Columns
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Covid, Polarisation and Democracy
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The threat posed by Covid-19 briefly brought unity and decreased polarisation. However, the increased sense of community might prove short-lived as certain political leaders sowed disagreement and the pandemic wreaked havoc on people’s lives and increased inequality. Historically, threats such as ones during the Cold War have united domestic polities and reduced polarisation. When touring…
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A Discourse on the Rohingya Crisis: Concerns over Human Security, Geopolitics, Democracy
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Since the inception of Myanmar as a military-run state in the 1960s, this discourse has been a prominent symbol of Rakhine. The Tatmadaw has had a significant effect on the Burmese government, resulting in a high level of discrimination against the Rohingya population and near-complete marginalization in terms of resource allocations and growth. The Rohingya…
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Safeguarding Women’s Rights in Afghanistan
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“Afghan women are America’s (and the world’s) staunchest allies in creating a stronger, more secure Afghanistan”, wrote a recent CNN commentary. Yet, America seems to be abandoning them amidst its urgency to exit the country. While it cannot be refuted that the spate of events may not portend well for women, what is more discouraging…
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Afghanistan and the EU as a Peace Mediation Actor: Achievements and Value Added – Can It Complete/Complement the Peace Process?
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The following article aims to analyse the involvement of the European Union (EU) as a peace mediation actor in Afghanistan. I argue that given the difficult conditions on the ground, the EU has made considerable achievements in its engagement in complementing the process, but that a completion of the Afghan peace process is yet not…
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From Annexation to self-defense: Prelude to the eleven day Gaza Conflict
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Introduction Israel has seen four inconclusive Knesset elections in the past two years. In April 2019, struggling to rally right-wing voters, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to annex parts of the West Bank in a throwaway remark. This suggestion was later bolstered by the Trump administration’s seeming openness to the provocative move, and reversal…
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The Power of Memes in Political Campaigning
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“Make America Great Again”, “America #1”, “Build the Wall and Crime will Fall” – these are all phrases that Donald Trump deployed to win votes in his political campaigns. Even those who have little sympathy for the departing American president have often engaged in conversations that are similar in tone: “I don’t like him but…
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What does it mean to be Singaporean? Reconstructing migrant worker identities in a neoliberal COVID-19 world
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AbstractIn discussing the role of immigration in policy formulation in Singapore, this article uses conceptions of Singaporeanism to explore how identities of migrant workers* have been moulded and reconstructed by Singapore’s colonial past and the neoliberal economic present. Post-COVID-19, where structural inequalities affecting minorities such as migrant workers will require address, the dearth of academic…
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Unfolding China’s vaccine diplomacy in Sri Lanka
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After a rocky start, China reached a triumph in its economic growth amid the COVID 19 crisis that encompassed the rest of the world last year. Unlike what other countries encountered, the geopolitical nexus that Beijing has been planning through its most gigantic project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), has not been shaken by…
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The Rohingya and the Democratic Uprising in Myanmar
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In the aftermath of Myanmar’s military coup on 1 February 2021, hundreds of thousands of people – from almost every ethnic group, including people from the Rohingya community – have marched in the streets nationwide in opposition to the military’s power grab. Some activists hope that the protests present a turning point for the persecuted…
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Artificial Intelligence: Implications for human dignity and governance
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Nayef Al-Rodhan Recent years have seen a surge in discussions about the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI). These debates have predominantly featured issues related to autonomy in driverless cars, or the moral dilemmas of deploying ‘killer robots’, though the reach and impact of AI-based technologies is, of course, far more widespread. AI is a widely…