Brian Wong
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The Great Moral Panic: A Response to Tom Nichols’s Article on The Atlantic
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Tom Nichols’ recent piece understandably reflects many variants of ongoing concerns and criticisms towards universities and the perceived overreaching of students. Whilst his argument undoubtedly has grounding in certain facts and events that have transpired over the past decade, his overarching conclusion emerges from a great leap – some would say, one deeply uncharitable to…
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On the Politics of Grieving
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The recent backlash over the ostensibly selective mourning and sympathy over the burning-down of the Notre Dame has instigated me to consider a particular question – do we have obligations and rights to grieve, to not grieve, to grieve universally and indiscriminately, or to grieve in a way that correlates with our nationalistic or personal…
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A True Believer in Internationalist Liberalism: A Dialogue with Jeffrey Sachs
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In the age of Trumpian politics, nationalistic jingoism in the West, and intermittent escalation in the Xi-Trump wrestle for global power, Jeffrey Sachs stands out as amongst the most vocal public intellectuals on the subject of US-China relations and economic development. His latest work, A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism (2018), offers a brief glimpse into…
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Interview with Joseph Nye: A Scholar of Peace, An Expert on Power
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Brian: How does the internet, or more specifically, the rise of cultural phenomena across social media platforms (e.g. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook) reshape – if at all – our understanding of soft power? We’ve seen how big a role Twitter played during the Arab Spring, but would you say that, in light of the increasing prevalence…
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In Defiance of Authoritarianism, the Liberal Warrior: Leni Robredo
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You are one of the most prominent and outspoken defenders of liberal and egalitarian politics in the Philippines. Given how difficult this has been in light of the political context of the country, what motivated you in the first place to become an activist, and what continues to motivate her to persevere? One instance that…
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In Defence of Identity Politics
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Identity politics is a term that attracts bifurcated responses and invokes starkly distinct imagined connotations. On the one hand, it appears to be at the forefront of progressive activism, a connecting bridge between intersectionality analysis and large-scale student movements; on the other hand it appears to be associated with the insular, exclusionary tendencies of politics…
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Political Pragmatism in Age of Ideologues: An Interview with Kevin Rudd
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Political Pragmatism in Age of Ideologues: An Interview with Kevin Rudd, ex-Australian Prime Minister and president of the Asia Society Policy Institute.
