weaker but still growing India-Japan-United States triangle, and the more tentative “Quad,” which includes Australia. The paper concludes that the ambiguities in India’s strategic relations with Japan are likely to persist for the foreseeable future.

Theme: International Politics and Security

Region: South Asia

70. Maritime Security: A Primer - [COMPLETED]

Mr John Bradford, Adjunct Senior Fellow

Existing books seek to summarise the concept of “maritime security,” these are limited because they approach the field from a specific vantage point, such from the perspective of legal regimes or industry best practices. In contrast, "Maritime Security: A Primer" will provide a broader, more academic, and more holistic understanding of the phenomenon. It will explain maritime security as an inherent feature of the current global system essential to the modern international system; underpinned by governance; provided by institutions and organisations; and threatened by certain human activities. It will present a new analytical framework for examining maritime security in which issues and debates can be understood by the interplay of maritime governance, maritime security stakeholders, maritime security threats, and maritime awareness. The book will illustrate this framework with four contemporary case-studies.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security

Region: Global

71. Taiwan’s Armed Forces - [COMPLETED]

Dr Wu Shang-Su, Research Fellow

A book chapter in The Taiwan Issue: Challenges and Prospects, edited by Andrew Tan, this chapter examines the development of Taiwan’s armed forces, the problems and challenges it faces, and its future prospects. Taiwan’s armed forces with an offensive structure during the Cold War have been transformed for island defence in the 1990s. However, their ability of defence in the face of China’s rising military power has been doubtful, despite considerable investment. The root would be the dramatic strategic changes corresponding to the diverse national identities. As independence and unification are diverse approaches, the respective strategic guidance are unavoidably contradictive. Apart from politics, the poor internal management and some popularist policies, such as all-voluntary forces, also contribute to the unreliable image of Taiwan’s armed forces. Based the current political situation, an overall reform of armed forces for greater deterrence would be unlikely.

Theme: Country and Region Studies

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific

72. From Denial to Punishment: The Security Dilemma and Changes in India’s Military Strategy towards China - [COMPLETED]

Dr Anit Mukherjee, Associate Professor

Theme: Country and Region Studies

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific

73. Federalism, State Influence and Centre-State Relations - [COMPLETED]

Ms Najwa Abdullah, Research Analyst

This research project analyses the federal agreement of Malaysia between the federal government and states following GE14. This analysis will include an examination of how existing Barisan Nasional (BN) states use the promise of delivering state and parliamentary seats to the federal government as leverage for demanding greater state autonomy, as was the case during the Sarawak state elections in 2016. It will also examine how states manage their relationships with the centre post-election: (i) Pakatan Harapan (PH)-controlled states; (ii) BN-controlled states; (iii) Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS)-controlled states; and (iv) federal territories. It shall examine how state manage disbursement of federal funds, control of resources as well as matters of religion, defence and security policies. Of particular interest is to see how the election may contribute to a centralisation or devolution of power.

Theme: Country and Region Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

74. India’s Indian Ocean Doctrine: Building an Indian Ocean Security Architecture - [COMPLETED]

Dr Sinderpal Singh, Senior Fellow and Assistant Director of Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies; Coordinator of Regional Security Architecture Programme, and South Asia Programme, IDSS

In last decade, India has devoted an increasing amount of resources and political capital in augmenting its naval capability and has articulated its desire to take on a leadership role within the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). In this endeavour it has confronted several issues. The first is the appropriate role China should play in the IOR. The second problem India faces is the diversity of the IOR and the disparate security needs of countries in the different sub-regions within the IOR. Can IORA and IONS be strengthened to play a central role in the security dynamics of the IOR? Should India lead in building new security institutions outside IORA and IONS? This project will examine these questions from the perspective of India’s emerging power status within international politics.

Theme: Maritime Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global / Africa / East Asia and Asia Pacific

75. Malaysia’s Relations with the Major Powers: Changes and Continuity in the Midst of Complex Challenges - [COMPLETED]

Dr Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman, Assistant Professor

This research project explores changes and continuity in Malaysia’s relations with the major powers, namely the United States and China. Although Malaysia’s ruling elites have constantly claimed that Malaysia’s foreign policy is independent, neutral and non-aligned in its engagement with the major powers, Malaysia’s ability to adhere to this principle has come under considerable pressure for three key reasons. First, former Prime Minister Najib Razak faced considerable political, economic, and social challenges to its legitimacy and survivability on the domestic front. Second, Malaysia has faced difficulties in maintain its autonomy in foreign policy because of the China-US rivalry in recent years, especially under recently ousted Prime Minister Najib. Thirdly, the fact that Barisan Nasional (BN) has lost federal power for the first time ever suggests that there may be a noticeable shift in terms of how Malaysia approaches foreign policy towards major powers.

Theme: International Political Economy / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Americas / East Asia and Asia Pacific

76. The 14th General Elections in Malaysia Part 2 - [COMPLETED]

Dr Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman, Assistant Professor

Mr Prashant Waikar, Senior Analyst

Even though Barisan Nasional successfully consolidated its political position through a series of strong-armed moves to neutralise opposition threats to its leadership, it lost the 14th General Elections. Former UMNO elites opposed to Najib, led by Mahathir Mohamad, coalesced to form an additional opposition force via a new Malay-nationalist political party (Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia – Bersatu) that is modelled on UMNO. This project will look to provide an analysis of the major electoral themes and the electoral dynamics between political parties that have influenced the election outcomes, how and why the Mahathir-led Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition was successful in both winning the federal power and control of eight state governments, as well as an examination of the future trajectories in Malaysian politics and policymaking under the Mahathir administration.

Theme: Country and Region Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

77. Towards a New Political Islam of Malaysia: Gender Politics and Islamist International Relations - [COMPLETED]

Dr Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman, Assistant Professor

Mr Prashant Waikar, Senior Analyst

This project synthesises two areas of focus in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of hitherto neglected research subjects: (i) the role of women in framing and re-framing Islamic politics in Malaysia; and (ii) Malaysia’s Islamic and Islamist influence in Southeast Asia. It shall be conducted over two years as a multi-methods project. The policy implications of this project are multiple and include potential proposals for interstate security policy concerning terrorism, Singapore’s foreign policy concerning Islam, and Singapore’s domestic religious management. While little is currently known about the proposed research areas, it is anticipated that the knowledge produced may result in a significant development in both academic and policy understandings of Malaysian political Islam — from Malaysia as a passive recipient of Islamist influence, to Malaysia’s active role in shaping a tradition of Islamism in the region and beyond.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Religion in Contemporary Society / Terrorism Studies / General / Conflict and Stability

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

78. Taiwan’s Air Power - [COMPLETED]

Dr Wu Shang-Su, Research Fellow

This is a chapter in a book on air power edited by Amit Gupta. Airpower has been a critical factor in the military balance across the Taiwan Strait since 1949, and Taipei always places its air force and, broadly, air defence, on the top priority of defence investment. After seven decades of efforts, Taiwan has built a remarkable air defence network comprised of fighters, surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), ground based and airborne radars and other facilities. In parallel, the other side of the Strait has also worked hard to neutralise the network through conventional and non-conventional means. The cross-Strait dynamic relations determines the nuance of Taiwan’s air power, along with other important factors, such as the domestic politics and Taiwan’s international isolation. This chapter will be divided into four parts, historical reviews, dynamic challenges, current plans, and conclusion to form a comprehensive view on Taiwan’s air power.

Theme: Country and Region Studies

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific

79. Constructing Regional Security in the Indian Ocean: Institutions, Processes and Extra-Regional Powers - [COMPLETED]

Dr Sinderpal Singh, Senior Fellow and Assistant Director of Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies; Coordinator of Regional Security Architecture Programme, and South Asia Programme, IDSS

Maritime security concerns in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) have been changing rapidly in the past decade, leading to three key difficulties. The first is the difficulty of gaining a broad consensus on how institutions and processes should prioritise between traditional and non-traditional security concerns. The second is the significant sub-regional variance of the types of security threats facing individual states and the varying capacity to respond to these threats. The third relates to addressing the role of extra-regional states in contributing towards maritime security in the IOR. Re-crafting security architecture in the IOR via modifying both institutions and processes in three core areas will significantly mitigate these three difficulties.”

Theme: International Politics and Security / Maritime Security / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / East Asia and Asia Pacific / South Asia

80. Analysing Regional Trends in Indonesia Prior to the 2019 Indonesian General Election (with an emphasis on East Java, Surabaya and West Kalimantan, Pontianak) - [COMPLETED]

Mr Jonathan Chen, Associate Research Fellow

Dr Alexander Raymond Arifianto, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Indonesia Programme, IDSS

The research on “Analysing Regional Trends in Indonesia Prior to the 2019 Indonesian General Election” with an emphasis on the ongoing gubernatorial election in East Java Province and West Kalimantan Province has the primary aim of teasing out the dynamics of the election and its potential implications for the upcoming 2019 Indonesian general election. The key research questions analysed are: (i) the relationship between the candidates and political parties who are supporting them; (ii) the role of Islam and politics at the regional level and; (iii) business and politics relationship at regional level. The research will utilise qualitative interviews with resource persons from representatives and campaign staffs from the gubernatorial campaigns, political party representatives, politicians, Islamic civil society organisations and representatives of the business community supporting the different candidates in East Java and West Kalimantan.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

81. Analysing Regional Political Trends in Indonesia Prior to the 2019 Indonesian General Election - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alexander Raymond Arifianto, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Indonesia Programme, IDSS

Mr Adri Wanto, Associate Research Fellow

Mr Jonathan Chen, Associate Research Fellow

Mr Emirza Adi Syailendra, Associate Research Fellow

Mr Keoni Indrabayu Marzuki, Associate Research Fellow

Ms Chaula Rininta Anindya, Research Analyst

As part of the ongoing research on contemporary trends in Indonesian politics prior to the 2019 general election, the 2018 Simultaneous Regional Executive Elections is being studied to determine the bilateral and regional policy implications to Singapore. The project plans to conduct the study in the Riau Islands, North Sumatera, West Java, East Java, and West Kalimantan provinces, which all serve as political barometer for the 2019 presidential election. The project also plans to study the elections by highlighting three main themes that is believed to be very crucial to understanding the 2018 regional elections and their future implications towards the 2019 general election: (i) The relationship between candidates and political parties, (ii) Islam and politics at regional level, and (iii) Business and politics relationship at regional level.

Theme: Religion in Contemporary Society / Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

82. Challenges and Opportunities for ADMM/ ADMM-Plus - [COMPLETED]

Dr Tan See Seng, Research Adviser

Dr Bhubhindar Singh, Associate Professor and Associate Dean (Academic Affairs); Head of Graduate Studies

Dr Wu Shang-Su, Research Fellow

Mr Shawn Ho, Associate Research Fellow

Dr Sarah Teo, Assistant Professor

Mr Tsjeng Zhizhao Henrick, Associate Research Fellow

This project aims to take stock of the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) and ADMM- Plus, as well as Singapore’s ASEAN and ADMM Chairmanship. The scope of this project includes examining: (i) suggestions on how the ADMM and ADMM- Plus can continue contributing to regional security challenges; (ii) the pros and cons of ADMM-Plus observership; and (iii) Singapore’s objectives and achievements in its ASEAN Chairmanship year.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

83. Minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific: The Quad, Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Mechanism, and ASEAN - [COMPLETED]

Dr Bhubhindar Singh, Associate Professor and Associate Dean (Academic Affairs); Head of Graduate Studies

Dr Sarah Teo, Assistant Professor

This edited volume seeks to understand and explain the increased presence of minilaterals arrangements in the Indo-Pacific. While US-centred bilateralism and ASEAN-led multilateralism have largely dominated the post-Cold War regional security architecture, increasing questions about their effectiveness (or lack thereof) have resulted in regional countries turning to alternative forms of cooperation—namely minilateralism—to address security problems. We focus specifically on the establishment of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation mechanism in 2015, as well as the revival of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue in 2017. The book examines the rise of these arrangements, their challenges and opportunities, as well as the impact they could potentially have on the extant regional security architecture, particularly in terms of ASEAN centrality.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

84. The Future Regional Security Architecture - [COMPLETED]

Dr Tan See Seng, Research Adviser

Dr Bhubhindar Singh, Associate Professor and Associate Dean (Academic Affairs); Head of Graduate Studies

Dr Wu Shang-Su, Research Fellow

Mr Shawn Ho, Associate Research Fellow

Dr Sarah Teo, Assistant Professor

Mr Tsjeng Zhizhao Henrick, Associate Research Fellow

This project aims to study emerging groupings and “minilaterals” that could play key roles in the future regional security architecture. These include the “Quad” which seeks to underpin a “free and open Indo-Pacific”, the Indian Ocean Region fora, as well as cooperative platforms in mainland Southeast Asia such as the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation mechanism and China-Laos-Myanmar-Thailand joint patrols in the Mekong River. The scope of this project includes: (i) conceptualising the idea of “minilateral” groupings vis-à-vis multilateralism; (ii) studying the motivations and institutions involved in these groupings, as well as how they relate to other geographical concepts such as the Asia Pacific and East Asia; (iii) implications for the ASEAN-centric regional order, including effects on ASEAN centrality and unity, and the ways that ASEAN can play a role amidst these constructs; and (iv) implications for the major powers’ engagement of the region.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

85. Towards a New Political Islam of Malaysia: Gender Politics and Islamist International Relations Part 2 - [COMPLETED]

Dr Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman, Assistant Professor

Mr Prashant Waikar, Senior Analyst

This project is the second part of a two-year study which synthesises two areas of focus in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of hitherto neglected research subjects: (i) the role of women in framing and reframing Islamic politics in Malaysia; and (ii) Malaysia’s Islamic and Islamist influence in Southeast Asia.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

86. India’s Pakistan Problem: Operation Parakram Revisited - [COMPLETED]

Dr Rajesh Basrur, Senior Fellow

The key questions that will be raised in this study are: (i) why did India launch its sustained exercise in coercive diplomacy to try and compel Pakistan to abandon its support for terrorist groups attacking Indian targets? and (ii) why did India decide to terminate the exercise ten months later? Implicit in the first is the corollary question: was there a real intent to go to war? Or was it all just a giant bluff? An integral aspect of the questions posed above is “to what extent did nuclear weapons exercise an influence on the decision?” The focus of this project is on methodology and the state of our knowledge with regard to the availability of reliable evidence.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Terrorism Studies / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: South Asia

87. India’s Pakistan Problem: Operation Parakram Revisited - [COMPLETED]

Dr Rajesh Basrur, Senior Fellow

The key questions raised in this study are: (i) Why did India launch its sustained exercise in coercive diplomacy to try and compel Pakistan to abandon its support for terrorist groups attacking Indian targets?; and (ii) Why did India decide to terminate the exercise ten months later? Implicit in the first is the corollary question: was there a real intent to go to war? Or was it all just a giant bluff? An integral aspect of the questions posed above is to what extent did nuclear weapons exercise an influence on the decision? The focus is on methodology and the state of our knowledge with regard to the availability of reliable evidence.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Terrorism Studies / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: South Asia

88. Professional Military Education of Military Officers in the Asia Pacific - [COMPLETED]

Mr Eddie Lim, Head, Outreach

This research project seeks to chart out the officer education for the militaries of key Asia Pacific countries. This report will provide a strong basis to compare and contrast the state of officer training and education between ASEAN members and other militaries in the region. The analysis from this report will provide a number of policy implications; a criterion for effective Professional Military Education (PME) across nations and services, a review of current officer training and education, differentiating how different Services approach officer education, as well as offering insights on how bilateral and multilateral relationships could be further enhanced through defence diplomacy.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

89. Military Innovation in East Asia: Paths and Patterns - [COMPLETED]

Dr Michael Raska, Assistant Professor

This book seeks to address emerging trends and developments when it comes to future warfare in East Asia. It will explore the likely future military domains, warfighting concepts, and subsequent military-technological priorities that could be the most critical in the next two decades. It considers what may constitute the next revolution in military affairs and when and how it might occur. Questions to consider include: (i) what is the role of new and emerging enabling technologies and their impact on warfighting in East Asia; (ii) what are the most likely kinds of armed conflict that we can expect in the next two decades; (iii) where is conflict most likely to occur; (iv) will armed conflict be more or less prevalent than now; and (v) what are the shocks or game-changers that can alter the route to the most likely future? How, then, might these long-term developments affect regional security and defence?

Theme: International Politics and Security

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Europe

90. The Malaysian Approach to Counterinsurgency (1963–1990) - [COMPLETED]

Dr Ong Wei Chong, Senior Associate Fellow and Head of National Security Studies Programme; Deputy Coordinator of MSc (Strategic Studies) Programme

This proposed research project is a historical study of Malaysian counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy and practice against the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) and the North Kalimantan Communist Party (NKCP) during the 1963–1990 period. This study intends to elucidate the following three areas of historical significance: Why were there two distinct communist insurgencies in Malaysia; How did Malaysia defeat two separate communist insurgencies in two different geographical locations (Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo); the COIN response and strategy of Malaysia and to a lesser extent the counter-subversion strategy of Singapore to the CPM threat. The results of the research project will be published in a sole-authored book.

Theme: Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

91. Chinese Exceptionalism: A Framework to Interpret China’s Rise and International Relations - [COMPLETED]

Dr Benjamin Ho, Assistant Professor

This study examines the concept of Chinese exceptionalism and how it frames China’s international relations, particularly its claims to being “different” and “good” compared to the Western-led international system. Among others, this study analyses how exceptionalist thinking is manifested in various aspects of China’s global interactions: (i) in its international relations theory, and (ii) in its self-identity and its national image. Empirically, it will look at China’s relations with its neighbours, relations with the diaspora as well as the Belt Road initiatives.

Theme: Regionalism and Multilateralism / Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: Global / East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

92. Defence and Security in Singapore: An Annotated Bibliography - [COMPLETED]

Mr Ho Shu Huang, Teaching Fellow

Dr Samuel Chan, Adjunct Lecturer, Australian Defence Forces Academy, University of New South Wales

This project seeks to compile an annotated bibliography on defence and security issues focused on Singapore. This bibliographical database will be similar in form to the NTU Library Digital Project’s Singapore Literature in English: An Annotated Bibliography that was launched in 2008. Accessible on the Internet in the form of a searchable catalogue, the database of bibliographical entries will be organised by themes and keywords accompanied by abstracts. Additionally, information on where and how to access the document will be provided. Where possible, and copyright permitting, a soft copy of the document will also be available for download. Envisioned to be a living document, this database will be updated regularly, and users will also be able to suggest additions, as well as highlight any errors in existing entries.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Singapore and Homeland Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

93. Operationalising the Military Balance: Perception, Reality, and Stability in Southeast Asia - [COMPLETED]

Dr Graham Ong-Webb, Adjunct Fellow

This book project aims to fill a gap in the rigour and knowledge about military balances, with a focus on the balance in Southeast Asia. The term “military balance” is used quite loosely in current discussions about regional security. In the end, both the “perception” and “reality” of a military balance matters because it is the degree of misperception that lead states to underestimate (or over-estimate) the capabilities of others, distorting foreign policy positions and realising security dilemmas.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

94. Contesting Visions of Regional Orders in East Asia - [COMPLETED]

Dr Bhubhindar Singh, Associate Professor and Associate Dean (Academic Affairs); Head of Graduate Studies

Mr Shawn Ho, Associate Research Fellow

Dr Sarah Teo, Assistant Professor

Mr Tsjeng Zhizhao Henrick, Associate Research Fellow

Major power dynamics continue to shape East Asia’s peace and stability. While the Trump administration has declared its intentions to engage with regional countries and institutions, challenges are emerging to the US-led regional order. China, for instance, has implemented initiatives that seem like the elements of an alternative regional order centred on its leadership. Other regional/ middle powers, including ASEAN and its member states, have to navigate these complex dynamics and ensure that their own interests are preserved in the evolving regional strategic landscape. This project will examine four sub-themes: (i) relevance and sustainability of U.S.-led regional order; (ii) elements of Chinese-led regional order; (iii) implications for defence multilateralism in East Asia; and (iv) prospects for issue-based minilateralism in regional security cooperation.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

95. How Generals Decide: Skilled Intuition and Military Effectiveness - [COMPLETED]

Dr Pascal Vennesson, Senior Fellow ; Head of Research, RSIS and Professor of Political Science, University Panthéon-Assas, Paris II (on leave)

Why do generals make sensible decisions that help achieve operational effectiveness in some cases, yet misjudge the odds and make the wrong choices in others? Generalship is a core dimension of the art of war, but its relative importancefor military effectiveness is theoretically contested and empirically unresolved. The overconfidence model and the recognition-primed decision model, two of the most influential perspectives about judgement and decisions in cognitive psychology, provide contrasting insights into the effect of generalship on military effectiveness. To assess these two models, I select a central puzzle in the history of command: General Douglas MacArthur’s success at Inchon followed a few weeks later by the stunning failure of his drive to the Yalu.

Theme: International Politics and Security

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Global

96. Wide from the Start: Security and Post-Colonial State Building in Southeast Asia - [COMPLETED]

Dr Pascal Vennesson, Senior Fellow ; Head of Research, RSIS and Professor of Political Science, University Panthéon-Assas, Paris II (on leave)

Dr Delphine Allès, Associate Professor, University of Paris East, France

Critical security advocates generally assume that the process of broadening and deepening security starts with a core, the defence of state borders, which is progressively left behind or complemented by “non-state” concerns and “non-military” policies. They see this incorporation of economic, societal and environmental issues to security as a conceptual and policy innovation, which downplays and even puts into question the centrality of the military. In this paper, we seek to challenge this Western-centric interpretation by exploring the state and military sources of the comprehensive conception of security in Indonesia and Malaysia. Despite their differences in state building and international alignments, they both adopted comprehensive conceptions of security right from the start. Political, societal and economic issues have been constituted as security issues before the consolidation of frontiers and sovereignties.

Theme: Maritime Security / Non-Traditional Security / Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

97. Defence Reforms in India - [COMPLETED]

Dr Anit Mukherjee, Associate Professor

This is a chapter in a proposed book co-edited by the author tentatively titled India’s Emerging Strategic Challenges. This chapter examines the process of defence reforms in India. In doing so, it describes the evolution in India’s higher defence organisation including post-Kargil defence reforms. The chapter also focuses on contemporary debates and analyses the functioning and recommendations of the Naresh Chandra and the Shekatkar committees — which were created in 2011 and 2016 respectively, and were tasked to revisit the defence reforms process. Next, it will assess the prospects for defence reforms under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and will conclude by suggesting a roadmap for the future.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: South Asia

98. National Service in Singapore [Edited Volume] - [COMPLETED]

Mr Ho Shu Huang, Teaching Fellow

Dr Graham Ong-Webb, Adjunct Fellow

Mr Eddie Lim, Head, Outreach

Ms Nur Diyanah Binte Anwar, Adjunct Research Associate

Ms Priscilla Cabuyao, Research Analyst CENS

National Service (NS) is one of Singapore’s foundational national defence policies. First introduced by the British in 1954, amended in 1967 to provide a means to defend a fledgling independent nation, and codified into its present form in 1970, NS is deeply woven into Singapore’s political and social fabric. The 50th anniversary of the enlistment of the first batch of full-time National Servicemen is an opportune time to contemplate the past, present and future of NS. This volume brings together a range of perspectives on NS in Singapore. It covers three main areas: the history of NS, NS in practice, and international perspectives. Comprising chapters by individuals with varied backgrounds, National Service in Singapore hopes to offer a broad account of one of Singapore’s fundamental public policies.

Theme: General / Singapore and Homeland Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

99. Responsibility, Sovereignty and Security in Southeast Asia - [COMPLETED]

Dr Tan See Seng, Research Adviser

Despite the long-held and jealously guarded ASEAN principle of non-intervention, states in Southeast Asia have begun to display an increasing readiness to think about sovereignty in terms not only of state responsibility to their own populations but also towards neighbouring countries as well. Taking account of the realities of interstate cooperation in the region, and drawing on the work of Emmanuel Levinas, the project develops a new theoretical framework reflecting an evolution of attitudes about state sovereignty to explain this emerging ethic of regional responsibility.

Theme: International Politics and Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

100. The Legal Authority of ASEAN as a Security Institution - [COMPLETED]

Dr Tan See Seng, Research Adviser

Dr Hitoshi Nasu, Professor of International Law, Exeter Law School, University of Exeter

As a regional institution long known for its preference of consensus, consultation and informality, ASEAN took a step in late 2007 to develop a legal personality with the establishment of the ASEAN charter. But while ASEAN has in place a legal framework for mediating and settling economic disputes between and among member states, such a framework for handling security challenges and facilitating intra-ASEAN security cooperation remains underdeveloped. This project highlights and discusses various transnational security-related issues and challenges that affect most if not all the ASEAN member countries and assesses how ASEAN has sought to address them through the legal-institutional frameworks and instruments at its disposal.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

101. Japanese Security Policy: Military Crises, Threat Inflation and Security Policy Development - [COMPLETED]

Dr Bhubhindar Singh, Associate Professor and Associate Dean (Academic Affairs); Head of Graduate Studies

The Japanese military, known as the Self-Defence Force (SDF), has developed new roles both outside and within the US-Japan alliance to contribute to regional/ international security. The question is how has the Japanese security policymaking elite been able to bring about this critical change to the security policy practice in light of the domestic social and legal constraints that have traditionally prevented the expansion of Japan’s security role, in military terms, in regional and international affairs. This research introduces external military crises as a critical cause of this change in Japanese security policy. It argues that the security policymaking elite constructed or inflated elements of threat from an external military crisis as directly affecting both the international environment and Japan’s national security. This study will focus on all military crises faced by Japan in the post-Cold War period.

Theme: Maritime Security / Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific

102. Future Maritime Security Environment — Policy Paper and Workshop

Ms Jane Chan Git Yin, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Maritime Security Programme, IDSS

The study will identify likely developments in the maritime security environment of Asia over the next decade, including shifts in the maritime balance of power and particular threats and challenges in the maritime domain. The study will take a comprehensive view of security, and will include issues such as the trends with international shipping, environmental protection and resource scarcity. The overall objective will be to identify the implications of these developments for the region and for Singapore. The geographical scope for the study will be the Indo-Pacific region.

Theme: Maritime Security / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

103. Maritime Security and Sea Lines of Communication — Research Paper

Ms Jane Chan Git Yin, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Maritime Security Programme, IDSS

Dr Collin Koh Swee Lean, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Projects (Naval/Maritime Affairs)

The programme collaborates with the Information Fusion Centre (IFC) to work on topical maritime security issues relating to Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC) and chokepoints within IFC’s areas of interest. The project aims to better understand the threats and challenges in regional waters. It will consider national, regional and inter-regional maritime law enforcement capacity, best practices and cooperation.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Maritime Security

Region: South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies

1. Biosecurity Governance in Southeast Asia

Mr Julius Cesar Imperial Trajano, Research Fellow

Dr Jose Ma. Luis P. Montesclaros, Research Fellow

Ms Jeselyn, Research Analyst

The project examines the security challenges arising from research in the life sciences, dual-use research, and the biotech industry in Southeast Asia. Other research areas include the preventive measures of Biosafety Labs (BSL), such as preventing biosecurity incidents caused by insider threats, extremist terror groups, cyber criminals, or transnational criminal networks. In addition, the project analyses the national and regional efforts to enhancing biosecurity and response and preparedness capacities in Southeast Asia and the wider region in case of the use or threat of use of biological weapons, including the roles of regional bodies and networks supporting ASEAN Member States. The research also explores pathways toward integrating biosecurity and response and preparedness capacity development into regional frameworks, standards and approaches.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

2. HADR Database - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Mr Keith Paolo Catibog Landicho, Associate Research Fellow

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

3. Climate Change Impacts on Peace and Security in ASEAN: Regional Impact Assessment - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Mr Julius Cesar Imperial Trajano, Research Fellow

Ms S. Nanthini, Associate Research Fellow

This project will assess climate stressors, exposure, vulnerabilities and other relevant political, demographic, and socio-economic factors to map thematic issues and transboundary areas of importance and concern regarding the effects of climate change on peace and security in Southeast Asia.

Theme: Regionalism and Multilateralism / Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

4. Climate Security in the Indo-Pacific

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Ms S. Nanthini, Associate Research Fellow

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

5. Humanitarian Futures - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Dr Lina Gong, Research Fellow

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

6. Humanitarian Policy and Action in Asia

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Dr Lina Gong, Research Fellow

Dr Sandeep Singh, Research Fellow

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

7. Mapping Low-Carbon Energy Transitions in Indonesia and the Philippines - [COMPLETED]

Ms Margareth Sembiring, Associate Research Fellow

Low carbon energy transition entails a transformation from fossil fuel-based economy to renewable energy-based one. Some countries are developing renewable energy at a faster rate than others. This research project aims to unpack the push and pull factors behind low-carbon energy transitions in the Philippines and Indonesia to examine reasons behind the Philippines’ relative progress in expanding its renewable energy systems.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global

8. Marine Plastic Pollution in Southeast Asia: Cooperation, Challenges and Opportunities - [COMPLETED]

Mr Julius Cesar Imperial Trajano, Research Fellow

Southeast Asia is both a source and victim of plastic pollution in the Pacific Ocean, including the South China Sea, peripheral seas and rivers. Countries in the region are major contributors to land-based plastic waste leaking into the world’s oceans. Around 80 percent of marine plastic debris can be traced back to land-based plastic waste. Southeast Asia and the broader East Asia region are facing the toughest challenge in this regard. This research analyses national and regional efforts to address plastic pollution in Southeast Asia. It explores the contributions of governments, regional bodies, scientists, the private sector, local communities and civil society organisations to finding solutions to plastic pollution in the region. This research also examines the multisectoral approach and human security approach to marine environmental issues and plastic pollution.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

9. Research & Knowledge Generation on Digitalising Climate-smart Supply Chain in Farming Systems in ASEAN and India - [COMPLETED]

Dr Paul Teng, Professor and Adjunct Senior Fellow

Dr Dipinder Singh Randhawa, Senior Fellow

Dr Jose Ma. Luis P. Montesclaros, Research Fellow

RSIS received a grant from the German development agency, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), to pursue a study on the digitalization of climate-smart supply chains in selected farming systems between ASEAN and India. This study, led by the NTS Centre’s food security team, will assess the potential of digital technologies to address food security and climate-related food supply chain challenges, leveraging document reviews of policies under ASEAN-India cooperation; quantitative analysis of open international databases; and interviews/questionnaires/consultations with relevant stakeholders. The research will provide evidence-based results on implementation challenges and potential opportunities on the digitalization of certain parts of the selected supply chain and commodity both in the ASEAN region and India, as well as develop recommendations for promoting the scale-up of digital solutions in one selected supply chain in ASEAN and India.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / General / International Political Economy

Region: South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN / East Asia and Asia Pacific / Europe

10. Climate Security in the Indo-Pacific - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Ms S. Nanthini, Associate Research Fellow

Ms Margareth Sembiring, Associate Research Fellow

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

11. Climate Security in the Indo-Pacific - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Ms S. Nanthini, Associate Research Fellow

Ms Margareth Sembiring, Associate Research Fellow

Theme: Regionalism and Multilateralism / Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

12. Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Mr Christopher Chen, Associate Research Fellow

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

13. Humanitarian Civil-Military Coordination - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Ms S. Nanthini, Associate Research Fellow

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

14. Humanitarian Futures in Southeast Asia - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Dr Lina Gong, Research Fellow

Theme: Regionalism and Multilateralism / Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

15. Humanitarian Futures in Southeast Asia - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Dr Lina Gong, Research Fellow

Theme: Regionalism and Multilateralism / Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

16. The Future of Planetary Health: Lessons from a Global Pandemic

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Chen Tao, Associate Professor, Nanyang Business School, NTU

This research project brings together RSIS, COHASS, NBS, and EOS to develop a full grant proposal to investigate how a planetary health approach can be adopted/applied to mitigate Anthropocene risks and build resilience for a more sustainable and prosperous world. The schools involved in this proposal have consulted their research on global governance, risk analysis in financial markets, and environmental justice and societal impacts. It aims to answer two main questions: (i) How do we mitigate Anthropocene risk to improve planetary health? (ii) Why does the Planetary Health approach offer a better way to avoid future global crises like COVID-19? Through the development of a full research grant proposal, this project aims to provide a comprehensive and interdisciplinary perspective to address the planetary health challenge which will contribute to an emerging research agenda and provide insights for public policy.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security

Region: Global

17. An Assessment of Approaches to Converging Risks during the COVID-19 Pandemic - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Mr Christopher Chen, Associate Research Fellow

This project intends to assess the effectiveness of crisis preparedness and response mechanisms in the Indo-Pacific region during the COVID-19 pandemic. It aims to evaluate the current state of the humanitarian landscape and its resiliency in dealing with simultaneous crises (disaster and pandemic happening concurrently). More specifically, it will evaluate how countries, organisations, and communities have (or have not) adapted to converging risks with implications for civil-military partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region. In doing so, this project will assess the emerging concept of "Strategic Resilience" to reduce vulnerabilities with a specific focus on the Indo-Pacific.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / East Asia and Asia Pacific / South Asia

18. Climate Security in the Indo-Pacific: Strategic Implications for Defense and Foreign Affairs - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Ms S. Nanthini, Associate Research Fellow

This project will gather perspectives from across the Indo-Pacific from selected countries to understand Climate Security from different vantage points to understand (i) its position within national discourse; (ii) interpretations of climate security from military and civilian actors; (iii) implications for wider regional engagement on climate security. This project will (i) conduct a roundtable discussion on Climate Security in the Indo-Pacific; (ii) invite selected academics and policy professionals to contribute Op-eds/commentaries from the region.

Theme: Regionalism and Multilateralism / International Politics and Security / Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / East Asia and Asia Pacific / South Asia

19. Collective Responses to HADR - [COMPLETED]

Dr Lina Gong, Research Fellow

Ms S. Nanthini, Associate Research Fellow

This project will examine the efforts of regional/subregional mechanisms/initiatives, such as ASEAN, ASEAN Regional Forum, Indian Ocean Rim Association, the Quad, Lancang Mekong Cooperation mechanism, and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, to move towards collective HADR efforts in times of disasters; assess how effective these efforts have been, particularly in the new security environment; and explore the factors that enable/constrain entities such as the RHCC to facilitate collective HADR responses.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Central Asia / East Asia and Asia Pacific

20. Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative Partnership: Baseline Study on Regional Collaborative Arrangements in Marine Ecology in Southeast Asia - [COMPLETED]

Mr Julius Cesar Imperial Trajano, Research Fellow

Dr Lina Gong, Research Fellow

Ms Margareth Sembiring, Associate Research Fellow

The objective of the Baseline Study is to identify opportunities for enhanced regional collaboration on marine ecology in Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific with special focus on marine plastic pollution, Coral Triangle Initiatives, and maritime disaster response. This project is in collaboration with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, the Chesterfield Lane Pty Ltd, Australia and the Observer Research Foundation in India. The overall purpose of the project is to undertake baseline studies of international cooperation arrangements in the area of marine ecology in the Indo-Pacific and to chart out proposals for potential regional collaboration arrangements in marine ecology for the Indian Ocean Region that can be supported by Australia and India.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

21. Social Protection Framework and Rights-Based Approach to Governing Online Freelance Labour: Towards Decent Work in Digital Labour Platforms - [COMPLETED]

Mr Julius Cesar Imperial Trajano, Research Fellow

The emergence of cross-border, web-based digital labour platforms has been among the major transformations in the world of work over the past decade. Digital labour platforms facilitate the real-time hiring of freelance workers for a plethora of tasks, such as IT programming, language teaching, virtual assistance, marketing, graphic designing, project management, and even research and development. This is an ongoing study on the emergence of web-based, cross-border digital labour and its impact on labour rights and social protection, with a special focus on online freelance workers from Southeast Asia. It reviews the efforts of ASEAN and national governments in the region to promote social protection of these workers and address challenges to rights-based governance for digital labour platforms. It offers possible areas for action by Southeast Asian countries to promote rights and social protection for their workers who are engaged in web-based digital freelance labour.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / East Asia and Asia Pacific / South Asia

22. ASEAN Disaster Resilience Outlook - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Mr Christopher Chen, Associate Research Fellow

Dr Lina Gong, Research Fellow

Ms S. Nanthini, Associate Research Fellow

The NTS Centre's HADR Programme was awarded a US$30,000 grant from the ASEAN Secretariat to develop the "ASEAN Disaster Resilience Outlook (2021) – ASEAN’s Journey for a Disaster Resilience Region”. The ASEAN Disaster Resilience Outlook is a mid-term review of the ASEAN Vision 2025 on disaster management and is scheduled to be launched at the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Disaster Management in late 2021.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

23. Towards a Culture of Prevention in Public Health in Southeast Asia: Learning from Nuclear Safety Culture - [COMPLETED]

Mr Julius Cesar Imperial Trajano, Research Fellow

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that robust safety (and security) mindsets need to be adopted by countries, governments, organisations and other private actors, even individuals, in order to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and prevent the emergence of future pandemics. Through the years, the civilian nuclear sector has comprehensively promoted a strong nuclear safety culture and a security culture. Adoption of key principles and best practices similar to those used in the nuclear sector to embrace a strong safety culture may help any country or organisation reduce the risk of a catastrophic event such as pandemics. This project explores how nuclear safety culture and even security culture can inform and deepen the Culture of Prevention in ASEAN. It studies how best practices and policies in promoting a nuclear safety (and security) culture can be applied in public health risk mitigation measures and regulation efforts in Southeast Asia.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

24. Policy Review of the Current Status of Digital Technology Utilisation in the Agricultures Sector for Enhancing Food Supply Chain Resilience in ASEAN - [COMPLETED]

Dr Paul Teng, Professor and Adjunct Senior Fellow

Dr Jose Ma. Luis P. Montesclaros, Research Fellow

This study aims to review the current utilisation of digital technology for improving agricultural productivity and enhancing the resilience of food supply chains in ASEAN Member States. It seeks to propose future policy directions at the country level and regional level, through a potential road map for policy-enabled technology adaptation, as inputs into ASEAN guidelines for digital agriculture. Policy instruments to farm part of this may include those falling within agriculture sector domains, as well as other associated, cross-sectoral applications in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) policy, trade policy, and other policies that enhance digitalisation of agricultural production through existing and evolving technologies, e-commerce platforms, digital financing for inclusive development, and food supply chain resilience.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / Country and Region Studies / International Political Economy

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

25. Exploring Alternative Climate Solutions in a Finite Planet - [COMPLETED]

Ms Margareth Sembiring, Associate Research Fellow

This research aims to examine the relationship between resource extractions, emissions and other environmental and social implications. It seeks to assess existing literature on alternative approaches to climate issues by taking Earth’s finite resources into consideration.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global

26. Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty and ASEAN’s Nuclear Security, Non-proliferation and Disarmament Norms and Actions - [COMPLETED]

Mr Julius Cesar Imperial Trajano, Research Fellow

This study will analyse how ASEAN norms, mechanisms and actions, pertaining to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, nuclear security, non-proliferation and disarmament, complement and implement the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (Ban Treaty) as well as the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

27. COVID-19 Pandemic and Global Governance: Implications for the Indo-Pacific - [COMPLETED]

This paper examines the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on global security governance. It looks at the experience of ASEAN and other states in East Asia in managing COVID-19 and analyses the broader implications of this global health crisis on multilateral security cooperation and governance in Asia.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific

28. A Comparison of Laissez Faire and Developmental State Approaches in Addressing Non-Traditional Security Impacts of Essential Food Commodities - [COMPLETED]

Dr Jose Ma. Luis P. Montesclaros, Research Fellow

Dr Paul Teng, Professor and Adjunct Senior Fellow

What is the appropriate role of the state, when some policy tools needed for addressing market challenges may entail going against free trade rules? This RSIS Working Paper builds on two earlier critique papers on classical economic theory, and seeks to identify the determinants of why states adopt laissez faire and developmental state policies, in the case of essential commodities.

Theme: International Political Economy / Non-Traditional Security

Region: Global

29. Current and Potential Comparative Advantage: The Case of Sub-optimal Application of Technologies by Smallholder Farmers - [COMPLETED]

Dr Jose Ma. Luis P. Montesclaros, Research Fellow

This is a planned journal article.
Ensuring that technology is fully applied to the production of crops is a key factor that affects productivity levels for any crop, allowing farmers to reach the “potential yield” of crops in the absence of nutrient and environmental stressors. Higher use of technology enables for a greater quantity of output for every unit of input applied, including variable and fixed/capital factors. However, farmers have a unique “demand curve” for their uptake of technology, in that it hinges on the profits that they will get from selling their food, and in turn, on food prices. Data shows that ASEAN farmers are presently producing below the optimal level of yields, because of market barriers faced by smallholder farmers that dominate the region’s farmers. Given that a country’s productivity levels determine its comparative advantage, a laissez faire approach would tend to reinforce the status quo level of technology adoption among the region’s farmers.

Theme: International Political Economy / Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

30. Examining Post-COVID19 Climate Action in Southeast Asia - [COMPLETED]

Ms Margareth Sembiring, Associate Research Fellow

The COVID-19 outbreak has heightened the tension between the economy and the care for the Earth. The economic downturn and resulting massive unemployment are likely to be responded with recovery measures that aim at quick results, which could mean a disregard to climate agenda. The competing priorities are inevitable due to the pervasive economic impacts that hurt virtually all sectors. In Southeast Asia, both renewable energy and the oil industries are being negatively affected. Although the idea for sustainable recovery has much practical relevance to avert the consequences of a climate crisis, the extent to which countries will choose this path over getting back to business-as-usual is not yet clear. This research project aims to trace and examine the progress of climate action in a post-COVID-19 Southeast Asia.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

31. The Impossibility of Addressing Undernourishment in the Presence of Perfect Competition Alone - [COMPLETED]

Dr Jose Ma. Luis P. Montesclaros, Research Fellow

This is a planned journal article.
Market outcomes of supply of food, and food prices, appear to have stabilised at a sub-optimal level that translates to a 10.7% global undernourishment prevalence with 0% year-to-year progress since 2015. Given concave demand functions, this means that a pareto-improvement exists, except that it is undetected in the current system that measures food demand ex-post rather than ex-ante. To illustrate this, the paper constructs a simple model that links undernourishment outcomes to consumption levels and food prices; food prices to supplies; supplies to the optimal levels of use of factors of production; and the use of factors of production to production costs and prices. It then presents an impossibility theorem that in the presence of consumption gaps within a pre-existing market equilibrium, it is impossible for a perfectly competitive market to eventuate non-zero levels of undernourishment, even if this would have been the true pareto improvement.

Theme: International Political Economy / Non-Traditional Security

Region: Global

32. What are the Economic Impacts of a Pandemic? - [COMPLETED]

Dr Jose Ma. Luis P. Montesclaros, Research Fellow

This is an invited book chapter to be published in September 2020.
This chapter explains the economic impacts of today’s lockdown policies intuitively, highlighting the channels through which a health crisis evolves into an economic crisis. It also discusses the types of government interventions required and highlights how fiscal constraints may prevent some countries from avoiding the impacts, and how income constraints may cause some groups to suffer a larger share of the burden of the pandemic. The “Great Lockdown”, a play of words used by the International Monetary Fund to describe the current crisis, is of a different nature from the 2007-2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC), and requires greater international financial cooperation in helping all countries to put an end to the COVID-19’s infection “circuit” as soon as possible.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security

Region: Global

33. ASEAN, Peace and Security in Rakhine State, Myanmar - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Ms S. Nanthini, Associate Research Fellow

This project follows on from the previous project, “The Rakhine Crisis: UEHRD, Southeast Asian Contributions and the Search for Durable Solutions”. This project further assesses the institutional responses to the crisis including through bilateral and multilateral avenues such as ASEAN mechanisms. Using the preliminary findings in the RSIS Policy Report published as part of the previous project “Pathways for ASEAN Contributions to Sustainable Peace and Security in Rakhine State, Myanmar”, it will engage with stakeholders to explore the different pathways put forward in the report, through which they can contribute in Rakhine state and further develop ASEAN engagement in Sustainable Peace and Security in Rakhine State, Myanmar.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

34. Emerging Humanitarian Technologies and their Impact in Southeast Asia - [COMPLETED]

Mr Richard Bitzinger, Visiting Senior Fellow

Mr Christopher Chen, Associate Research Fellow

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

35. Impact of Disaster-Conflict-Pandemic Nexus on Humanitarian Leadership in the Indo-Pacific - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Ms S. Nanthini, Associate Research Fellow

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global

36. Regional Organisations in the Indo-Pacific - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Mr Christopher Chen, Associate Research Fellow

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security

Region: South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

37. The Belt and Road Initiative, Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management in Southeast Asia - [COMPLETED]

Dr Lina Gong, Research Fellow

This project seeks to explore how ASEAN and its member states can benefit from the BRI in the area of humanitarian affairs and disaster management. The aim of this research is to facilitate the understanding of China’s thinking and approach to cooperation on humanitarian affairs and disaster management. It will identify the challenges and opportunities for Southeast Asian countries to use the BRI resources to support their own disaster management. Specifically, the research examines how different Chinese actors have been engaging with their Southeast Asian counterparts, particularly their disaster management agencies, military-to-military relations, private sector engagement, and NGOs. It will assess existing frameworks or arrangements to facilitate such interactions; whether and how the BRI has enhanced the cooperation; and how this shapes humanitarian thinking and priorities in the Indo-Pacific.

Theme: Regionalism and Multilateralism / Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

38. OUP Handbook on Peaceful Change in International Relations - [COMPLETED]

Dr Ralf Emmers, Adjunct Senior Fellow and Senior Lecturer in International Politics of East Asia; Co-Chair of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy (CISD)

The primary focus of this handbook is to evaluate ideas at the global level, the possibility for the peaceful accommodation of rising powers, and at the regional level, exploring how and when regions transform into conflictual orders or, alternatively, offer models for cooperation that might emulated globally. First, at the global level, change related to power transitions and the peaceful status accommodation of rising powers, as well as the creation of a just world order, often produces much conflict and violence. Second, the change in regional orders from conflict to cooperation and the possibilities of producing security communities where stable peace exists and member-states do not envision or prepare for war to settle disputes. Third, domestically the positive change might seem to flow from improvements to state capacity and democratic order that allow states to have a positive impact on international and regional orders through greater contributions to international cooperation.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: Global

39. Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) Database: Phase 2 – Civil-Military Relations in HADR in Asia and the Pacific - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Mr Angelo Paolo Luna Trias, Associate Research Fellow

This multi-phase project explores the different forms and modes of HADR cooperation and coordination in Asia and the Pacific. Phase 1 was completed on 31 March 2019. It involved designing and developing an accessible and centralised repository of data for policy-relevant research on ASEAN Member States’ (AMS) HADR engagements. Initial work included tracking financial and in-kind assistance, government personnel mobilised, and military assets deployed by AMS to four major large scale rapid on-set natural disasters.

Phase 2 will examine how civilian-military relations shape, influence, facilitate and/or hinder cooperation and coordination in HADR. It will consolidate, organise and analyse data on the network of relations between and among civilian-military and military-military actors in the region pre-, during, and post-emergencies and disasters.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / East Asia and Asia Pacific / South Asia

40. Philippines HADR Research Project: The Conflict-Disaster Nexus in the Philippines - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Mr Angelo Paolo Luna Trias, Associate Research Fellow

This research project will explore the complex interplay between natural disasters and human-induced disasters such as armed conflict and other forms of mass violence. It will examine the implications when conflict and disaster intersect such as how conflict increase vulnerabilities and exacerbate impacts of disasters as well as how disasters aggravate existing conflict and worsen conditions for violent. The research project will also study the ways conflict management and disaster management-related activities support each other. The study will focus on the Marawi Conflict in 2017. Findings and observations drawn out from this research projects is intended to inform policy makers and practitioners assisting at-risk communities in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from crises or disasters in conflict-affected and fragile settings in Southeast Asia.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

41. Pacific Islands HADR Research Project - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Mr Christopher Chen, Associate Research Fellow

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific

42. Humanitarian Technology: RSIS-ICRC Data Protection Project - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Mr Christopher Chen, Associate Research Fellow

Theme: International Politics and Security / Non-Traditional Security / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global / East Asia and Asia Pacific / South Asia

43. Climate Change Mitigation through CDM and REDD+ in Southeast Asia

Ms Margareth Sembiring, Associate Research Fellow

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has created several mechanisms to facilitate climate change mitigation efforts in developing countries. Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) were established to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the energy and forestry sectors respectively. This research assesses the interactions among actors involved in these initiatives in countries across Southeast Asia. It aims to examine the gaps and challenges in implementing climate mitigation solutions proposed by multilateral institutions such as the UNFCCC. It identifies best practices in optimising such solutions at the national level.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

44. Asia and the Humanitarian World - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Dr Lina Gong, Research Fellow

Mr Julius Cesar Imperial Trajano, Research Fellow

Ms Tiola, Senior Analyst

Mr Keoni Indrabayu Marzuki, Associate Research Fellow

Mr Christopher Chen, Associate Research Fellow

This research project seeks to understand perspectives from Asia on the dynamics, limits and possibilities of humanitarian action. This is against the background of increasing contributions to global governance from the region. The research project will also assess the current status of multilateral humanitarian settings, review bilateral humanitarian cooperation and discuss the evolving role of non-traditional humanitarian actors. This project reflects on the commitments made at the World Humanitarian Summit 2016 in which stakeholders from different sectors came together to identify ways in which to reform the global humanitarian system. The follow up conference will bring together these scholars to share their perspectives and contribute them to a special edition of a journal or edited volume.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security / Maritime Security / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / General / Conflict and Stability

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global / East Asia and Asia Pacific / South Asia

45. China’s Greater Commitment to Global Governance: Implications for Governance of Non-traditional Security Issues in East Asia - [COMPLETED]

Dr Lina Gong, Research Fellow

China’s foreign policy has gradually shifted away from the principle of “keeping a low profile” to that of “achieving something” in recent years. A good example of this trend is China’s greater commitment to issues of global concern like peace and conflict and climate change. There are different approaches to addressing global challenges and the existing system is influenced by values and norms of developed countries. This project will seek to understand China’s approach to global governance, compare it with existing models, and examine the implications of China’s expanded role in global governance. This research will also attempt to analyse how changes in China’s foreign policy influence regional governance, like whether and how a more proactive China leads to opportunities for and/or challenges to strengthened China-ASEAN cooperation in governance of non-traditional security issues.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Global

46. Marine Environmental Protection Governance in the South China Sea: Prospects of Cooperation - [COMPLETED]

Dr Lina Gong, Research Fellow

Ms Margareth Sembiring, Associate Research Fellow

Mr Julius Cesar Imperial Trajano, Research Fellow

This project will attempt to fill the research gap in the current policy debates and studies on the South China Sea disputes by examining marine environmental protection in this contested strategic sealane based on the existing literature and discussions. This project will explore the norms of marine environmental protection and regional cooperation as applied to the South China Sea. It will also highlight the importance of marine environmental protection as a shared responsibility of claimant states, ASEAN and relevant Dialogue Partners (e.g. Japan, China, the U.S., and Australia). It will explore the prospects of regional cooperation on marine environmental cooperation in the South China Sea and identify key issues that may hinder regional cooperation. It will likewise explore the applicability of current international environmental laws and conventions to the South China Sea, and how they can complement regional initiatives to protect the marine ecosystem in the disputed waters.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

47. Contributing to Food Security and Fulfilling Agriculture’s Commercial Potential through Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture in Singapore

Dr Paul Teng, Professor and Adjunct Senior Fellow

Dr Jose Ma. Luis P. Montesclaros, Research Fellow

Singapore imports more than 90 per cent of its total food consumption, and grows some quantities of eggs, fish and vegetables. There are plans of boosting these numbers, although any initiative will need to value-add to the country’s economy and productivity. In order to be more food secure amid the limitation of space, the government has supported technologies such as vertical farming, and provided funding to help farmers upgrade practices. This study will look into the types of technologies that can be leveraged to boost farming’s productivity, and allow for greater production within the limits of space, water and labour. It will further study the enabling environment for technology, focusing on the technology-policy interface.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

48. Assessing Gaps and Opportunities in Food Safety for Safer Food Production in ASEAN

Dr Jose Ma. Luis P. Montesclaros, Research Fellow

Dr Jorgen Schlundt, Professor and Director, NTU Food Technology Centre

This project aims to examine the current threats to food safety in ASEAN and explore ways to foster and enhance collaboration on food security. This project will produce a policy-relevant paper on how ASEAN as an institution, and its member states can address the types of food-borne diseases (FBD) that have plagued the region over the years. This is to be achieved by mapping out the ASEAN institutions involved in FBD management, and identifying gaps when compared to successful FBD management systems in countries/institutions such as Denmark and the European Union. This study will be limited to the top three to four diseases related to biotic factors (such as bacteria, parasites, and viruses), identified based on World Health Organization (WHO) Data. Literature review and stakeholder interviews will be done to provide insights on the ground. This research is being done in collaboration with the newly established NTU Food Technology Centre (NAFTEC).

Theme: Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

49. Knowledge Management for Humanitarian Continuity (Project 3 of Choped-Asia Project) - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Mr Christopher Chen, Associate Research Fellow

Tracing how organisations engaged in the humanitarian space capture and transfer knowledge to contribute to institutional memory, this project examines the role of knowledge management in humanitarian operations in the Asia Pacific.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific

50. Mapping and Analysis of HADR Landscape (Project 2 of Choped-Asia Project) - [COMPLETED]

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme

Mr Christopher Chen, Associate Research Fellow

For a comprehensive understanding of the regional landscape, this project will build a solid foundation by analysing the current and emerging actors involved in HADR in the Asia Pacific. Through mapping the landscape and then analysing their interactions, we will develop the intellectual capacity in Singapore to contribute to the global debate and provide an assessment of how the mechanisms in the region can coordinate the region’s response when disasters strike.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific

51. Mapping Regional Frameworks for Nuclear Energy Governance in the Asia Pacific

Mr Julius Cesar Imperial Trajano, Research Fellow

The project explores pathways toward building a robust framework for nuclear energy governance in the Asia Pacific, including ASEAN. It has the following objectives: i) To look into the nuclear energy plans of East Asian/ASEAN countries, including the construction of nuclear power plants in the region, ii) To examine the regulatory frameworks on nuclear energy in ASEAN and the Asia Pacific and iii) To explore the feasibility of a “wider regional framework/blueprint for nuclear energy cooperation in the Asia Pacific”, building on some of the existing regional frameworks such as the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (SEANWFZ) Treaty, Forum for Nuclear Cooperation in Asia, etc.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security / Cybersecurity, Biosecurity and Nuclear Safety / Energy Security

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

Centre of Excellence for National Security

1. Youth Extremism in Central and Western Mindanao - [COMPLETED]

Mr Joseph Franco, Research Fellow

This project intends to partner with experts based in the Islamic City of Marawi and Zamboanga City to assess radicalisation among youth. This study will look at the impact (if any) of online radicalisation. It will also explore violent extremists’ narratives after the 2017 Battle for Marawi and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Terrorism Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

2. Implementing Indonesia’s National Actional Plan to Prevent Violent Extremism: Opportunities and Challenges - [COMPLETED]

Mr Cameron Sumpter, Adjunct Fellow

This project investigates the opportunities and challenges in the implementation of Indonesia’s national action plan to prevent violent extremism, known as RAN PE. The four-year initial plan was instituted by presidential regulation in January 2021 and aims to improve coordination among stakeholders and build capacity to manage initiatives at regional levels of government.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Terrorism Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

3. Countering Health-Related Misinformation - [COMPLETED]

Dr Gulizar Haciyakupoglu, Senior Associate Fellow

Dr Gulizar Haciyakupoglu, Research Fellow at CENS, has received a partial funding of US$8,300 from the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA) Faculty Fund. Collaborating with Asst Prof D.J. Flynn and Asst Prof Nina Wiesehomeier of IE University in Spain, the joint research project examines best measures to counter misinformation, including health-related misinformation, in the United States and India. The study, which will be completed in 2021, seeks to aid the efforts of policymakers in combating misinformation.

Theme: General / Cybersecurity, Biosecurity and Nuclear Safety

Region: Global / Americas / South Asia

4. CENS Participation in Global Network on Extremism & Technology (GNET) - [COMPLETED]

Mr Joseph Franco, Research Fellow

Mr Cameron Sumpter, Adjunct Fellow

Dr Shashi Jayakumar, Senior Fellow and Head of Centre of Excellence for National Security; Executive Coordinator of Future Issues and Technology

RSIS is one of the core partners of the Global Network on Extremism & Technology (GNET). GNET is an academic research initiative backed by the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), an independent but industry-funded initiative for better understanding, and counteracting, terrorist use of technology.

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: Global

5. Radicalisation Studies Programme Expert Online Survey - [COMPLETED]

Mr Joseph Franco, Research Fellow

Mr Cameron Sumpter, Adjunct Fellow

Dr Shashi Jayakumar, Senior Fellow and Head of Centre of Excellence for National Security; Executive Coordinator of Future Issues and Technology

Online survey to gauge views and opinions of current and emerging trends of violent extremism, counter-terrorism opportunities and preventing/countering violent extremism in respective regions of specialty/expertise.

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: Global

6. Youth Extremism in Central and Western Mindanao - [COMPLETED]

Mr Joseph Franco, Research Fellow

This project intends to partner with experts based in the Islamic City of Marawi and Zamboanga City to assess radicalisation among youth.

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

7. Preventing Individual Pathways to Violent Extremism in Indonesia - [COMPLETED]

Mr Cameron Sumpter, Adjunct Fellow

Targeted or “secondary” prevention strategies aim to identify individuals “at-risk” of involvement in violent extremist activity, and then attempt to divert them towards more constructive endeavours. Despite a number of shortcomings and controversies, such initiatives have been established in several nations. However, this approach has not been widely adopted in Indonesia, where prevention efforts are either more generally focused or involve those who have already committed crimes. This project is attempting to find out why.

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

8. China, US and 5G Networks - [COMPLETED]

Ms Pauline C. Reich, Senior Fellow

This project will review the US-China competition and responses of US traditional allies.

Theme: Cybersecurity, Biosecurity and Nuclear Safety

Region: Europe / Americas / East Asia and Asia Pacific

9. Cyber Security, Economic Espionage and Theft of Trade Secrets in the United States – Review of cases 2014-2019 - [COMPLETED]

Ms Pauline C. Reich, Senior Fellow

This project will review the extraditions, indictments, guilty pleas, and convictions pending in the United States – state and non-state actors, and various nationalities.

Theme: Cybersecurity, Biosecurity and Nuclear Safety / International Politics and Security

Region: Americas

10. Online Privacy and Surveillance: Emerging Issues - [COMPLETED]

Ms Pauline C. Reich, Senior Fellow

This project will review the latest controversial issues involving topics such as facial recognition software, biometrics, encryption pros and cons, proposed moratoria on use in various jurisdictions.

Theme: Cybersecurity, Biosecurity and Nuclear Safety

Region: Americas / Europe

11. Policy Note: ISIS Philippines - [COMPLETED]

Mr Joseph Franco, Research Fellow

This policy note will investigate the indigenous sources of conflict in Mindanao and critically assess the alleged influence of foreign jihadists. This note shall focus on providing policy recommendations that include delinking Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) from peacebuilding and to explore CVE initiatives based on indigenous practices.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Terrorism Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

12. Postcolonial Governmentalities: Rationalities, Violences and Contestations - [COMPLETED]

Dr Terri-Anne Teo, Research Fellow and Coordinator of Social Resilience Programme

Volume contributors place governmentality and postcolonial approaches in productive conversation by examining a variety of sites and practices, considering how such a framework can help illuminate the rationalities, “violences” and contestations of contemporary (post) colonial governance. This volume highlights postcolonial scholarship that enhances and critiques governmentality approaches. Postcolonial perspectives show how governance can be productive and repressive, functioning to impose a fixed code of conduct that objectifies “others” through its project of improvement. In discussing governance, we consider how power is negotiated and challenged through forms of resistance and counter-conduct. The volume will appeal to scholars of Foucault and those seeking to move beyond a ”Western” focus.

Theme: General / International Politics and Security

Region: Global

13. China’s Social Credit System: Contexts, Impacts and Challenges - [COMPLETED]

Dr Gulizar Haciyakupoglu, Senior Associate Fellow

Dr Wu Shang-Su, Research Fellow

Theme: Country and Region Studies

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific

14. Civic Multiculturalism in Singapore: Revisiting Citizenship, Rights and Recognition - [COMPLETED]

Dr Terri-Anne Teo, Research Fellow and Coordinator of Social Resilience Programme

This book is about multiculturalism, broadly defined as the recognition, respect and accommodation of cultural differences. Teo proposes a framework of multicultural denizenship that includes group-specific rights and intercultural dialogue, by problematising three issues: (i) the unacknowledged misrecognition of non-citizens within the scholarship of multiculturalism; (ii) uncritical treatment of citizens and non-citizens as binary categories; and (iii) problematic parcelling of group-specific rights with citizenship rights. Drawing on the case of Singapore as an illustrative example, where temporary labour migrants are culturally stereotyped, socioeconomically disenfranchised and denied access to rights accorded only to citizens, Teo argues that understandings of multiculturalism need to be expanded and adjusted to include a fluidity of identities, spectrum of rights and shared experiences of marginalisation among citizens and non-citizens.

Theme: Religion in Contemporary Society / Singapore and Homeland Security / General / Non-Traditional Security

Region: Global / East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

15. Cybercrime and Cybersecurity Law and Policy - [COMPLETED]

Ms Pauline C. Reich, Senior Fellow

1) PRC chapter, CYBERCRIME AND SECURITY publication – searching for English translations of Chinese laws mentioned in the chapter
2) GDPR in Asia – chapter, CYBERCRIME AND SECURITY publication – awaiting additional inputs by author
3) RSIS Commentary – Cybersecurity, Economic Espionage and Theft of Trade Secrets Criminal Activities in the United States – Can Cybercrime Prosecution Be Used as a Response to State-Sponsored Intrusion? – to be completed within July 2019
4) RSIS Commentary – Huawei Relations with Japan: Case Study and Comparison with Market Access in Other Countries – 2019 – completed and submitted

Theme: Cybersecurity, Biosecurity and Nuclear Safety

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific

16. Detecting Future “Marawis” - [COMPLETED]

Mr Joseph Franco, Research Fellow

This project looks at the overlooked drivers that led to the Battle for Marawi. It will assess how clan politics and local issues led to the internationalised conflict. Field research will be conducted in Metro Manila, central Mindanao, and other areas that are potential sites of Marawi-style uprisings.

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

17. Terrorism, Radicalisation & Countering Violent Extremism - [COMPLETED]

Dr Shashi Jayakumar, Senior Fellow and Head of Centre of Excellence for National Security; Executive Coordinator of Future Issues and Technology

The volume contains nine contributions including the introduction drawn (with one exception) from presentations given at workshops held by the Centre of Excellence for National Security at RSIS in 2016 and 2017. These annual workshops bring together some of the foremost practitioners and academics in the field, sharing (mainly to an audience of government officials and practitioners) the essentials of the national CVE (countering violent extremism) systems they work in (or on), as well as what approaches to deradicalisation and disengagement. Contributors were asked to revisit their original remarks, and to take into account feedback and audience response from the syndicate discussions at the workshops. The point was not simply to issue simple conference proceedings, but to provide to government officials, practitioners, and the interested general reader thought through examinations of current approaches—national, as well as conceptual—to CVE and deradicalisation.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Terrorism Studies / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: Global

18. The Societal Reintegration of Prisoners Convicted of Terrorism Offences in Indonesia - [COMPLETED]

Mr Cameron Sumpter, Adjunct Fellow

The societal reintegration of former prisoners convicted of terrorism offences is an often overlooked aspect of a state’s counter-terrorism policy portfolio. In Indonesia, several hundred people have been released from prison in the past 10 years after serving sentences for involvement in or support for terrorism. Both state agencies and civil society organisations have worked towards facilitating their successful transition back into society, but resources appear to be modest and recent cases of recidivism suggest that efforts may be falling short. The present study seeks to evaluate initiatives to reintegrate former terrorist prisoners with Indonesian society. It will attempt to gauge the specific problems faced by returning prisoners, as well as state and non-state efforts to address the difficulties of readjusting to normal life.

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

19. National Service in Singapore [Edited Volume] - [COMPLETED]

Mr Ho Shu Huang, Teaching Fellow

Dr Graham Ong-Webb, Adjunct Fellow

Mr Eddie Lim, Head, Outreach

Ms Nur Diyanah Binte Anwar, Adjunct Research Associate

Ms Priscilla Cabuyao, Research Analyst CENS

Theme: General / Singapore and Homeland Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

Centre for Multilateralism Studies

1. Sino-Centric Multilateralism and Regional States’ Responses

Dr Kaewkamol Pitakdumrongkit, Senior Fellow and Head of Centre for Multilateralism Studies

Dr Joel Ng, Research Fellow and Deputy Head of Centre for Multilateralism Studies

Little attention has been paid to the phenomenon of “Sino-centric multilateralism” which encompasses new global structures China has been creating to better suit its interests and enhance its leadership. These typically started with summits that formalise over time as activities are institutionalized, or else are developed in forums largely occupied by the global South. This research delves into the recent Sino-centric multilateralism as China actively shapes and spearheads international institutions and platforms to advance its strategic interests. It explores the nuanced strategies employed by the regional states in response to China’s activism in various multilateral fora and institutions.

Theme: Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region:

2. Economic Security in the Indo-Pacific

Dr Kaewkamol Pitakdumrongkit, Senior Fellow and Head of Centre for Multilateralism Studies

This project investigates the economic (in)security of the ASEAN member states and ASEAN Dialogue Partners. It identifies the vulnerabilities in the Indo-Pacific supply chains in several industries and proposes steps to be taken via multilateral cooperation to bolster the states’ economic security.

Theme: Regionalism and Multilateralism / Country and Region Studies / International Political Economy

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

3. Multilateral Responses to Great Power Competition

Dr Joel Ng, Research Fellow and Deputy Head of Centre for Multilateralism Studies

The Post-World War 2 liberal international order (LIO) was lauded for its inclusivity. However, pressures from rising powers are pushing the US towards a more exclusive order. Regions that thrived under the LIO face challenges adapting to this shift, marked by lines like 'democracies vs autocracies,' 'strategic autonomy vs spheres of influence,' and US-China confrontation. While the typology of choice frameworks at the nation-state level of analysis have clear frameworks (balancing, bandwagoning, hedging), the aggregation of interests at the multilateral level is more complex amid growing exclusionary competition. This project deploys comparative analysis of regional organizations to theorize how multilateral logics may evolve under conditions of increasing competition and confrontation.

Theme: Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: Global

4. Small States and the Multilateral System: Creating a More Inclusive and Equitable World for All

Dr Kaewkamol Pitakdumrongkit, Senior Fellow and Head of Centre for Multilateralism Studies

Dr Joel Ng, Research Fellow and Deputy Head of Centre for Multilateralism Studies

This joint project between CMS and International Peace Institute (IPI) delves into the agency of small states in the multilateral system and provides policy recommendations on how to enhance such agency. The study strives to achieve 3 objectives: (1) to examine how issues of interests to small states can best be advanced at the UN and within the broader multilateral system; (2) to encourage small states to work together to bolster their influence in shaping the UN and the multilateral system; and (3) to raise the awareness of small states’ roles in addressing transnational issues and managing the global commons.

Theme: Regionalism and Multilateralism / International Political Economy / International Politics and Security

Region: Global

5. Legitimation Strategies in the International Organisation of the Asia-Pacific - [COMPLETED]

Dr Joel Ng, Research Fellow and Deputy Head of Centre for Multilateralism Studies

This project explores how growing Sino-US tensions have led to a contest over the regional security architecture governing the Asia-Pacific. ASEAN, still officially the default leader of regional formats such as the East Asia Summit, ASEAN Regional Forum, and ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus, has been increasingly sidestepped. The great power competitors have grown disinclined to dilute their agendas through ASEAN’s consensus mechanism and sought to formulate their own vehicles, such as the Quad Plus and Belt and Road Conference. Yet supplanting ASEAN structures requires legitimation, not only for the legitimacy of the alternative format, but also to attract support and buy-in, especially from ASEAN member states. Using Lenz and Söderbaum’s three analytical perspectives to classify US-led, China-led, and ASEAN-led initiatives in the region, the project investigates how discursive, behavioural, and isomorphic legitimation strategies have developed respectively for each actor.

Theme: Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

6. Managing Economic Statecraft via Multilateral Agreements: The Roles of ASEAN Member States in Shaping Regional Comprehensive Economic Cooperation - [COMPLETED]

Dr Kaewkamol Pitakdumrongkit, Senior Fellow and Head of Centre for Multilateralism Studies

This project explores how small states conduct their economic statecraft (ES) and counter major powers’ ES in the multilateral settings. It seeks to shed light on the question: “How do small states tweak the details of multilateral governance frameworks to advance their ES and lessen major powers’ ES?” The case of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) was selected to demonstrate how small states alter the details of these frameworks to advance their ES and counter other powers’ ES in the realms of international trade. This work enhances our broad understandings of small states’ power and regional economic institutional-building, and provides practical lessons for policymakers involved in fostering international economic governance.

Theme: Regionalism and Multilateralism / Country and Region Studies / International Political Economy

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

7. Chinese Aid and Labor Rights in Developing Countries - [COMPLETED]

Dr Su-Hyun Lee, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of MSc (International Political Economy) Programme

A burgeoning literature has examined the political and economic implications of Chinese aid in developing countries, given its structural differences from official development aid (ODA). Nevertheless, scant attention has been paid to the effects of China’s development finance on labor other than anecdotal evidence. This study seeks to fill this gap by identifying the mechanisms under which Chinese development finance affects labor rights in recipient countries. Chinese aid might increase levels of respect for labor rights if development projects focus on industrial sectors that promote public goods provision and developmental outcomes. In contrast, Chinese aid may adversely affect labor rights, serving as sources of additional tax revenues. Recipient governments are less likely to respond to the collective demands of labor, especially when the Chinese government seeks to curry favour with recipient governments for its strategic interests. The paper tests these hypotheses, using AidData

Theme: International Political Economy / Regionalism and Multilateralism / General / Country and Region Studies

Region: South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Africa / Central Asia

8. How Much Yuan Is a Seat on the Security Council Worth? Chinese Foreign Aid and Lobbying at the United Nations - [COMPLETED]

Dr Su-Hyun Lee, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of MSc (International Political Economy) Programme

This is a research project in collaboration with Prof Byungwon Woo at Yonsei University, South Korea. Does China use its foreign aid to buy supports from non-permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)? In this paper, we investigate whether and to what extent China utilizes its foreign aid politically at the UNSC. We argue that China disburses more aid to non-permanent members of the Security Council, especially to those who seem neutral a priori: compared to countries expected to support the Chinese position and countries expected to support the US position, those swing countries who can switch their position in support of China and the US are the ones who would witness the largest aid increase during their service at the UNSC. Using Chinese aid data between 2000 and 2014 by AidData, we demonstrate that Chinese aid increases in general when a country is elected to serve at the UNSC and especially when a country is deemed politically neutral between China and the US

Theme: International Political Economy / Regionalism and Multilateralism / General / Country and Region Studies

Region: South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Africa / Central Asia

9. Sources of Small States’ Influence in International Economic Negotiations - [COMPLETED]

Dr Kaewkamol Pitakdumrongkit, Senior Fellow and Head of Centre for Multilateralism Studies

Asst Prof Kaewkamol Pitakdumrongkit, Deputy Head of the Centre for Multilateralism Studies, has received the Ministry of Education (MOE) Academic Research Fund (AcRF) Tier 1 grant of $84,705.91 for a 36-month study which investigates the sources of small states’ influence in international economic negotiations. It also introduces a new way of conceptualising small states' power in the context of international negotiations. It employs Asia-focused case studies of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, and in reference to Asian small states such as Singapore and Bahrain.

Theme: International Political Economy

Region: Central Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

10. The Political Dynamics of US Trade Policy - [COMPLETED]

Dr Su-Hyun Lee, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of MSc (International Political Economy) Programme

Asst Prof Lee Su-Hyun, Coordinator of the MSc (International Political Economy) Programme at RSIS, has received the MOE AcRF Tier 1 grant of $27,840 for a research project titled “The Political Dynamics of Protectionism: Origins and Consequences.” The project focuses on a book manuscript on American trade policy that examines how incumbent presidents and their parties strategically set trade policy for electoral and partisan goals, and to what extent the distributional consequences of trade affect voting behaviour in US presidential elections. As extensions, the project analyses how trade competition from low income countries, especially from China, has affected the rise of populism and anti-globalisation backlash in advanced industrial countries.

Theme: International Political Economy

Region: Americas / Global

11. Economic Security in the Mekong Subregion - [COMPLETED]

Dr Kaewkamol Pitakdumrongkit, Senior Fellow and Head of Centre for Multilateralism Studies

This paper examines the roles of economic security in affecting the Mekong subregional governance. It aims at answering a broad research question: “How does economic security shape international cooperation outcomes?” My argument is that the fact that regional states’ economic security is undermined or threatened by more powerful external actors triggers their desires to band together and restore such security. Using the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy (ACMECS) as a case study, I show how this grouping’s development has been influenced by economic security of CLMTV. Insights from this study not only enhance our understanding of the dynamics between economic security and subregional governance, but also help policymakers gauge the future directions of subregional cooperation and coin effective policy responses.

Theme: International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / Country and Region Studies / International Political Economy

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

12. A Study to Analyse Economic and Strategic Impacts of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) - [COMPLETED]

Dr Pradumna Bickram Rana, Adjunct Senior Fellow

This study will conduct a comprehensive analysis of the BRI and other cross-border connectivity initiatives in Asia (e.g., ASEAN and ASEAN-India). It will quantify the country-level economic and welfare benefits of various economic corridors that have been proposed by using a Computational General Equilibrium model. It will also conduct a perception survey of Asian opinion leaders on the BRI and other initiatives focusing mainly on the non-economic dimensions of the BRI including the downsides and risks associated with the BRI. The study will enable us to offer a balanced evidence- based as well as perception-based recommendations. This study will result in, at least, two journal articles.

Theme: Maritime Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / International Political Economy / International Politics and Security

Region: Central Asia / East Asia and Asia Pacific / Europe / South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global / Africa / Americas

13. Reconnecting Asia: A Stocktaking of the Chinese and Indian Projects and Strategies - [COMPLETED]

Dr Pradumna Bickram Rana, Adjunct Senior Fellow

In the bygone era when Asia dominated the world, Asian countries were also connected by the Silk Roads. After a disruption that lasted for a number of centuries, land-connectivity is making a comeback once again, for various economic and strategic reasons, and economic corridors are either proposed or being built across Asia. This study has three objectives: (i) discuss connectivity in Asia during the bygone era and the reasons for its decline; (ii) account for the revival of connectivity in the contemporary period; and (iii) stocktake the Chinese (Belt and Road Initiative) and Indian projects and strategies, identify the strengths and weaknesses of the strategies, and make recommendations.

Theme: Maritime Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / International Political Economy / International Politics and Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global / Central Asia / South Asia

14. The Decentralising Global Economic Architecture: Case of the International Trade Architecture - [COMPLETED]

Dr Pradumna Bickram Rana, Adjunct Senior Fellow

Global economic governance is in flux. The centralised global economic architecture established at Bretton Woods is decentralising for various reasons. An increase in the number of international economic institutions per se is neither good nor bad for the provision of global public goods. It depends on how and whether these institutions are working together or competing with each other. This study has two objectives: (i) identify the benefits and costs of the decentralising international trade architecture; and (ii) recommend policies to manage the process. Have the benefits of the decentralising trade architecture outweighed the costs and global economic governance actually improved with decentralisation? Or is it, otherwise? The study will also recommend policy actions to “multilateralise regionalism”.

Theme: International Political Economy / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global / Central Asia / East Asia and Asia Pacific

15. Evolving Global and Regional Governance: Perspectives from Asia - [COMPLETED]

Dr Pradumna Bickram Rana, Adjunct Senior Fellow

The rules-based centralised global economic architecture (GEA) worked well for a number of decades but has recently tend to become decentralised and fragmented with a large number of new regional and sub-regional institutions established in various regions of the world. The decentralisation process is expected to continue under the Trump Presidency as the US support for international economic institutions (IEIs) is expected to weaken while support for regional institutions will continue to remain strong thanks in part to economic dynamism in various parts of the world. This has posed a conundrum for the global order. The objectives of the research are: i) study the evolution and take stock of the various IEIs and the resulting GEA, ii) examine the benefits and costs of the decentralising architecture and recommend ways to minimise the costs while maximising the benefits to improve global governance and iii) identify Asia’s role in the evolving GEA.

Theme: International Political Economy

Region: South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Central Asia / East Asia and Asia Pacific

16. The Politics of Labelling Terrorists - [COMPLETED]

Dr Chia-yi Lee, Assistant Professor

Dr Yasutaka Tominaga, Hosei University

This is a collaborative project with Dr Yasutaka Tominaga at Hosei University. This project aims to examine the causes and consequences of terrorist labelling. Different governments around the world have different lists of designated terrorist groups, and this project seeks to explain this variation and explore the domestic and international determinants of terrorist labelling. We plan to build a comprehensive database on designated terrorist groups and the governments that label them. Using this database, we will investigate the foreign policy and domestic politics considerations that drive the labelling. This project has been awarded MOE AcRF Tier 1 grant for two years.

[Update] Data collection and literature review for this project are nearly completed. The first draft of the research output was presented at the ISA annual conference. We are working on the second draft based on the comments we received at the ISA.

Theme: Terrorism Studies / Conflict and Stability / International Politics and Security

Region: Global

17. The Electoral Effects of Chinese Import Competition in the United States - [COMPLETED]

Dr Su-Hyun Lee, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of MSc (International Political Economy) Programme

How does trade liberalisation with shocks affect voting behaviour? Relying on the recent literature on trade politics (Yotam 2011; Jensen et al. 2017), this research project examines the effects of localised economic shocks from Chinese imports on US presidential elections 1996-2016. Using sectoral data on bilateral trade flows between the US-China and geographical information on the composition of industrial employment, the paper finds that voters more exposed to Chinese import competition are more likely to punish the incumbent president and his co-partisans. The anti-incumbent effects of Chinese import shocks are, however, significantly conditioned by contextual factors, such as executive partisanship and the presence of domestic compensations (e.g. Trade Adjustment Assistance Programs and Social Security Disability Insurance).

The paper was presented at the Annual Meetings of the IPES 2017; the EPSA; the APSA, 2018, ISA, 2019 and MPSA 2019.

Theme: International Political Economy / General / Country and Region Studies

Region: Americas

18. Natural Disasters and Armed Conflict - [COMPLETED]

Dr Chia-yi Lee, Assistant Professor

Dr Yasutaka Tominaga , Hosei University

This is a collaborative project with Dr Yasutaka Tominaga at Hosei University. This study aims to test the causal mechanisms of how natural disasters affect the progress of armed conflict. We argue that a natural disaster reduces the value of future rents that militant members can obtain, and it also destructs the current flows of resources, thus diminishing resource supply to militant members. As a result, we hypothesize that natural disasters (especially those with rapid onsets) reduce the survival of rebel groups, particularly those that rely on stable revenue streams from resources. When a militant group has support from external actors, however, they are less vulnerable to the impact of natural disasters. We test our hypotheses using data on natural disasters, armed conflicts, and rebel funding, and the results support our hypotheses.

[Updated] The manuscript was presented at the ISA Annual Conference in Toronto. We are working on the revisions based on the comments.

Theme: Terrorism Studies / Conflict and Stability / Non-Traditional Security

Region: Global

19. Ethnic Diversity, Political Institutions, and the Provision of Public Goods - [COMPLETED]

Dr Su-Hyun Lee, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of MSc (International Political Economy) Programme

Much previous research has identified ethnic diversity as one of the major factors explaining cross-national differences in economic growth and public policy outcomes. Diversity is negatively associated with various aspects of good governance, as it hinders the ability of a society to communicate on common goals and to sanction those who fail to cooperate. Then why are some countries more successful in overcoming the costs of ethnic division and providing more public goods than others? This paper argues that the relationship between diversity and public good provisions depends on domestic political institutions that shape the incentives and abilities of representative policymakers to serve broad, national constituencies. Using data on public policy outcomes and party politics in 78 countries for the period 1980-2015, the paper finds that high levels of party system nationalisation significantly mitigate the negative effects of diversity on public goods provision.

Theme: International Political Economy / General / Country and Region Studies

Region: Global

20. Mobile Phone Users as Pseudo-brokers in Clientelism: Evidence from Africa - [COMPLETED]

Dr Su-Hyun Lee, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of MSc (International Political Economy) Programme

Dr Han Il Chang, New York University, Abu Dhabi

This is a research project in collaboration with Dr Han Il Chang at New York University, Abu Dhabi. In this paper we study the impact of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) on clientelistic exchanges. Relying on the literature on clientelism in developing countries, we maintain that politicians disproportionately direct private transfers to mobile phone users, who can easily share persuasive messages with their communication partners and provide cascading benefits. Analysing data from the fifth wave of the Afrobarometer survey, we find that mobile phone users are indeed more likely to be targeted. Their chances of being targeted decrease as they reside in urban areas or as their feeling of being monitored rises. The data also reveal that mobile phone users are more likely to persuade others to vote for a certain politician upon receiving private transfers. Our findings imply that mobile phone users serve as pseudo-brokers in clientelistic politics in developing democracies.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Political Economy

Region: Africa

21. IMF = I’M Fired?: IMF Programme Participation and Workers’ Rights - [COMPLETED]

Dr Su-Hyun Lee, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of MSc (International Political Economy) Programme

Dr Byungwon Woo, Professor, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Korea

This research examines the effects of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on labour rights. Critics of the IMF contend that participation in an IMF programme is detrimental to workers’ rights as the IMF tries to impose pro-business labor policies via conditionality. In this paper, we argue that while the IMF might have tried to make IMF programs more beneficial to workers, those efforts are too little to reverse the overall negative effects on labour rights in both short term and long term.

[Update] The paper was presented at the Political Economy of International Organizations (PEIO)’s Annual Meeting in January 2017 at the University of Bern. We are currently checking the robustness of our findings with additional data sources from the 2018 IMF Lending Arrangements & the CIRI Human Rights Dataset.

Theme: General / International Political Economy

Region: Global

International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research

1. Southeast Asian Online Terrorism & Extremism Codebook 2024: Indonesia & Malaysia - [COMPLETED]

Mr Benjamin Mok, Associate Research Fellow

Ms Nurrisha Ismail Fakirra, Senior Analyst

Mr Ahmad Helmi Bin Mohamad Hasbi, Senior Analyst

Mr Saddiq Basha Bin Cekendar Basha, Research Analyst

Mr Alif Satria, Associate Research Fellow

The Codebook is intended to serve as training material for moderators working under the Online Content Moderation teams of GIFCT’s partner organisations. These partner organisations include most major social media tech companies and their respective online platforms. The Codebook collates and assesses symbols, slogans, and slurs that are related to online terrorism and extremism activity within the noted region. This bolsters the capabilities of online content moderators, most of whom are not dedicated Terrorism/Extremism experts. The Codebook will be disseminated amongst their partners at the GIFCT Annual Summit 2024 held in Singapore, as representation of collaboration between GIFCT and regional institutions such as RSIS.

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

2. The Evolution of the Terrorism and Extremism Landscape in the Age of COVID-19 - [COMPLETED]

Dr Kumar Ramakrishna, Professor of National Security Studies; and Provost’s Chair in National Security Studies and Dean of S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies and Research Adviser to International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research

This book chapter examines how the transnational terrorism and extremism landscape has evolved since the so-called religiously-inspired wave that emerged most forcefully with the Al Qaeda attacks in New York and Washington in September 2001, and more recently continued by the virulent Al Qaeda offshoot Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) from the mid-2010s onwards. The chapter will show how not just violent Islamist extremism, but other forms, such as the Extreme Right, have gained momentum in recent years. It will explore the complex, interconnected ideological ecosystems – comprising key religious and political ideologues, educational and religious institutions as well as social media – that have sustained both Islamist extremist and Extreme Right violence, before finally highlighting the key elements of the strategically dexterous approach needed for coping with such rapidly mutating threats.

Theme: Terrorism Studies / Conflict and Stability / International Politics and Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global

3. Understanding the Dynamic of Southeast Asians in the Detention Camps in Syria - [COMPLETED]

Dr Noor Huda Ismail, Visiting Fellow

The project aims to identity Southeast Asians who are now in the Syrian camps, map their network and design the possible ways of how to deal with them that include legal prosecution and social integration.

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

4. Conceptualising Global Jihadism in South Asia - [COMPLETED]

Mr Abdul Basit, Senior Associate Fellow

Mr Mohammed Sinan Siyech, Senior Analyst

This edited volume examines the different dimensions of global jihadism in South Asia. The South Asian region has one of the highest regional concentrations of jihadist groups in the world. In the last four decades, the region has witnessed three major jihadist waves: the Afghan Jihad in the 1980s, the post-9/11 phase spearheaded by Al-Qaeda (AQ) and its affiliated groups, and the current one where AQ and its arch-foe, the Islamic State (IS) have locked horns for ideological preponderance, resources and recruits.

Against this backdrop, various chapters in this book analyses the competition and cooperation between AQ, IS and their regional franchises, exploitation of kin and family networks for recruitment and radicalisation as well as the evolving role of female militants from secondary roles to primary roles. Other chapters include spatial analysis of global jihadism, looking at geographies offering safe havens to terrorists for hiding, training and planning attacks.

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: South Asia

5. COVID-19: A Challenge or Opportunity for Terrorist Groups? - [COMPLETED]

Mr Abdul Basit, Senior Associate Fellow

This forum article has been accepted in Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism on 21 September 2020 and will be published in October 2020. It explores new opportunities and challenges amid geopolitical transformation during COVID-19. Whereas terrorist groups are struggling to launch conventional attacks during the lockdown, they have a captive young audience on the internet to recruit and radicalise. Similarly, though travel restrictions have limited the mobility of terrorists; they are spending off time to learn new skills. This article, keeping the above in view, synthesises the opportunities and challenges for the terrorists to assess the evolving terrorist landscape. The persistence of religious terrorism, despite the weakening of Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, alongside the emergence of the far-right terrorism in the West, renders the existing terrorist landscape chronic. While the internet and social media have revolutionised terrorist recruitment and radicalis

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: South Asia

6. The Theological Driver of Right Wing Extremism (RWE) and the Islamist Extremism (IE) - [COMPLETED]

This research examines the theological drivers behind white supremacist extremism and Islamist extremism. Both groups justify violent behaviour to protect their identities. The study will demonstrate that extreme religiosity and ignorant convictions are among the factors leading to xenophobia, which in turn, motivates religious violence.

Theme: Singapore and Homeland Security / Terrorism Studies / International Politics and Security / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Middle East and North Africa (MENA) / Americas / Europe

7. Tracing the History of Fake News and Violence in India - [COMPLETED]

Mr Mohammed Sinan Siyech, Senior Analyst

Ms Archana Atmakuri, Research Analyst, Institute of South Asian Studies

This is a journal article that seeks to trace the history of fake news/rumours and violence in India. It aims to shed light on the psychological process of fake news leading to violence among societies in India by comparing violent events driven by false information in two eras being post-independence to 2010 and from 2010 – 2020 where digital media assumed ubiquity.

Using a combination of literature on fake news, rumour studies, news reports and Facebook and WhatsApp posts, this paper aims to establish the common and the divergent reasons that allows misinformation to cause violence. We argue that i) violence rooted in misinformation is inevitable given historic precedents and is not a new phenomenon, ii) Social media companies, while bearing some responsibility, are only agents and the malaise is rooted in human tendencies. These arguments are located within the Indian context helping to flesh out the debate further for academics and policymakers.

Theme: Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: South Asia

8. Persistence and Longevity of Terrorism in Pakistan - [COMPLETED]

Mr Abdul Basit, Senior Associate Fellow

This journal article examines the persistence and longevity of terrorism in Pakistan. In Pakistan’s context, paradoxically, both cooperation and competition among the terrorist organisations are positively linked to resilience of terrorism. Philipps identifies three conditions for competition-cooperation dynamics to enhance longevity of terrorism: i) these interactions have to be inter-organisational, ii) the state where these interactions take place has to be a democracy, and iii) the operational environment has to be competitive, dynamic and multi-actor. Pakistan fulfills all three conditions, it is a functioning democracy, the country’s militant landscape is competitive and dynamic where more than 100 terrorist groups of various persuasions operate, and inter-organisational rivalries and cooperation is commonplace. In Pakistan, the discourse on terrorism needs to be remoulded from defeating, which is a misnomer, to failing terrorism and making its ideological and political appeal ir

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: South Asia

9. Mapping Islamic State’s Presence in the Malay Archipelago - [COMPLETED]

Mr Kenneth Yeo, Associate Research Fellow

Mr Raffaello Pantucci, Adjunct Senior Fellow

Ms Unaesah Rahmah, Senior Analyst

The aim of the project is to host a live interactive map on ICPVTR website for analysts to use as a resource for terrorism studies in Southeast Asia. Primary tools of analysis include the use of heat density plots to identify hotspots of terrorism, categorising/filtering incidents by groups to understand the reach of each group, and categorising/filtering the types of activities conducted by terrorists to highlight the modus operandi of terrorists or insurgents.

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

10. The Islamic State Terror Plot in Germany: The Tajik Connection - [COMPLETED]

Mr Nodirbek Soliev, Senior Analyst

Being part of a project that is planned to be published in a practitioner-oriented journal on terrorism and counterterrorism issues, this article seeks to explore the alleged terror plot by a Tajik Islamic State cell to attack U.S. military bases in Germany, which was thwarted by German police in April 2020. Drawing on local newspaper reports in Russian, Tajik and Uzbek, the author maps out the entire IS network that was in charge of the plot. The findings suggest that IS maintains clandestine cells across Europe that are responsive to its orders. The group understands the importance of migrant communities as important factors in sustaining terrorist activities. It has thus heavily invested in online propaganda and recruitment operation among vulnerable segments within migrant communities in Europe, including Central Asians. Given the fact that the Central Asian international diaspora is expanding, a risk of radicalisation of a tiny minority of them remains a long term security concern

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: Middle East and North Africa (MENA) / Central Asia / Europe

11. Tracing the Fate of Central Asian Fighters in Syria: Remainers, Repatriates, Returnees, and Relocators - [COMPLETED]

Mr Nodirbek Soliev, Senior Analyst

This article, while being intended to be published as a peer-reviewed journal article, provides a preliminary quantitative study of the current status of Central Asian fighters in Syria and Iraq, with a specific focus on the question of where and how they might be leaving the battlefield after concluding their active fighting roles. Drawing on the available data collected exclusively from local online sources as well as regional events covering the subject, the article develops common profiles of the known contingent and identifies overall patterns in their movements. In order to help with analysis, the entire contingent is grouped into four distinct categories, or the 4 “Rs”: “remainers”, “repatriates”, “returnees”, and “relocators”. This typological frame enables a closer study of the characteristics and impact of each category, which could be employed to look at other FTF cohorts.

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: Central Asia / Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

12. Copycats, Clusters or Networks? What Can We Learn about Chains of Terrorist attacks - [COMPLETED]

Mr Raffaello Pantucci, Adjunct Senior Fellow

This is a series of papers based on extensive data based research. It is an attempt to understand how emulation in terrorist plotting works. The aim is not to understand how terrorist direction works of large plots (and why groups push certain strategies rather than others, or how they might learn from previous success), but rather to better understand how individuals (lone actor terrorists) are inspired by each other to launch similar terrorist attacks in advance of their chosen ideology. The project is building a large database of terrorist plots, drawing on a wide range of open source data to provide a dataset which the researchers will mine for patterns and understanding. The ultimate goal of the project is to produce a series of research papers, alongside a set of more concise policy papers which will provide recommendations for security officials, policymakers and practitioners.

Theme: Singapore and Homeland Security / Terrorism Studies

Region: Global

13. The Persistence of Terrorism in Pakistan: An Analysis of Domestic and Regional Factors - [COMPLETED]

Mr Abdul Basit, Senior Associate Fellow

Since the Peshawar Army Public School attack in December 2014, Pakistan has come a long way in its fight against terrorism. Both terrorist incidents and casualties have declined significantly across Pakistan. Yet, the twin challenge of extremism and terrorism persists due to the unbalanced counter-terrorism framework. Though Pakistan has made a significant progress against the terrorist threat, at the operational level, the structural factors of terrorism remain unaddressed. Against this backdrop, this chapter analyses the current status and future of terrorism in Pakistan, arguing that terrorism is likely to persist as a long-term low-intensity threat due to the evolving geopolitical situation and the absence of non-kinetic counter-terrorism measures in the country’s internal security framework. Divided into two sections, the chapter first looks into Pakistan’s threat landscape and then examines the structural factors of violence.

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: South Asia

14. Sinostan: China’s Inadvertent Empire - [COMPLETED]

Mr Raffaello Pantucci, Adjunct Senior Fellow

This book project examines China’s relations with the five Central Asian powers – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, looking at the relationship through economic, political, security and cultural lenses. It is based on considerable on-the-ground research done over the past decade in all six countries (and beyond in India, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan). It also seeks to make the case that China’s interests in Central Asia are fundamentally about Xinjiang, and the China’s relations with Central Asia provide a blueprint for the broader Belt and Road Initiative. The book will be published by Oxford University Press in the summer of 2021.

Theme: International Politics and Security

Region: Central Asia / East Asia and Asia Pacific

15. Comparing Salafism in India and Pakistan: Identity Politics and Violence - [COMPLETED]

Mr Mohammed Sinan Siyech, Senior Analyst

Contemporary research on Jihadist and other violent Muslim organisations place a significant amount of blame on ideological drivers within Islam. This article seeks to challenge that assertion by comparing Islamic movements in India and Pakistan. Analysing Salafist movements in both the nations, it demonstrates that factions within of the movement in Pakistan have turned violent in Pakistan whereas they have remained wholly peaceful in India. Consequently, it argues that political patronage, state tolerance of extremism for political gains and other related factors, have played a larger role in forming a collective identity that encourages violence rather than ideology alone.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security / Religion in Contemporary Society / Terrorism Studies / General / Conflict and Stability

Region: South Asia

16. Freedom and Violence - [COMPLETED]

Dr Irm Haleem, Assistant Professor and School Academic Integrity Officer (SAIO)

This is an article for a philosophy journal that examines the reasons why freedom and violence are often understood in symbiotic manner. The article engages notions of responsibility and the paradox of freedom to shed light on why expressions of freedom often, and inevitably, culminate into violence. In this article, the author analyses cases of freedom and violence in liberal and illiberal contexts through the lens of political philosophy, namely, critical works on freedom and responsibility by philosophers such as Thomas Nagel, Isaiah Berlin, Karl Popper, and Uwe Steinhoff, amongst others.

Theme: General / Conflict and Stability

Region: Global

17. The Paradox of Resistance - [COMPLETED]

Dr Irm Haleem, Assistant Professor and School Academic Integrity Officer (SAIO)

This is an article for a philosophy journal that examines why and how alliegence to a resistance group (whether secular or religious) gives rise to a peculiar, often dismissed, paradox. In this article, the author conceptualises resistance and show how and why resistance, as a human phenomeon, is so intricately tied to the existential strugges for individual and social recognition, and how this desire for recognition inevitably creates the paradox of resistance.

Theme: General / Conflict and Stability

Region: Global

18. Countering Islamic State Ideology: Voices of Singapore Religious Scholars – An Edited Volume - [COMPLETED]

Dr Rohan Gunaratna, Professor of Security Studies

Dr Muhammad Haniff Hassan, Research Fellow

This volume is about countering IS warped ideology and propaganda based on misinterpretation and misapplication of Islamic intellectual tradition for the purpose of mobilising young impressionable Muslims from all over the world.

The volume seeks to demonstrate how IS ideology and propaganda is theologically misguided by offering the correct and authoritative understanding of Islam.

The volume compiles various articles that focus on refuting specific aspect of IS ideology by local Singapore Muslim clerics who have dedicated time in researching IS extremist ideology, rehabilitating local radicalised individuals and public counter-radicalisation works. The volume, thus, serves to document their efforts and voices in combating extremism among Muslims in Singapore.

Theme: Singapore and Homeland Security / Terrorism Studies

Region: South Asia / Global

19. Identifying an Illegitimate War in Islam: The Case of Qital al-Fitnah - [COMPLETED]

Mr Muhammad Saiful Alam Shah Bin Sudiman, Associate Research Fellow

The war in Iraq and Syria involving the Islamic State (IS) and other combatants since 2014 to date has numerous perspectives including the Sunni-Shi’a conflict and the threat posed by returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTF) among others. This essay argues that the war’s multi-dimensional and dubious nature offer an insight of what is known in Islamic discourse on Muslim civil war as qital al-fitnah (QF) or civil strife. The first section of this paper will offer a conceptual understanding of QF through the examination of Islamic literature by Sunni scholars. The paper will then postulate the appropriate response to be taken by Muslims who live to experience such a war. The concept of an illegitimate war from the Sunni viewpoint will be deliberated before concluding that jihad, and to some degree martyrdom should not be hastily declared to respond to an armed conflict that involves a Muslim community/land.

Theme: Religion in Contemporary Society / Terrorism Studies

Region: Global

20. The Dilemma of IS Detainees in Syria: The Central Asian Approach - [COMPLETED]

Mr Nodirbek Soliev, Senior Analyst

Almost six months after the territorial collapse of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS), about 12,000 foreign individuals – mostly women and children – associated with the terrorist group remain stranded in Kurdish-controlled detention and displacement camps across north-eastern Syria. Despite increasing awareness, many countries have refused to take back their national, allowing only limited repatriation for children. In contrast, countries like Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in Central Asia, have taken a more proactive approach to address the issue, by initiating a series of mass transfer campaigns. This research seeks to answer the following questions: Why have the Central Asian countries adopted this particular policy approach? What are the conditions for mass repatriations to be effective? This research is meant to be published in RSIS platforms.

Theme: Terrorism Studies / Conflict and Stability / International Politics and Security

Region: Central Asia

21. Securing India: Insurgency, Terrorism and Extremism - [COMPLETED]

Mr Mohammed Sinan Siyech, Senior Analyst

Dr Jolene Jerard, Adjunct Senior Fellow

This is an edited volume that explores the various dimensions of asymmetric warfare that India has been engaged in by looking at the Kashmiri, Naxal and (some of) the North East Insurgencies. Moreover, it also looks at Jihadist groups and Hindu right-wing extremism that have recently began pervading across India. It discusses a number of salient features of the current situation in India such as the fragmented and differing nature of various threats across the nation, the role of the government, the continuously evolving nature of threats and identity debates across different landscapes. Thus, this volume aims to present these findings as a guidepost for both academics and policy makers who study the security problems that India faces.

Theme: Terrorism Studies / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: South Asia

22. Violent Extremism in Pakistan - [COMPLETED]

Mr Abdul Basit, Senior Associate Fellow

This book chapter, which will be published by Routledge, London was accepted on 5 August 2020. It contends that Pakistan’s current security-centric Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) framework structured around the de-radicalisation of ex-militants, counter-radicalisation messaging, outlawing of militant groups, and criminalisation of hate speech needs to be enhanced to include prevention strategies and peace-centric approaches. In its current form, it focuses on the reduction and elimination of violent extremism rather than achieving peace by addressing the root-causes of the problem. This chapter has adopted a descriptive-analytical approach using a host of primary and secondary sources on the subject such as the National Internal Security Policies, Paigham-e-Pakistan, the National Action Plan (NAP), data on the website of the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) as well as most recent newspaper reporting, think-tank reports, journal papers and book chapters on the subject.

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: South Asia

23. India’s Foreign Fighter Puzzle - [COMPLETED]

Mr Mohammed Sinan Siyech, Senior Analyst

This is a journal article that discusses the lack of foreign fighters in the Islamic State. Since its rise in 2014, the Islamic State (IS) has attracted more than 30,000 volunteers to take part in the conflicts raging in Syria and Iraq. Despite a large presence of more than 160 million Muslims in India, not more than a hundred people have travelled abroad to join the IS.

Drawing on existing literature and interviews with academics, government officials and members of the Muslim community across India, this article demonstrates that insurgency movements such as the Afghan Jihad in the 1980s, the Indian government and other factors such as logistical issues, family structure, ideological opposition and racism in IS ranks have collectively played a role in preventing Indians from taking part in the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts. This article is valuable given the paucity of literature pertaining to Indian Muslims and their absence in the global jihadist community.

Theme: Terrorism Studies / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: South Asia

24. Examining the Root of Exclusivism Among Extremist Islamist - [COMPLETED]

Mr Muhammad Saiful Alam Shah Bin Sudiman, Associate Research Fellow

Radical Salafi and Islamist terrorist groups assert that maintaining exclusivism allows Muslims to remain faithful to the “true Islam”. In Southeast Asia, Radio HangFM an Indonesian Salafi radio station warns listeners of becoming a disbeliever by not isolating themselves from non-Muslim to maintain their pure Islamic identity. This paper seeks to develop an understanding of how radical Salafis and Islamists derive their interpretation of exclusivism in Islam.

Theme: Terrorism Studies / Conflict and Stability / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Global

25. Rethinking De-Salafisation Approach in CVE and Deradicalisation Work - [COMPLETED]

Mr Muhammad Saiful Alam Shah Bin Sudiman, Associate Research Fellow

This study aims to examine the conventional belief held by many counter-terrorism actors that religious extremism among Muslims is a result of Salafi activism. This leads to the assumption that by influencing one to abandon his Salafi identity is the way forward to his deradicalisation. This research argues that to complement CVE work with this assumption could potentially yield an unintended result and sway the very objective of deradicalisation further from reach.

Theme: Terrorism Studies / Conflict and Stability / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Global

26. Barelvi Political Activism and Religious Mobilisation in Pakistan: The Case of Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan - [COMPLETED]

Mr Abdul Basit, Senior Associate Fellow

This is a peer-reviewed journal article published in Politics, Religion and Ideology on 30 August 2020. It explores the evolution and political activism of the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP), a religio-political group, from a protest movement to a political party, while retaining its character as a movement. Consequently, TLP has a hybrid structure where the lines between the movement and party are blurred. TLP, in the last few years, has asserted itself in Pakistan’s political-religious arena by championing the cause of Khatm-e-Nabuwat (finality of Muhammad’s prophethood) and Namoos-e-Risalat (honour of the Prophet Muhammad). As a movement, TLP uses protests and agitation to shape the political agenda, while utilizing the political structures to demand or block policies deemed detrimental to its religious interests. The emergence of TLP is a by-product of post-9/11 religio-political developments in Pakistan and the changing patterns of state patronage towards religious groups.

Theme: Religion in Contemporary Society / Terrorism Studies

Region: South Asia

27. Understanding Islamist Extremism in Southeast Asia - [COMPLETED]

This book project seeks to examine how selected individuals in four Southeast Asian countries: Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Indonesia, became radicalised into Islamist extremism. The study will first unpack the various characteristics of religious extremism, showing how it is an acute form of fundamentalism, before analysing the specific phenomenon of Islamist extremism and how it plays out in the four countries mentioned. Recommendations for coping with Islamist extremist ideology across the four countries will be the subject of the final chapter.

Theme: Terrorism Studies / Country and Region Studies / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

28. Anti-India Sentiments in South Asia: Terrorist Recruitment Narratives - [COMPLETED]

Mr Mohammed Sinan Siyech, Senior Analyst

Ms Nazneen Mohsina, Research Analyst

Due to India’s hegemonic aspirations in South Asia, its presence and actions have often threatened its neighbouring states and garnered considerable anti-Indian sentiments. This paper highlights how terrorist groups in the region have exploited this sentiment as a rallying call for recruitment. Specifically, it looks at Pakistan and Bangladesh and discusses how contrasting attitudes of the two states towards India have generated/shaped anti India rhetoric among its populace. By analysing state policies, statements of terrorist group and the contextual/historical backgrounds of some prominent attacks, the paper demonstrates how identity threats, state support of radicals and a disdain of India’s treatment of its minority Muslim population is intertwined with growing recruitment by terrorist groups. It then examines if this dislike of Indian foreign policy may manifest itself in other south Asian countries.

Theme: Terrorism Studies / Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: South Asia

29. Understanding India’s Counter Terrorism Relations with Saudi Arabia and the UAE - [COMPLETED]

Mr Mohammed Sinan Siyech, Senior Analyst

Counter Terrorism Cooperation between India and the Gulf nations has only strengthened over the past five years whereas transnational links in these countries have existed since the 1990’s. This paper explores factors which have improved Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and India’s security collaborations, particularly in counter terrorism. Drawing on primary sources and statements of various ministries involved, it argues that economic and geopolitical factors apart from the changing security landscape in the Middle East in Afghanistan account for this new cooperation. In doing so it also discusses how much the Modi administration has changed the dynamics of India’s relationship with the two nations. This paper thus, explores an under researched area of India’s security relations with nations in West Asia.

Key Words: India, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bilateral Counter-terrorism Cooperation, Geopolitical Shifts, Changing Security Landscape

Theme: Terrorism Studies / Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: South Asia / Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

30. Terrorism on the New Silk Road: Challenges and Responses - [COMPLETED]

Dr Rohan Gunaratna, Professor of Security Studies

Mr Nodirbek Soliev, Senior Analyst

This is a co-authored book project that will examine the challenges arising from radical Islamist terrorist and insurgent groups operating in China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Russia. It will analyse the state and regional responses to such violence. More specifically, the book will cover developments from 1990s to the present time, thereby focusing on the era from the revival of Islam in Central Asia, to the rise of new generation of Islamist fighters in the Middle East.

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: Europe / Middle East and North Africa (MENA) / Central Asia / East Asia and Asia Pacific

31. Normalisation of Violence: Reflections from Asia - [COMPLETED]

Dr Irm Haleem, Assistant Professor and School Academic Integrity Officer (SAIO)

This book is intended for the short book series that several publishers offer. It seeks to conceptualize violence so as to cast a light on the “what is” of the normalization of violence. This book expands on the conceptual framework that Dr Haleem offers in her edited volume: Normalisation of Violence: Case Studies. However, unlike the edited volume, this book offers an exclusively conceptual (and not an empirical) analysis.

Theme: Conflict and Stability / Terrorism Studies

Region: Global

32. Muslims Living in Non-Muslim Lands: Contesting Muhammad Saeed Al-Qahtani’s Argument on Hijrah – Al Wala wa Al Bara Nexus - [COMPLETED]

Mr Muhammad Saiful Alam Shah Bin Sudiman, Associate Research Fellow

Dr Mohamed Bin Ali, Senior Fellow

This paper examines Muhammad Saeed Al-Qahtani’s argument on the nexus between the Islamic concept of Hijrah and the Salafi concept of Al-Walā’ wal Barā’ (WB). Al-Qahtani asserts that Muslims’ faith is compromised if they choose to live in a non-Muslim land, accept the rule of non-Muslims and live under any rule other than the Sharīʿah (Islamic law). Accordingly, this violates the creed of WB. This essay is an attempt to offer a different perspective that is cemented to the opinions of traditional and contemporary Muslim jurists. The paper will begin with a brief introduction of Al-Qahtani and his work, followed by his argument on hijrah. It will then discuss the obligation of hijrah from Islamic perspective and the context of dār al-Islām and dār al-harb (abode of Islam and abode of war) as counter arguments to the claims made by Al-Qahtani.

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: Global

33. Normalisation of Violence: Case Studies - [COMPLETED]

Dr Irm Haleem, Assistant Professor and School Academic Integrity Officer (SAIO)

This is a multi-authored edited volume, where Dr Haleem serves as both the editor and author of three chapters, including a chapter on the conceptual framework for the book. The authors in this volume argue for or against the framework laid out by Dr Haleem in Chapter One: Conceptualising the Normalisation of Violence.

Theme: Conflict and Stability / Terrorism Studies

Region: Global

34. Women and Terrorism: Interdisciplinary Perspectives - [COMPLETED]

Ms Sara Mahmood, Senior Analyst

Dr Rohan Gunaratna, Professor of Security Studies

Despite the evident involvement of women in terrorism, the subject continues to be clouded by androcentric perspectives. This leads to a limited understanding of the important roles women possess within radical Islamist and non-Islamist groups, such as al-Qaeda and IS, and the Chechen Black Widows and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Not fully understanding the dimensions of women’s participation in terrorist groups impedes effective policymaking to curb their radicalisation processes. Hence, this edited book will bring together diverse perspectives and case studies from different countries/regions on women in extremist and terrorist groups to draw some key lessons challenging mainstream assumptions and present policies on the subject.

Theme: Conflict and Stability / Terrorism Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Middle East and North Africa (MENA) / Europe / South Asia

35. The Three Pillars of Radicalisation: Needs, Narratives and Networks - [COMPLETED]

Dr Arie W. Kruglanski, Professor, University of Maryland

In this book project, the authors will examine how radicalisation happens from the social psychological perspective. This book is based on the field research conducted with terrorists and their supporters.

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: Global

36. Questions of Freedom - [COMPLETED]

Dr Irm Haleem, Assistant Professor and School Academic Integrity Officer (SAIO)

This is a single-authored book manuscript that is currently under contract with Routledge for its Political Philosophy collection. The book is scheduled to go into production in February 2021. This book project was previously titled “Death as Existence”, and it is a project for which the author was awarded a research grant by the United States Air Force, AOARD (2015-2016). In this book, the author questions the meaning of freedom through the lens of ethics and social philosophy. The book comprises four critical essays in which the author forwards four different arguments that are intended to shed light on both the existentiality of the desire for freedom and the fraught relationship between freedom and responsibility.

Theme: General / Conflict and Stability

Region: Global

National Security Studies Programme

1. The Mental Illness-Violent Extremism Nexus: Implications for Southeast Asia - [COMPLETED]

Dr Damien D. Cheong, Coordinator of Centre of Excellence for National Security and Senior Manager, Horizon Scanning

Some of the ISIS-inspired attacks over the last five years have been carried out by individuals with mental disorders. This has brought the mental illness-violent extremism nexus to the fore. The debate “rests on the question about whether the presence of a mental health diagnosis is enough to state that it was a driver of the radicalisation- linked behaviour or whether it was just one ingredient in the individual’s vulnerability profile and grievance structure.

This study aims to answer these questions, and in so doing, contribute to the on-going discussion of a highly complex subject. It argues that the most challenging aspect when dealing with this issue is determining the triggers that push the individual to commit the act of violence. These triggers need not be instigated by ISIS or an ideologue, but simply through regular news feeds that highlight humanitarian crises involving a particular religious group.

Theme: Singapore and Homeland Security / Terrorism Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global

2. Non-Violent Extremism and Violent Extremism: A Nexus? - [COMPLETED]

To investigate the links if any between so-called “non-violent” extremism and manifestations of extremist violence. Case studies from the UK and Southeast Asia will be explored.

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: Global

Science and Technology Studies Programme

Studies in Inter-Religious Relations in Plural Societies Programme

1. The Three Jewels: Essaying Buddhist Philosophy of Religion - [COMPLETED]

Dr Rafal Stepien, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of MSc (Asian Studies) Programme

The first book of its kind, The Three Jewels: Essaying Buddhist Philosophy of Religion constitutes a major advance in cross-cultural and inter-disciplinary philosophy of religion. More than an introduction, this volume stands at the vanguard of ongoing and increasingly urgent efforts to diversify philosophy of religion. It includes critical interventions in the field from Buddhist premises and paradigms alongside substantially new treatments of perennial questions from Buddhist sources. Covering philosophers across Buddhist Asia from the classical to the contemporary periods, this book contains specially commissioned essays written in clear and accessible prose by leading international scholars. It is both a compelling contribution to global humanities and an ideal companion for students, scholars, and all those eager to expand their knowledge of the world’s resolutely plural philosophies of religions.

Theme: General / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Central Asia / East Asia and Asia Pacific / Europe / South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global

2. Irreligious Literatures: Poetry between Buddhism and Islam - [COMPLETED]

Dr Rafal Stepien, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of MSc (Asian Studies) Programme

This project explores how major Buddhist and Islamic philosopher-poets express profound ambivalence toward their own religious heritage in literary form. Firmly based in original sources composed in Classical Chinese and Persian, this work proposes hitherto unsuspected parallels between two drastically diverse and mutually antagonistic religious traditions. By examining Buddhist and Islamic poets standing astride the orthodoxy/heterodoxy threshold, Irreligious Literatures generates fresh insights into the variegated nature of religiosity itself. In the process, it cuts across traditional boundaries separating the comparative study of world religions, global literatures, and cross-cultural philosophies, all from a distinctly non-Western perspective. Finally, its conclusions shed light onto the transmission of literary models along the Silk Route from China through to Persia, and thence yielding original insights as to the historical formation of vernacular literature in Europe.

Theme: General / Country and Region Studies / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Europe / South Asia / Global

3. Comparative Theology between Europe and Asia: A Hermeneutical Proposal

Dr Paul Hedges, Professor of Interreligious Studies

A planned book project exploring methods of interpretation in studying religious diversity through a hermeneutical lens and seeking to offer a decolonial praxis of hermeneutics for comparative theology. It will engage Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, Hindu, and Chinese thought while also taking account of Jewish thought in this.

Theme: Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Global

4. Critical Hermeneutical Phenomenology: Towards a Theory for Studying Religion and Religious Diversity

Dr Paul Hedges, Professor of Interreligious Studies

Building from the theoretical basis of Understanding Religion (California University Press, 2021), a model for the theoretical exploration of how we study, interpret and understand the world, with particular attention to the study of religion and religious diversity, will be explored. It is hoped to get a book project that explores this.

Theme: Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Global

5. Decolonizing Dialogue: A Dao-De-Jing (Way-Ethics/Principles-Classics) Approach

Dr Paul Hedges, Professor of Interreligious Studies

To develop an approach to dialogue that is envisaged and coming out in a 4 book series (and some accompanying articles) that decolonises contemporary theorising on dialogue, focusing primarily on interreligious and intercultural dialogue. It will engage the classical Western theorists with global voices and perspectives around three poles: ethics, hermeneutics, and praxis.

Theme: Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Global

6. Buddhist Nationalisms in South-East Asia: Implications for Plural Societies - [COMPLETED]

Dr Rafal Stepien, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of MSc (Asian Studies) Programme

This project aims to understand the dynamics of both religiously inspired violence and peaceful coexistence on the part of Buddhists vis-à-vis perceived religious others in South East Asia. On this twin basis, the project seeks to draft specific policy-relevant recommendations aimed at preventing and, if and when needed, countering religiously informed extremist nationalism in Singapore. In light of recent history and ongoing events, four national contexts in the region have been identified as of especial relevance to Singaporean concerns: Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia. For each context, study will be undertaken of the textual supports used in support of violence and/or peaceful coexistence. Fieldwork will also be undertaken so as both to construct a network of contacts in the region with whom to collaborate into the foreseeable future, and to conduct empirically-based data-gathering regarding the Buddhist sources used in support of interreligious violence and/or peace.

Theme: Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security / Religion in Contemporary Society / Singapore and Homeland Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

7. Substantialism, Essentialism, Emptiness: Buddhist Critiques of Ontology - [COMPLETED]

Dr Rafal Stepien, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of MSc (Asian Studies) Programme

This project seeks to introduce a greater degree of precision into our understanding of Madhyamaka Buddhist ontological non-foundationalism, focussing specifically on the Madhyamaka founder Nāgārjuna (c. 150-250 CE). It distinguishes between four senses of what the “foundation” whose existence Mādhyamikas deny means; that is, i) as “something that stands under or grounds things” (a position known as generic substantialism); ii) as “a particular kind of basic entity” (specific substantialism); iii) as “an individual essence (a haecceity or thisness of that object) by means of which it is identical to that very object, to itself” (modal essentialism); and iv) as “an essence in the absence of which an object could be of a radically different kind or sort of object than it in fact is” (sortal essentialism).

Theme: General / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: South Asia / Global

8. Tetralemma and Trinity: An Essay on Buddhist and Christian Ontologies - [COMPLETED]

Dr Rafal Stepien, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of MSc (Asian Studies) Programme

This project builds on the ontological claims espoused by two major Buddhist and Christian philosophers: Nāgārjuna (c. 150 – 250) and Hegel (1770 – 1831). It uses Nāgārjuna’s fourfold tetralemma (catuṣkoṭi) and Hegel’s threefold dialectic (Dialektik) to propose a novel understanding of the ontological status of the self in its relation to itself and to its other, the no-self. Thus, it applies the tetralemma to the self, arguing that, to attain ontic completion, the self must itself reflect the tetralemmic form in the totality of its being – nothing – both-being-and-nothing – neither-being-nor-nothing. These in turn correspond to the Hegelian in-itself, for-another, both-in-itself-and-for-another, and neither-in-itself-nor-for-another.

Theme: General / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Europe / South Asia / Global

9. Secularism and Religiosity: Global Trends and Implications for Multicultural Societies - [COMPLETED]

Ambassador Mohammad Alami Musa, Adjunct Senior Fellow

Mr Acmal Zuheyr Iefan Bin Abdul Wahid, Senior Analyst

The study aims to understand global trends relating to (i) secularisation and desecularisation; (ii) rise or decline of religion; (iii) new age religions, spirituality and study the implications of these trends on multicultural societies. It will explore prospects of positive global developments and emerging risks of negative threats regarding religiosity and its intersection with secularity. It will survey the shifting models of state-religion relations and the different modes of governing multi-cultural societies. In this regard, the study will investigate the experiences of several countries and compare them with Singapore’s evolving model of state secularism. Secular state models of the UK, US, France, Turkey, India, and Indonesia will be studied. A specific issue that will be studied is the reconcilability between Islam and state secularism, to investigate if scepticism exists towards the secular state model amongst the religious elite.

Theme: Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Global

10. Understanding Christian Far Right Extremism (CFRE) - [COMPLETED]

Dr Paul Hedges, Professor of Interreligious Studies

Mr Luca Farrow, Senior Analyst

Through seminars and papers, this project aims to answer questions such as the following:
• To what extent have CFRE narratives gone global and what are the various forms they take?
• What are some of the key groups, traditions, and movements active in CFRE, both in specific contexts (e.g. Europe, the US, Australasia) and globally?
• How far do Christian, or other religious narratives/motifs, inspire actors both in FRE and CFRE in terms of participation, motivation, etc.?
• What are the key Christian terms, theological ideas, and symbology employed in C/FRE?
• How central are narratives of race and whiteness in CFRE, and how does this play into links with other global movements?
• How do both Islamophobia and antisemitism relate to the wider narratives in C/FRE?

Theme: Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Global

11. Religious Hatred: Prejudice, Anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia in Global Perspective - [COMPLETED]

Dr Paul Hedges, Professor of Interreligious Studies

Hate speech and violence associated with prejudice towards both Jews and Muslims appears to be on the rise in many parts of the globe. But what drivers are behind this, what links these forms of hatred, and how far is religion a factor in such hatred? Providing both historical, conceptual, and analytic perspectives, this project will explore the forms and practice of prejudice and violence enacted against Jews, Muslims, and others throughout history, with a particular focus on Anti-Semitic and Islamophobic prejudice. Various papers and articles are envisaged as outputs, with the main output being the book, Religious Hatred: Islamophobia and Antisemitism in Global Context, published with Bloomsbury Academic in early 2021. There is also a plan to develop an undergraduate course in this region in cooperation with CoHASS.

Theme: Religion in Contemporary Society / Singapore and Homeland Security / Terrorism Studies

Region: Americas / Europe / Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global

12. Interreligious Relations: Resources from Classical Islamic Sources - [COMPLETED]

Dr Rafal Stepien, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of MSc (Asian Studies) Programme

Various models of interreligious relations have been proposed in recent scholarship, including most prominently the several varieties of inclusivism, exclusivism, and pluralism. One abiding presupposition shared across these models takes the religious adherent (or community of adherents), as a unified individual (or collective of such individuals). This seemingly unproblematic assumption overlooks an important feature of the certain prominent strains of religiosity which negate selfhood. This article seeks to apply such understandings of (non-)selfhood to interreligious relations, with particular focus on the theoretical elaborations of the Classical Islamic thinkers Abū Yazīd al-Bisṭamī (c. 804 – 874 CE), Abū l-Qāsem al-Junayd (830 – 910 CE), ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Hawāzin al-Qushayrī (c. 986 – 1074 CE), Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār Nayshābūrī (c. 1142 – c. 1221 CE) and, Muḥyiddīn Ibn ʿArabī (1165 – 1240 CE).

Theme: General / Non-Traditional Security / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Global

13. Buddhist Literature & Philosophy: Intersections for the Contemporary World - [COMPLETED]

Dr Rafal Stepien, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of MSc (Asian Studies) Programme

This intensely inter-disciplinary and cross-cultural research project stands at the cutting edge of critically-aware scholarship on religion. It deliberately works across and against the boundaries separating three mainstays of humanistic pursuit – literature, philosophy, and religion – by exploring the multiple relationships at play between content and form in works drawn from a truly diverse range of philosophical schools, literary genres, religious cultures, and historical eras. With contributions by a dozen leading scholars, this project studies works of philosophy and literature composed over some two millennia across the classical and contemporary Buddhist worlds of India, Tibet, China, Japan, Korea, and North America. The implications of Buddhist conceptions of and among literature, philosophy, and religion for the contemporary world are explicitly explored. The project will result in an edited book.

Theme: General / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Global

14. Interreligious Relations between Muslims and People of other Faiths in Singapore - [COMPLETED]

Dr Paul Hedges, Professor of Interreligious Studies

This is the Singapore part of a wider cross-border research project funded by the Australian Research Council. It explores Muslim attitudes to the “Religious Other”, and involves a collection of data in the public sphere and a series of interviews, while various seminars and conferences will arise from the project alongside a book project and other publications. The topics for research include Muslim perspectives towards people of the Religious Other, evolution of understandings on the treatment of the Religious Other, historical and contemporary Islamic scholarship on the issue, validity of and counterarguments to extremist views, and other related issues. Additional topics are the need for introspection and critical review of Islamic doctrines/dogma, managing growing conservatism in religions (starting with Islam and then others). The project will involve a critical engagement with relevant Islamic legal and theological texts with regard to the religious other.

Theme: Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

15. Mapping out the Interreligious Landscape in Singapore – Interfaith Actors - [COMPLETED]

Mr Luca Farrow, Senior Analyst

This is a project to map out the notable interfaith actors in Singapore, in terms of who they are, the nature of their activities and how they interconnect and overlap. It will involve the production of a database containing information including the activities that the various actors engage in and how, if at all, the various actors are linked domestically and into international networks. The coverage of the database would be wide to include government bodies, civil society organisations and influential individuals active in the interreligious field.

Importantly, the project does not only involve the compilation of a database but will involve adopting and/or developing theoretical framework(s) against which to analyse the landscape of interfaith actors in Singapore and to help assess where there are strengths and weaknesses in terms of the promotion of positive interfaith relations.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

16. Survey of Interreligious Relations in Singapore (Part 2) - [COMPLETED]

Dr Paul Hedges, Professor of Interreligious Studies

This project will undertake both quantitative and qualitative research into Singapore’s religious landscape, seeking to map current trends and look to stay ahead of the curve in terms of changing attitudes and issues. Building from Part 1, existing studies and issues identified as well as seeking to map out potential future fault-lines, some key areas for examination will include: perceptions of shrinking Common Space; growing tendencies towards exclusivism and rejection of shared traditions and customs; the interconnection of ethnicity, nationalism and religion, including transnational networks; perceptions about the state’s interventions and management of religion; anxieties about, and impediments to interreligious dialogue and community cohesion; interreligious literacy; building blocks for a shared national narrative on social cohesion and religious harmony.

Theme: Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

17. Political Islam, Ideology, and Violence - [COMPLETED]

Dr Mohamed Bin Ali, Senior Fellow

Mr Muhammad Haziq Bin Jani, Senior Analyst

Responses towards violent Islamist ideologies have largely focussed on particular groups – whether Wahhabi, Salafi or Ikhwani – depending on the prominence of their discourse among violent groups or individuals. This research project focusses on the historical contexts of the various beliefs, doctrines and concepts found in the ideology of violent Islamist groups, with a view of how Islamism – a modern political ideology – could manifest beyond the stereotype of a violent terrorist group or reformist political movement.

Theme: General / Religion in Contemporary Society / Terrorism Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Middle East and North Africa (MENA) / Global

18. Muslims Living in Non-Muslim Lands: Contesting Muhammad Saeed Al-Qahtani’s Argument on Hijrah – Al-Wala’ wal Bara’ Nexus - [COMPLETED]

Dr Mohamed Bin Ali, Senior Fellow

This paper examines Muhammad Saeed Al-Qahtani’s argument on the nexus between the Islamic concept of hijrah (migration) and the Salafi concept of Al-Wala’ wal Bara’ (loyalty and disavowal) referred to here as WB. In his famous book Al-Wala’ Wal Bara’ fil Islam min Mafahim Aqidah as-salaf (Loyalty and Disavowal According to the Belief of the Salaf), Al-Qahtani, a Saudi Salafi scholar claims that Muslims who live in a non-Muslim land and under non-Islamic political system must perform the hijrah to Muslim lands. He also claims that Muslims who willingly accept the rule of non-Muslims, and live under any rule other than the Shariah (Islamic law) are committing acts that will nullify their faith. This is because, according to Al-Qahtani, Muslims who live under such system and do not perform the hijrah has violated the creed of WB.

Theme: Religion in Contemporary Society / Terrorism Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Middle East and North Africa (MENA) / Global

19. Al-Wala’ wal Bara’ in Wahhabism: From a Tool to Fight Shirk to Takfir of Muslim Leaders - [COMPLETED]

Dr Mohamed Bin Ali, Senior Fellow

This paper examines the concept of Al-Wala’ wal Bara (herein known as WB) in the Salafi-Wahhabi ideology or Wahhabism (Arabic: Wahhabiyyah). It aims to show that the Salafi concept of WB has its roots in Wahhabism and highlight the main factors that have contributed to the development of the concept in Wahhabism in the modern period (twentieth century and beyond). Essentially, the paper attempts to show that WB which started in early Wahhabism as a tool to fight apostasy and innovations in Islam has developed into an important element used by both the Saudi establishment scholars and those who oppose the kingdom to support their religious inclination and political agenda. The Wahhabi scholars who oppose the Saudi rulers on account of their political behaviour have used WB to condemn their rulers while some of them even go to the extent of excommunicating the leaders and thereby legitimizing attacks against them.

Theme: Religion in Contemporary Society / Terrorism Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Middle East and North Africa (MENA) / Global

20. Muslims in Plural Societies — Singaporean Muslims’ Views of Secularism as State Ideology and its Reconcilability with Islam - [COMPLETED]

Ambassador Mohammad Alami Musa, Adjunct Senior Fellow

Ms Nursheila Muez, Senior Analyst

a) This study aims to establish if there is a degree of cognitive dissonance between the pragmatic and religious thinking about secularism, and the existing scepticism in the Singaporean Muslim community. If they do, to identify the factors that have led to such a situation. It will also attempt to investigate the absence or extent of reconcilability (if any) between secularism with Islam in the Singapore context.
b) Face-to-face interviews have been done with a representative sample group of 37 asatizah in Singapore.
c) Two articles with the key findings of this interview stage had been published in the Inter Religious Relations (IRR) Occasional Paper Series, a peer-reviewed journal.
d) A field survey with a sample size of 1,000 had been carried out to gauge the community’s outlook towards living as citizens in a secular state.
e) The principals of six full-time madrasah in Singapore had been interviewed regarding citizenship education in madrasahs.

Theme: Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

21. Conceptualising the Problem of Radicalisation: Contemporary Trends and Theories - [COMPLETED]

Dr Paul Hedges, Professor of Interreligious Studies

Recent research on radicalisation is pointing towards a set of pathways that may lead people towards terrorism. However, scholars such as Marc Sageman, Olivier Roy, Gilles Kepel and others are stressing different aspects as the key factor or factors. Their analyses are not necessarily contradictory, but highlight that searching for a single magic key to unlock what radicalisation is may be problematic. Indeed, even the very term radicalisation may itself not help to clarify what is at stake, if it suggests it is something other than socialisation into a specific worldview. This project seeks to pick apart and assist rethinking the current empirical and theoretical data and analysis.

Theme: Religion in Contemporary Society / Singapore and Homeland Security / Terrorism Studies

Region: Europe / Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global

22. Countering Contemporary Jihadism and Violence: Myths, Realities and Solutions - [COMPLETED]

Dr Mohamed Bin Ali, Senior Fellow

Mr Muhammad Faris Alfiq, Research Analyst

This paper will propose to weed out the myths from the realities regarding the problems of jihadism with a view towards formulating new strategies against the threat. The paper first sets out to understand the phenomenon of Islamism, and to show how it has evolved into the more violent strain of jihadism and establish both as aberrations to Islam. It will also examine the use of force in Islam: Is it legitimate in Islam and under what conditions? The paper will establish that a root cause of Islamist terrorism is the current intellectual crisis in the Muslim world. In providing solutions, the paper will highlight the critical role of religious organisations and influential religious leaders in shaping global reconciliation. It will conclude that the jihadist threat is a highly complex and delicate one and concerted efforts on every front is vital.

Theme: Religion in Contemporary Society / Terrorism Studies

Region: Global

23. Buddhist Diplomacy - [COMPLETED]

Dr Paul Hedges, Professor of Interreligious Studies

This will be an exploration of the way that religious cultural capital is employed in soft power relations in Asia. Particular attention is paid to the Nalanda University project as well as recent Chinese moves to use Buddhism as a source of soft power and for wider diplomatic work. This will include recent comments by President Xi Jinping and other high profile leaders in relation to the Belt and Road strategy. Some aspects of the history and regional context is explored, alongside the way that largely secular nations make use of religion in such ways. A journal article looking at the soft power of Buddhist Diplomacy as employed by largely secular states will be explored. Further work will be done looking at ways that Buddhist resources may be utilised in developing diplomacy with a particular Buddhist focus in this area.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

24. Understanding Religion in Plural and Diverse Societies: Methodologies and Theories - [COMPLETED]

Dr Paul Hedges, Professor of Interreligious Studies

This project will look at the tools, skills, methodologies, and theories needed to understand religion in contemporary plural societies. Its primary outcome will be a textbook with California University Press. It seeks to provide an innovative and cutting-edge survey for students to understand the complexities of theoretical conceptions for engaging religion in social and political contexts. It will also focus on methods for studying and exploring religious traditions and practices.

Theme: Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Global

25. Framework and Resources for Understanding Inter-religious Relations in Singapore - [COMPLETED]

Dr Paul Hedges, Professor of Interreligious Studies

Dr Hue Guan Thye, Contract Researcher

This research has two parts: interviews and theory. Interviews (Singapore), Phase 1: apex leaders across the Christian (Catholic and Protestant), Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, and Taoist/ Chinese religious traditions. Phase 2: mid-level and grassroots practitioners, other traditions and the non-religious. Exploring the resources within communities for inter-religious co-existence and harmony. Theory: builds on the interviews and employs theoretical tools from hermeneutics, religious studies, philosophy, and dialogue theory to build a framework, or set of frameworks. These will map the local state of inter-religious relations and moving towards an Asian model for the theology of religions. It will include policy advice directed towards state, religious, and inter-faith actors for the promotion and securing of harmony and co-existence in common space.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

Others

1. A Catastrophic Threat: Hamas Massacre and Israel’s Response

Dr Rohan Gunaratna, Professor of Security Studies

The geopolitical, operational, and digital threat landscape changed dramatically with the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. In the deadliest Palestinian militant attack in Israel's history, 1,600 Hamas fighters from the Gaza Strip rampaged through parts of southern Israel. In a coordinated simultaneous land, sea, and air attack, Hamas struck, killing 1,200 and injuring 3,400 Israelis and foreigners before retreating to the Gaza Strip with 229 hostages. Despite its reputation for maintaining the region’s best fighting force and the world's best intelligence capability, Israel failed to preempt the catastrophic attack. Israel’s humiliation by Hamas has led to unprecedented aggression.

Theme: General / Terrorism Studies

Region: Global

2. Western Defeat in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria: Can We Restore Global Order and Security? - [COMPLETED]

Dr Rohan Gunaratna, Professor of Security Studies

Is Western neglect of conflict zones and preoccupation with China, Russia and Iran, a distraction from the ground reality? Away from the glare of the international media, state and non state threat entities present a long-term strategic threat to international peace and security? To grapple with the 21st century challenges, the world needs a pragmatic, interest-based and collective leadership. Otherwise, the world will polarise and fragment along ideological, racial and religious lines. Can the west and east work together to reduce the conflict potential and pre-empt another world war? Helmed by far reaching and visionary leaders, a multi-dimensional, multi-pronged, multi-agency, multi-national and a multi-jurisdictional approach is needed to restore global harmony, political stability and economic prosperity.

Theme: Conflict and Stability

Region: Middle East and North Africa (MENA) / Global

3. A Fortified Far Right?: Scrutinising the Threat - [COMPLETED]

Dr Rohan Gunaratna, Professor of Security Studies

Gunaratna and Petho-Kiss aim to better understand the nature of the threat posed by the far right and propose effective provisions and mechanisms for detecting and countering it. The book undertakes a consistent procession and empirical examination of available information to conclude that in order to dissolve the complexity of the associated threat, we need to scrutinise the functioning of far-right threat groups. Analysis on their mode of operation and mindset enable us to identify ways to detect and counter their malicious efforts and activities. The theoretical framework for the analysis lies upon the concept of wave theory. The main question this aims to elaborate is whether far right terrorism constitutes a new wave of global terrorism. Two questions emerge from this statement that require further elaboration. First, is far right terrorism a novel wave of terrorism? If yes, how is it novel and what are the novelties or development in it?

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: Global

4. Global Impact of Saudi Arabia’s Changing Approach to Terrorism, Extremism and Exclusivism - [COMPLETED]

Dr Rohan Gunaratna, Professor of Security Studies

After the rise to power of MBS, the response of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to exclusivism, extremism and terrorism has changed. The new approach is to promote moderation, toleration and coexistence both within and outside government. As Crown Prince and as the Prime Minister, MBS has taken a tough stand and far reaching decision that will create a safer and a secure world. He has imprisoned 6000 including 2000 radical clerics. He has communicated unambiguously that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will fights religious hatred and build a harmonious society. The reforms in Saudi Arabia will continue to influence and shape global Islam and contribute to security and stability worldwide in the coming years. The paper will delineate these measures and counter measures in the Kingdom and its domestic, regional and global impact.

Theme: General / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies / Religion in Contemporary Society / Singapore and Homeland Security / Terrorism Studies

Region: Global

5. Southeast Asia as a Battleground for Influence: How Southeast Asia and ASEAN shape the Sino-Japanese Competition/Rivalry

Dr Bhubhindar Singh, Associate Professor and Associate Dean (Academic Affairs); Head of Graduate Studies

China and Japan have developed a competitive/rivalrous relationship, which is expected to worsen in the coming decades. Perceiving Southeast Asia as an economic, political and strategic “prize”, they have elevated the importance of Southeast Asia/Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in their foreign policy strategies. The outcome has been competitive/rivalrous relationship where both fiercely compete to gain influence in Southeast Asia at the expense of the other. While the extant literature has covered various aspects of Sino-Japanese competition/rivalry in Southeast Asia, the Southeast Asian perspective has been largely silent in this research. More specifically, these studies have ignored the role that Southeast Asian/ASEAN have played in shaping the Chinese and Japanese policies and options that make up their foreign policy strategies towards Southeast Asia.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

6. Southeast Asia in 2022 - [COMPLETED]

Dr Tan See Seng, Research Adviser

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Political Economy / International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

7. COVID-19 in South, West, and Southeast Asia - [COMPLETED]

Dr Rohan Gunaratna, Professor of Security Studies

Mr Mohd Mizan Aslam, Senior Fellow, Global Peace Institute London

Aslam and Gunaratna bring together a broad analysis of the responses of states in Asia to the threats presented by the COVID-19 pandemic in its early phase. While the impact of the pandemic has undoubtedly been disastrous, it has also taught many lessons about social, political, economic, and security norms in modern civilization. The contributors to this book look at how these lessons have been learned—often the hard way—by a range of states including India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei Darussalam, and Jordan, as well as by international organizations including ASEAN. They look at a range of issues, going beyond the most apparent healthcare concerns to also look at challenges such as the gig economy, terrorism, extremism, religious identity, and cybersecurity. Using these country-based case studies, this book establishes a framework for understanding these challenges and establishing best practice and scalable solutions for addressing them.

Theme: General

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global

8. Space Technology and Development - [COMPLETED]

Dr Tan Teck Boon, Research Fellow

This project examines the latest space technology in development around the world right now. The goal is to identify those space systems that will support the next stage of economic development in Southeast Asia. It also fills an important gap in our current understanding of the nexus between space technology and national development.

Theme: Country and Region Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

9. Australia-Singapore Relations, 2016–2020 - [COMPLETED]

Dr Tan See Seng, Research Adviser

A survey of Singapore-Australia bilateral ties between 2016 to 2020. This is to be published as a book chapter, entitled: “Australia-Singapore Relations, 2016–2020: A ‘Natural Partnership’ for Australia’s Engagement of Southeast Asia,” in Australia in World Affairs, edited by Baogang He, David Hundt, and Danielle Chubb (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming), by See Seng Tan.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: Global

10. Knowing and Doing Regionalism in Asia - [COMPLETED]

Dr Tan See Seng, Research Adviser

Theme: International Politics and Security / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / Country and Region Studies / International Political Economy

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / East Asia and Asia Pacific / South Asia

11. Singapore’s Stand on Russia’s War on Ukraine - [COMPLETED]

Dr Tan See Seng, Research Adviser

Theme: International Politics and Security / Singapore and Homeland Security / Conflict and Stability / International Political Economy

Region: Global / East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

12. Japanese Foreign Policy in an Era of US-China Competition: “Smart Power” Strategy - [COMPLETED]

Dr Bhubhindar Singh, Associate Professor and Associate Dean (Academic Affairs); Head of Graduate Studies

Japan is faced with a serious strategic dilemma presented by the intensifying US-China strategic competition. On the one hand, it supports the maintenance of the status quo defined by the US hegemony and its related liberal internationalist features. Not only has the US-led order brought peace, stability and prosperity to Japan, it also served as a deterrent to the emergence of a Chinese-led order in East Asia. On the other hand, Japan is also concerned about the relative weakening of the US influence and power in the Indo-Pacific vis-à-vis China’s emergence as a peer competitor status to the US. This would mean a weakened US guarantee of Japan’s national security and greater likelihood of the emergence of a Chinese-led order in East Asia. This paper poses two questions: how is Japan responding to this dilemma caused by the intensifying US-China competition? And what type of foreign policy is Japan pursuing?

Theme: General / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: Americas / Central Asia / East Asia and Asia Pacific

13. Shades of Green: A Study of New forms of Islamic Activism in Malaysia - [COMPLETED]

Dr Farish A. Noor, Associate Professor

Islamic Activism has been associated almost exclusively with politics and political contestation for decades, but in fact there have been many developments among Islamist movements in many Muslim countries that have gone unnoticed. This project will look at recent contemporary developments in the domain of Islamic activism in Malaysia, and will highlight important new trends such as Islamic Environmentalism, Islamic Welfare, Islamic Volunteerism, etc. pioneered and led by a range of new NGOs and social movements that had made enormous strides in expanding our understanding of what religious activism can mean.

Note: Staff has left RSIS. Actual project completion date is 30 June 2022.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

14. Interests, Ideology and Great Power Spheres of Influence - [COMPLETED]

Dr Evan Resnick, Senior Associate Fellow and Coordinator of MSc (International Relations) Programme

Asst Prof Evan Resnick, Coordinator of MSc (International Relations) Programme at RSIS, has received the Ministry of Education (MOE) Academic Research Fund (AcRF) Tier 1 grant of $37,000. The three-year grant will be directed towards the completion of a book manuscript that looks into an area not well-studied in International Relations, i.e., the phenomenon of great power spheres of influence.

Theme: General / Conflict and Stability / International Politics and Security

Region: Global

15. As One with Nature: Southeast Asian Aesthetic Expressions - [COMPLETED]

Dr Victor R Savage, Adjunct Senior Fellow

The study provides the aesthetics underpinnings in Southeast Asia as seen through art, architecture, pottery, sculpture, textiles, tattoos, bas-reliefs and wooden artefacts. The main aesthetic theme in the region is based on nature, natural landscapes, religion and spirit beliefs, and mythologies.

Theme: Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

16. Great Power Rivalry and Maritime Order in Southeast Asia - [COMPLETED]

Dr Bhubhindar Singh, Associate Professor and Associate Dean (Academic Affairs); Head of Graduate Studies

This chapter outlines Southeast Asia’s responses to the stiffening US-China strategic competition. This story is told in three sections. First, this chapter offers a historical background of Southeast Asia’s responses to great power competition. Southeast Asia is not new to great power competition. This has been a permanent feature of the region’s story. Second, it unpacks the US-China intensifying structural competition and how it impact Southeast Asia. The main point here is that Southeast Asia is not isolated to the unfolding US-China competition. The third section outlines Southeast Asia’s responses to this great power competition. The main point here is that the responses have been varied and complex. The Southeast Asian states are comfortable to exist in complexity, that is, in both US-led and China-led orders. While states may show stronger leanings towards one power over the other in specific issue areas, these states are not comfortable siding one over the other.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

17. From Climate Change to Post COVID-19: The Corrupting Influence of Cultural Assertiveness and Geopolitics - [COMPLETED]

Dr Victor R Savage, Adjunct Senior Fellow

This article is based on the current challenges facing many countries internationally. Besides the China-US hegemonic tussle, climate change and Covid-19 are likely to undergird international relations around the world. Both these issues create tensions between states and they could become areas of international cooperation as well. As the problems arising from climate change and Covid-19 unfold, the global community needs to find various adaptive mechanisms to circumvent these problems while at the same time looking for long-term solutions.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

18. Awaiting the Impossible: A Christian’s Conversation with Jacques Derrida, Deconstruction, and Their Endless Wait for Messiah - [COMPLETED]

Dr Tan See Seng, Research Adviser

A theological engagement with the postmodern philosophy and praxis of deconstruction, from an orthodox Christian perspective. It was published in 08/06/2022 as a scholarly monograph, entitled: Awaiting the Impossible: A Dialogue with Derrida, Deconstruction, and the Endless Wait for Messiah (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2022), by See Seng Tan.

Theme: Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Global

19. Why Northeast Asia is Not (Yet) Destined for War? - [COMPLETED]

Dr Bhubhindar Singh, Associate Professor and Associate Dean (Academic Affairs); Head of Graduate Studies

This paper argues that the peaceful transition from the Cold War to the post-Cold War period has led to a state of minimal peace in Northeast Asia. This is due to three realist-liberal factors: America’s hegemonic role, strong economic interdependence, and a stable institutional structure. These factors not only ensured development and prosperity, but also mitigated the negative effects of political and strategic tensions between the Northeast Asian states. This minimal peace is in danger of unravelling from 2010 due to the worsening Sino-US competition/rivalry. However, this paper argues that the sub-region’s minimal peace will hold in the coming decades. The organising ideas of liberal internationalism – economic interdependence and institutional building – will remain resilient. Though weakened, the American hegemony will remain a determining factor for stability and it will be supported by the increasing influence of secondary powers on the regional order.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific

20. Diplomacy Beyond History: Analytic-Violence, Producer-Centred-Research, India - [COMPLETED]

Dr Deep K Datta Ray, Visiting Senior Fellow

“Producer-Centred Research” (PCR) is deployed to find diplomatic practices, explain them in diplomat’s terms, and so highlight untheorised possibilities and risks in international politics. PCR reveals that Indian diplomacy is organised by defence. Unlike offence, defensive actors secure security by being less offensive than opponents. Since they are not instigated, arsenals are minimised. Moreover, defence maintains sovereignty and retains control since opponents are not responded to, which also denies them the right to offense. Defence’s cost is courage, such as choosing to live in the shadow of nuclear annihilation. PCR also discloses India cast off the courage requisite of defence, in the 2019 strike against Balakot. The intensity of the intention to discard courage is apparent in the risks New Delhi generated by equating India with Pakistan, permitting it to escalate the conflict, and so imperilling humanity in a manner beyond history.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Cybersecurity, Biosecurity and Nuclear Safety / Non-Traditional Security / Terrorism Studies

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Europe / South Asia / Global

21. Closing the Divide Between “Smart” and “Secure” Cities: Learning from the Cases of Singapore, Tokyo, Amsterdam and New York City - [COMPLETED]

Dr Graham Ong-Webb, Adjunct Fellow

According to the Safe Cities Index published by the Economist Intelligence Unit, only four of the world’s smartest cities of Singapore, Tokyo, Amsterdam and New York City have made it into the top ten tier for personal, infrastructure and digital security. The primary aim of this paper is to determine how these cities have been able to adequately securitise where others have yet to match up. It applies a framework used by the US Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Cyber and Infrastructure Analysis to analyse how the adoption of smart technologies may actually increase the risk profile of a smart city, to which new gaps must be identified and closed.

Theme: General / Singapore and Homeland Security

Region: Global

22. The Colonial Wars of Southeast Asia 1800-1900 - [COMPLETED]

Dr Farish A. Noor, Associate Professor

Dr Peter Carey , Professor, Oxford University

This project is on an edited book that looks at the colonial Wars of Southeast Asia in the 19th century. It aims to fill a gap in the historical research on Southeast Asia in that period, as we explore the dimension of racial differences and race relations in the context of colonial conflict. Co-edited with Prof Peter Brian Carey (Trinity College, Oxford University), the book will be published in 2021 by Amsterdam University Press.

Theme: General / Country and Region Studies

Region: Europe / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

23. Lion City Narratives: Singapore through Western Eyes - [COMPLETED]

Dr Victor R Savage, Adjunct Senior Fellow

Lion City Narratives is a study of Western impressions of Singapore during its nearly 145 years (1819–1963) of colonial history. This biography of Singapore’s evolution as a city captures the visible forms or appearance of its landscape, and its ability to evoke strong images in the minds of observers. In doing so it also provides a holistic perspective of the island’s developmental dynamics. Its account of cultural insights into the Asian population, by both White residents and transient visitors, opens a window onto Singapore’s growth at a time when the West was at its zenith. The book shows how colonial era views were linked inextricably to Singapore being an archetypal trading emporium between East and West, and a prized global fulcrum point amongst the British imperial possessions. Finally, this comprehensive survey of Western narratives is set within a broader academic and political discourse, allowing the reader a wider picture of Singapore’s colonial development.

Theme: Non-Traditional Security

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

24. Terrorist Rehabilitation: Best Practices and Pitfalls - [COMPLETED]

Dr Rohan Gunaratna, Professor of Security Studies

Dr Jolene Jerard, Adjunct Senior Fellow

This book analyses the different approaches and modes of terrorist rehabilitation that have been employed in various countries. A key emphasis of the book is to understand the contexts in which these programmes were initiated and the factors that determined their relative success and failure.

Theme: Terrorism Studies

Region: Global

25. Climate Change Adaptation: The Need for an Indian Ocean Regional Metamorphosis - [COMPLETED]

Dr Victor R Savage, Adjunct Senior Fellow

The Indian Ocean contains one of the busiest trade routes in history, connecting East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa, as well as giving passage to Europe. Given its historical and economic connections and diffusion of ideas, religions, and cultural traditions, the Indian Ocean region's (IOR) fertile cultural complex can serve as an important platform for addressing climate change. To survive and thrive under climate change, IOR societies need to undergo profound transformation or metamorphosis. We briefly discuss the history and major climate change issues of the IOR before proposing five suggestions: engaging in regional cooperation on climate change; combining the region's folk science and indigenous traditions with modern science and technology in the formulation and implementation of climate strategies; embracing the region's terraqueous geography; initiating development corridors inland; and ensuring that cities are sustainable and liveable.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Non-Traditional Security

Region: Africa / South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

26. Anglo-Mughal Diplomacy: Resilience in Practice - [COMPLETED]

Dr Deep K Datta Ray, Visiting Senior Fellow

Commissioned by the SCOPUS journal, India Quarterly, for a special issue on diplomacy, this article engages the idea of the modern world by turning to two central concepts: diplomacy and resilience. Utilising primary source material left behind by 18th century British diplomats, demonstrated is the European intention to not colonise but tessellate into Asia. What this does, at a minimum, is to ironically undermine by using European sources, Europe’s story of its expansionism. Furthermore, the diaries also expose a multiplicity of forms of resiliency in a pre-modern society facing “modernity”. In combination, what this challenges is the extent of the West in creating Asian modernity, not least because the former was hesitant, the latter resilient, but also because of the briefness of the encounter that is supposed to have converted hundreds of millions of Asians.

Theme: Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security

Region: Europe / South Asia / Global

27. Misunderstanding Indian Nuclear Diplomacy - [COMPLETED]

Dr Deep K Datta Ray, Visiting Senior Fellow

Proposed for The Roundtable: the Commonwealth journal of International Affairs (SCOPUS), this article is about the nature and practice of Indian nuclear diplomacy. The only aspect of Indian foreign policy to be studied by both Realists and Postcolonials, what interlinks both is their infantilising of India by claiming it learnt nuclear diplomacy from the West. To turn to the writings of the formulators and practitioners of Indian nuclear diplomacy, from Jawaharlal Nehru to K. Subrahmanyam, however undermines both Realist and Postcolonial claims to expose what neither considers: an intellectual history for nuclear diplomacy rooted in India’s freedom struggle. The article therefore challenges IR theory, posits an alternative to it, and reveals the possibilities, and dangers, of New Delhi’s nuclear diplomacy.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Cybersecurity, Biosecurity and Nuclear Safety / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: South Asia / Global

28. Sino-Indian Conceptions of Politics - [COMPLETED]

Dr Deep K Datta Ray, Visiting Senior Fellow

Commissioned by Yan Xuetong, Amitav Acharya, and Daniel Bell for a volume to be published by California University Press, this chapter tackles the concept of diplomacy. Presenting the traditional International Relations (IR) conceptualisation of diplomacy, demonstrated is how this leads to the occlusion or dismissal of Indian diplomacy and therefore how it is counterproductive to the disciplinary claim of accounting and explaining. It is to restore this metric, that Indian diplomacy is theorised without recourse to IR, for its categories are those that create the paradox of accounting and explaining without achieving either. Rather, diplomatic practice is made sense of in terms of Indian practitioners, to reveal a rationality aspiring to non-violently managing violence.

Theme: Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / South Asia

29. Springer Encyclopaedia Entry - [COMPLETED]

Dr Deep K Datta Ray, Visiting Senior Fellow

This is an entry on diplomacy in the Springer Encyclopaedia.

Theme: General / International Politics and Security

Region: Global

30. The Interactions of International Relation: Racism, Colonialism, Producer-Centred-Research - [COMPLETED]

Dr Deep K Datta Ray, Visiting Senior Fellow

Commissioned by SCOPUS journal All Azimuth and currently under review, this article engages the colonial methodology of the discipline of International Relations (IR) and proposes the Producer-Centred-Research model as a solution. IR’s inductive and deductive methods are demonstrated to be racist at inception, thereby rendering the discipline colonial – that is, imposing core values upon the global periphery. This is why PCR is formulated for its approach is abductive and so initiated by not core concerns but the dissonance between them and the subject. This is resolved in terms of rationality recast in the plural as rationalities, and then determining if they exist by treating peripheral actors as rational. In short, evidence for rationalities is collected and made sense of in peripheral, rather than core, terms, and located in practitioner’s history. The article concludes by verifying PCR’s efficacy.

Theme: Conflict and Stability / International Politics and Security / Non-Traditional Security

Region: Europe / Global

31. The Occlusions of Nationalism: India, Diplomacy, Violence - [COMPLETED]

Dr Deep K Datta Ray, Visiting Senior Fellow

Commissioned by King’s College London for a volume by World Scientific (Singapore), this chapter assess "nationalism". It rides on “history” which renders the present a site for retrieving the past to deliver a future. Yet, unique fieldwork within India’s foreign ministry, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) demonstrates, it is the present where history, and so nationalism, is undone by diplomats, the MEA, and the state. History is irrelevant for no essence is retrieved, and the site for action is the present. Moreover, using nationalism cloaks interest: managing violence by internalising violence. Not only is this taste for violence occluded by nationalism, but its irrelevance is confirmed by the BJP’s foreign policy explanations not resonating with anyone because they are presented in terms incomprehensible. Such occlusions, paradoxes and irrelevancies, is why the utility of nationalism is questioned not only to explain India, but as a heuristic.

Theme: Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security / Non-Traditional Security

Region: South Asia / Global

32. Singapore Street Names: A Study of Toponymics - [COMPLETED]

Dr Victor R Savage, Adjunct Senior Fellow

This is the 4th edition of our book on Singapore’s street and place names. It deals with the historical, cultural, social, economic and political scaffoldings of Singapore’s cultural landscape based on place and street names. This book has been cited by many Singapore scholars and amateur historians who are interested in finding out the origins of place and street names over time. The book has been substantially revised and brought up to date with new information on various place and street names. As many Singaporeans are interested in the history of cultural landscapes, we have been able to benefit from their descriptions of specific places. The book is being published by Marshall Cavendish and would be out some time in November 2021.

Theme: Country and Region Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

33. Countering Islamic State Ideology: Voices of Singapore Religious Scholars – An Edited Volume - [COMPLETED]

Dr Rohan Gunaratna, Professor of Security Studies

Dr Muhammad Haniff Hassan, Research Fellow

Theme: Singapore and Homeland Security / Terrorism Studies

Region: South Asia / Global

34. OUP Handbook on Peaceful Change in International Relations - [COMPLETED]

Dr Ralf Emmers, Adjunct Senior Fellow and Senior Lecturer in International Politics of East Asia; Co-Chair of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy (CISD)

Theme: International Politics and Security / Non-Traditional Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: Global

35. Translations of the works of Burhanuddin al-Helmy - [COMPLETED]

Dr Farish A. Noor, Associate Professor

This book project aims to translate two of the works by Dr Burhanuddin al-Helmy, (d.1969) who was a leading anti-colonial activist in Malaysia in the 1940s-1950s and also the President of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party PAS (1956-1969). For the first time, his works which have hitherto been found only in the Malay language and Jawi script will be translated into English. This work will be of interest to scholars of political Islam and Islamic movements in Asia. Brill Press (Leiden) has expressed keen interest in publishing the final manuscript/s.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

36. Easter Sunday Attack in Sri Lanka - [COMPLETED]

Dr Rohan Gunaratna, Professor of Security Studies

A detailed study of the Easter Sunday Attack, the most catastrophic attack by the Islamic State in 2019. Based on interviews with the key terrorist and family members of the perpetrators as well as the policy and decisionmakers, the research examines the global expansion of Islamic State after its territorial defeat in Iraq and Syria. The study argues that 63 per cent of the world’s Muslim population live in Asia and they need to be protected from a new wave of radicalisation. The research concludes with a blueprint to Asian countries to work together to fight the current and emerging wave of Muslim radicalisation and reciprocal radicalisation.

Theme: General / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security / Religion in Contemporary Society / Terrorism Studies

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global

37. Civilizationism vs the Nation State: How Illiberal Democrats, Authoritarians and Autocrats Shape the New World Order - [COMPLETED]

Dr James M. Dorsey, Adjunct Senior Fellow

A tacit meeting of the minds among world leaders as well as conservative and far-right politicians and activists is emerging on the values that are likely to shape a 21st century new world order. Rejecting universal concepts of human, minority and other rights, the values are grounded in the rise of civilisationalism and the civilisational state that places its legitimacy in a distinct civilisation rather than the nation state’s concept of territorial integrity, language and citizenry.

This values system reflects an unspoken consensus among men like Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Victor Orban, Mohammed bin Salman, Narendra Modi and Donald Trump. It constitutes the greatest threat to liberal values such as human and minority rights and reduces the Great Game for influence, if not dominance in Eurasia, to a power struggle over spheres of influence and the sharing of the pie.

Theme: International Politics and Security

Region: Global

38. Saudi Arabia’s Wrecking Ball: Pushing Pakistan to the Brink - [COMPLETED]

Dr James M. Dorsey, Adjunct Senior Fellow

Saudi Arabia’s Wrecking Ball is an in-depth look at the devastating impact of Saudi Arabia’s ability to weave Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatism into the fabric of key Pakistani institutions, including its military, intelligence apparatus, and ministries of religious affairs, education and interior; and sig-nificant segments of its society. This book will tell the story of Saudi penetration of Pakistan since the 1950s and how successive Pakistani leaders abetted and aided the kingdom’s effort. It is also the tale of a successful Saudi effort to put Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatism on the world map. This is in a bid to foster anti-Shiite and anti-Iranian sen-timent at the cost of increased sectarianism that threatens the social fabric of societies and fosters intolerance towards minorities and anti-Western sentiment, and creates environments that are potential breeding grounds for extremism and violence.

Theme: Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies / International Politics and Security / Religion in Contemporary Society / Terrorism Studies

Region: Europe / Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

39. The Madrasah in Asia: Networks and Contemporary Developments - [COMPLETED]

Dr Farish A. Noor, Associate Professor

Prof Martin van Bruinessen , Middle East Institute, NUS

This is a research project that connects with our earlier work on Madrasahs and their international networks across Asia. The end goal is an edited volume to be jointly edited by Profs Farish Noor and Martin van Bruinessen. The aim is to research contemporary and recent developments in modern madrasahs in South and Southeast Asia, with a view of collecting several state-of-the-art papers from a number of contributors and work towards the publication of a book by 2020.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Religion in Contemporary Society

Region: South Asia / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

40. China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Challenges in ASEAN - [COMPLETED]

Mr Phidel Marion G. Vineles, Senior Analyst

Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is described as the most ambitious international economic cooperation of China, which covers 64 per cent of global population and 30 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP). It covers vast sub-regions in Asia, Europe, and Africa with the goal of stimulating economic development of the countries along the BRI routes. The ambitious Initiative is expected to boost ASEAN’s overall GDP through a swathe of infrastructure projects that are estimated to worth billions of dollars. However, BRI’s implementation across the region faces challenges, including growing scepticism about the Initiative, China’s South China Sea’s territorial disputes with some ASEAN member states (AMS), high involvement of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the projects, and uncertainties about debt trap. Against this backdrop, it is important for China to implement policy measures that are designed to realise successful BRI projects in ASEAN.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Political Economy / International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

41. Creating Frankenstein: The Saudi Export of Wahhabism - [COMPLETED]

Dr James M. Dorsey, Adjunct Senior Fellow

Tension between Middle Eastern regional powers Saudi Arabia and Iran are likely to intensify sectarian strains in countries that are home to both Sunni and Shiite Muslim communities. At the heart of the battle between Saudi Arabia and Iran is a four decade-old existential battle for dominance in the Muslim world. It is a battle that started with the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. Concerned that the Iranian revolution would offer a form of Islamic governance involving a degree of popular sovereignty that would challenge Saudi Arabia’s absolute monarchy that cloaks itself in a puritan interpretation of Islam, the kingdom went on the warpath. In doing so, it turned Wahhabi proselytisation into the single largest dedicated public diplomacy campaign in World War Two history, spending up to $100 billion since 1979 on the funding of Muslim cultural institutions across the globe and forging close ties to non-Wahhabi Muslim leaders and intelligence agencies.

Theme: General / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies / International Political Economy / Terrorism Studies

Region: Central Asia / Europe / South Asia

42. Lion City Narratives: Singapore through Western Eyes - [COMPLETED]

Dr Victor R Savage, Adjunct Senior Fellow

This book project fulfils four aims. First, it is a study of subjective Western impressions of Singapore’s 145 years (1819-1963) of colonial history. The study provides the reader an impressionistic account of how Western residents viewed Singapore over the decades. Second, this study could be seen as a short biography of Singapore’s evolution as a city. The chapters on imageability of Singapore and urban morphology provide a holistic perspective of Singapore’s urban dynamics. Third, this book provides a cultural insight of Singapore’s inhabitants, both White residents and transient visitors as well as the local population. Fourth, Singapore’s development came at a time when the West was at its cultural zenith and when Great Britain was the main superpower in the 19th century. Hence Singapore carried twin colonial legacies: she was the archetype trading emporium between East and West and she became, for the British, the major point d’appui for defence.

Theme: Country and Region Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

43. Minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific: The Quad, Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Mechanism, and ASEAN - [COMPLETED]

Dr Bhubhindar Singh, Associate Professor and Associate Dean (Academic Affairs); Head of Graduate Studies

Dr Sarah Teo, Assistant Professor

Theme: International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

44. The Southeast Asian Region: A Western Definition through Nature and Landscape

Dr Victor R Savage, Adjunct Senior Fellow

The book of 11 chapters tries to look at the Southeast Asian region from an external (Western) perspective. The European perspective of Southeast Asia covers over 2,000 years of history. The first European cartographic definition of the region was found in Claudius Ptolemy’s 1st century AD atlas: Map 11 was dedicated to Southeast Asia entitled India beyond the Ganges. The European definition of the region was revived in the late 15th century with travellers and traders coming to the region and formulating their perceptions of the region. In this study, I use nature and landscape to represent the intimate Western experiences in the region and how these perceptions kept changing their definitions of the Southeast Asian region.

Theme: Country and Region Studies / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

45. SEATO: A History - [COMPLETED]

Dr Ang Cheng Guan, Professor of the International History of Southeast Asia and Associate Dean of S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies

This is an attempt to revisit the history of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation from its formation to its demise in 1977. The majority of writings on SEATO were published between the 1950s and 1980s. There is only one single-authored study of SEATO (published in 1983) which covers the complete life cycle of the organisation. A new study of SEATO was published in 2012 after a long hiatus. However, this account focuses mainly on developments up to 1965. My monograph/ two-year book project will fill a gap in the
historiography of the international history and politics of Southeast Asia during the Cold War years. Now that we have the primary/declassified archival sources, then not available to the authors writing in the earlier decades, it is perhaps worth revisiting the organisation for a better understanding of it.

Theme: General

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

46. Book on Three Tours as a Diplomat in Singapore’s Embassy in Moscow between 1994 and 2013 - [COMPLETED]

Mr Chris Cheang, Senior Fellow

The book touches on the author's life and work in Russia between 1994 and 2013. It covers: (i) the major events there and his assessment of them then, (ii) his personal experience of life there, (iii) its relationship to the state of the country, as well as (iv) the development of bilateral relations between Singapore and Russia.

Theme: General

Region: Europe

47. The Gulf Crisis: Small States Battle It Out - [COMPLETED]

Dr James M. Dorsey, Adjunct Senior Fellow

Buried in the Gulf crisis is a major development likely to reshape international relations as well as power dynamics in the Middle East. The coming out of small states capable of punching far above their weight with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, a driver of the crisis, locked into an epic struggle to rewrite the region’s political map.

Theme: General / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies / International Political Economy / International Politics and Security / Terrorism Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

48. In Search of the Singapore Identity

Mr Han Fook Kwang, Senior Fellow

This research will explore issues arising out of Singapore’s search for its identity. It will discuss what constitutes the Singapore identity, how has it changed, if any, what accounts for the change, why did the change occur, and what are the implications for the future. Singapore’s search for identity is not taking place in isolation but against a global backdrop where issues of identity are coming to the fore. In Europe and the US, there has been a resurgence of public sentiment towards stronger national identities. Brexit and the election of President Donald Trump in the US were examples of this, as is the rising strength of nationalistic, right wing parties in Europe. The research will discuss Singapore’s identity in this global context. It will also explore the issue of identity in the following areas: (i) economic identity; (ii) cultural identity; (iii) political/social identity; and (iv) international identity.

Theme: General / International Political Economy

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global

49. Shifting Loyalties and New Political Trends in East Malaysia - [COMPLETED]

Dr Farish A. Noor, Associate Professor

The project looks at the latest currents of identity politics in East Malaysia, and considers the impact of local-level identity politics on the formation of new political parties and alliances in the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak.

Theme: Country and Region Studies

Region: Southeast Asia and ASEAN

50. Science & Technology and Economic Security

Dr Christopher H. Lim, Adjunct Senior Fellow

Studies would include: i) how the development of science & technology could change the economic future and security of any country and/or region; ii) strategies and/or initiatives of a country and/ or a region could alter the economic future and security of another country and/or region; iii) exploration on the potential usage of biomimicry concept on how science, technology and economic could auto-feed and change the dynamics and characteristics of each other.

Theme: General

Region: Global

51. Southeast Asia After the Cold War: Order and Regionalism - [COMPLETED]

Dr Ang Cheng Guan, Professor of the International History of Southeast Asia and Associate Dean of S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies

This is the sequel to the earlier study (Southeast Asia and the Cold War). This book will take stock of how Southeast Asia has evolved since 1990, the changes and continuities from a contemporary international history/politics perspective. It is targeted for publication in 2019-2020, a befitting time for reflection and also for looking ahead.

Theme: General / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies / International Political Economy / International Politics and Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN

52. Mahathir, Anwar and Malaysia’s Opposition Politics: A New Beginning?

Mr Yang Razali Kassim, Senior Fellow

To review the prospects for the Malaysian opposition, following the second incarceration of Anwar Ibrahim, and the “reinvention” of Mahathir as a de facto oppositionist leader. This paper will include the broader implications on Malaysian politics as a whole, taking into account whether the Malaysian opposition will evolve or remake itself in unexpected ways.

Theme: General / Conflict and Stability / Country and Region Studies

Region: East Asia and Asia Pacific / Southeast Asia and ASEAN / Global