Indonesian voters in Southeast Asia’s largest democracy elected the ticket of former military general Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka in February 2024, but not without controversy. Gibran is the son of outgoing President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, who is accused of manipulating the courts to allow Gibran to run despite being below the constitutional minimum age.   There are even charges of vote rigging that are being handled by Indonesia’s Election Supervisory Agency or Bawaslu and...

From booming GDP growth and low interest rates to raging inflation and a shrinking economy, most of us have a sense of how the macroeconomic ups and downs can affect our lives. But have you ever considered what it takes to keep an economy healthy?  Our guest certainly has. Ramkishen S. Rajan is Yong Pung How Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. He has been a Visiting Fellow at various regional research institutes, including the Asia Competitiveness Institute, the Institute...

The last time we spoke to Leong Ching, Vice Provost for Student Life, NUS, and Associate Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, we discussed the "yuck factor" which describes people's visceral aversion to drinking recycled water. Today, we'll be expanding on that topic to look at the rationale behind irrational environmental behaviour in general. As an institutional economist, Professor Leong uses narratives, perceptions and stories to understand collective public behaviour...

Urban environments, from infrastructure to green spaces, play a crucial role in shaping lifestyle choices, social dynamics, and overall quality of health.  Tan Shin Bin is an Assistant Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP). She previously worked as an urban planner at Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority, the government body tasked with guiding the physical development of Singapore in a sustainable manner. She joins us to discuss how urban environments impact...

Dr Marina Kaneti is an Assistant Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. Her area of research centres on global governance and questions of migration, climate and geopolitical developments. She has explored the influence of China around the world, including the Belt and Road initiative. Recently, she produced a two-part documentary series titled “The Seas That Bind Us and Define Us”, exploring maritime heritage and its significance in Asia. She joins us to talk about maritime...

In an increasingly interconnected world, the advent of mobile banking has ushered in a transformative era. Access to mobile banking can have a profound impact on people in developing economies. The impact of mobile banking extends beyond individual lives – it ripples through entire communities, affecting aspects such as migration and inequality. Dr Saravana Ravindran, Assistant Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, studies challenges and potential policy solutions relating...

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) aims to create a highly integrated regional economy by 2025. Known as the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), the initiative faces many obstacles that may hinder the achieving of its goal. To understand the obstacles and opportunities, we speak to Dr Denis Hew. Currently Senior Research Fellow at the Centre on Asia and Globalisation, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Dr Hew has served as Director of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation...

Singapore is world-renowned for its urban planning. While it is enjoying the success of the good planning of the past, it finds itself in the middle of an important shift to be prepared for the environment of the future. To understand the challenges and opportunities, we speak with Dr Woo Jun Jie. Dr Woo is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, where he heads the Governance and Economy department. His work focuses on urban policy,...

Visiting Professor Emmanuel Skoufias served as a Lead Economist in the Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank Group, from 2004 until his retirement in 2022. His area of expertise includes the use of microdata to analyse the determinants of poverty and household welfare, the impacts of risk and risk management strategies, and the targeting of social protection programs. He joined us for a deep dive into how microdata informs policy planning and decisions. Subscribe to the...

What are the most effective methods of protecting, and hopefully restoring, the planet's biodiversity? This is a key question underlying the work of Tanya O'Garra, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. Tanya is an environmental economist with over 15 years’ experience conducting research on the valuation of ecosystem services and the collective management of shared natural resources. She has recently published a...

Benjamin Cashore is Li Ka Shing Professor in Public Management and Director of the Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES) at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. He specialises in global and multi-level environmental governance, comparative public policy and administration, and transnational business regulation and corporate social responsibility. In his role as the Director of IES, he focuses on helping governments and private sectors close the gap between policy...

Dr Ng Kok Hoe is a Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Social Inclusion Project and Case Study Unit at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore (NUS). His research interests are public housing policy, homelessness, income security and minimum income standards. In August this year, Dr Ng Kok Hoe from the Social Inclusion Project at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy published findings from a nationwide count of the number of homeless people sleeping...

Selina Ho is Assistant Professor in International Affairs and Co-Director of the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. She is an expert on Chinese politics and foreign policy. She is especially interested in how China wields power and influence via infrastructure and water disputes in Southeast Asia and South Asia. She is co-author of Rivers of Iron: Railroads and Chinese Power in Southeast Asia. She joins us to discuss China's domestic politics and...

Terrence Ho is an Associate Professor in Practice at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. Over the past decade, Professor Ho has held various policy research and leadership positions in the Singapore public service, including as an economist in the Ministry of Trade and Industry and Divisional Director of Manpower Planning and Policy at the Ministry of Manpower. A frequent commentator for publications such as the Straits Times and Channel News Asia, Professor Ho specialises in economic and...

Vinod Thomas is Visiting Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. Previously he served as Director General of Independent Evaluation at Asian Development Bank, where he worked to institute change. In his role, he assessed ADB’s development effectiveness while providing lessons to help inform ADB’s actions. This was instrumental in making green growth and action on climate change more integral to ADB’s strategy. This is just one example of Professor Thomas' deep understanding of...

Francesco Mancini, Vice Dean (Executive Education) and Associate Professor in Practice at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy has an extensive background in the prevention and settlement of armed conflict. He was a senior director at the International Peace Institute in New York, a think tank that works very closely with the United Nations and its member states. He has been working in and around conflict, peacekeeping, conflict resolution and negotiation for close to 20 years. In that...

“What is public policy?” It has often been broadly defined as a set of actions the government decides to take when approaching a problem that affects society as a group. When Global-is-Asian decided to explore the question of public policy and its impact on Singapore, one faculty member stood out as the perfect person to speak with to get their input: Lim Siong Guan is Professor in Practice at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, instructing on leadership and change management, and his...

Dr. Marina Kaneti specialises in questions of global development, including the Chinese Belt and Road initiative, environmental governance, human rights, the sustainable development goals and for the purpose of this discussion – migration. I started by asking her what made her interested in migration in the first place. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We have Dr. Mathew Mathews, Principal Research Fellow and Head of the Social Lab at the Institute of Policy Studies at NUS and Shamil Zainuddin, Research Associate at the Institute of Policy Studies at NUS. And we're following up on a recent commentary they wrote that was published in Channel NewsAsia, about the worries over rising COVID-19 cases, that they're fuelling racially charged comments, and we wanted to follow up and talk a little bit more about that. See omnystudio.com/listener for...

Leadership is always a popular topic of discussion. As our guest Taha Hameduddin, Assistant Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy says, “if you want to sell a talk or a speaker or a class, you have to put the word leadership in it.” But the fact is, leadership matters. And that’s exactly what Professor Hamedduddin and his co-author Professor Trent Engbers found in their recent study, “Leadership and public service motivation: a systematic synthesis”. See...

“It’s time for ASEAN to act and lead the de-escalation and mediation process in Myanmar.” That’s the main message of a paper published by The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, co-authored by our guest, Yongwook Ryu, Assistant Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, together with Bernard Minn and Myat Myat Mon, who are both Master in Public Policy candidates at LKYSPP. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the 21st century, terrorism continues to be a phenomenon that plagues countries all around the world. In this Foreseeable Podcast, Associate Professor in Practice Francesco Mancini gives us insights on terrorism and how it could change in the future. Subscribe to the Global-is-Asian podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There was a lot of media attention when a Pew Research Center study came out in late 2020 saying that 61 percent of citizens in 14 major economies hold unfavourable views of China. And especially that public opinion of China in the United States was historically negative. But what about public opinion inside China? How did Chinese citizens view these same 14 countries?  That’s exactly what our guests found out. Their survey revealed that the negative feelings are largely mutual, particularly...

After a tense and controversial election period, Joe Biden is now set to become the next president of the United States. We asked Assistant Professor Yongwook Ryu to give us his perspective on the past four years under the Trump administration, as well as on what the Biden administration has in store for China and the rest of Asia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.