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About Duncan McCargo
Duncan McCargo writes about Southeast Asia, especially Thailand's politics. Other interests include contemporary fiction, Victorian literature, photography and the Titanic disaster. Duncan is President's Chair in Global Affairs at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, where he is also a professor of English. He edits the Talking Thai Politics podcast, founded the Nordic Asia Podcast and is a host for the Literature and Southeast Asian Studies Channels on NBN. Contact: duncan.mccargo@ntu.edu.sgDuncan McCargo is an eclectic, internationalist political scientist, and literature buff: his day job is teaching Southeast Asian politics at NTU in Singapore.
NBN Episodes hosted by Duncan:
April 5, 2026
Charlotte Brontë's Life Through Clothes
Eleanor Houghton, in conversation with Duncan McCargo and Alexis Wolf Meet the real, thinking, feeling woman that was Charlotte Brontë, as told in …
January 7, 2026
China's Rising Foreign Ministry
How has China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs transformed itself into one of the most assertive diplomatic actors on the global stage? What explains the…
December 30, 2025
Tragic Nation
What went wrong with Burma’s democratic experiment? How are we to understand the country’s turbulent politics in the wake of the 2021 coup? In this c…
July 26, 2025
The Decisive Network
The legendary Magnum photo agency has long been associated with heroic lone wolf male photographers such as Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson, roa…
April 29, 2025
Reporting Thai Politics Internationally
What is it like to be a foreign correspondent in Thailand? How can someone develop sufficient understanding of this complex society to write effective…
February 3, 2025
Transnational Women Writers in the Wilmot Coterie, 1798-1840
What were two Irish sisters doing in Russia during the early years of the nineteenth century, editing the French-language memoirs of a princess who ha…
January 27, 2025
Talking Thai Politics: The Cost of Politics in Thailand
How much does it cost to become an MP in Thailand? Is entering parliamentary politics prohibitively expensive for ordinary people? Has the rise of the…
December 26, 2024
The Ripple Effect
Many studies of China's relations with and influence on Southeast Asia tend to focus on how Beijing has used its power asymmetry to achieve regional i…
December 6, 2024
What’s Up with the Thai Senate?
How exactly were Thailand’s new slate of 200 Senators selected? What is it like to be an independent member of the Senate, when the chamber is now dom…
November 22, 2024
Why Thai Politics isn’t All About China
How far does geopolitics relate to domestic political leanings? Are politically progressive Thais more likely to be pro-US, and more politically conse…
November 8, 2024
Tak Bai and Beyond, Thailand’s Southern Insurgency
In the wake of the twentieth anniversary of the dreadful Tak Bai massacre, what are the prospects for a resolution of the long-standing insurgency in …
October 28, 2024
Thailand: Contestation, Polarization, and Democratic Regression
Why has Thailand’s politics been so contested and so intensely polarized in recent decades? How can we account for the persistent democratic regressio…
October 11, 2024
Talking Thai Politics: Kunthika Nutcharut, Defending Disruptors
What is it like to be a human rights lawyer in Thailand? How does the new generation of 2020s political activists differ from those of previous eras? …
September 27, 2024
Mark Tamthai: Remembering Chaiwat Satha-Anand
Why was the late Ajarn Chaiwat Satha-Anand so passionate about bringing peace to Thailand’s deep south? How did he try to speak nonviolence to Thai po…
September 12, 2024
Talking Thai Politics: Pannika Wanich, Progressive Activist
In this inaugural episode of Talking Thai Politics, Pannika Wanich of the Progressive Movement talks about generational contestation in Thailand, as w…
February 1, 2024
Branding Authoritarian Nations
What does nation-branding mean to you? For many listeners, the term probably conjures up ideas of catchy slogans and international tourism or trade pr…
December 19, 2023
Saving the Brontë Birthplace
Where were the Brontë sisters actually born? If this was a quiz question, most people would give the wrong answer. Even standard books on the Brontë f…
September 1, 2023
Ethnicity and Politics in Southeast Asia
What explains the varying treatment of ethnic minorities in Southeast Asia? Why have some states in the region been far more successful than others in…
August 4, 2023
Cause Lawyering and Human Rights in Indonesia
Why have issues of human rights become so contentious in Indonesia, 25 years after the much-heralded post-Suharto democratic transition? What kind of …
July 21, 2023
Electoral Reform and Democracy in Malaysia
Why is Malaysia in need of electoral reform? How can we explain recent changes including the anti-party hopping law and the successful UNDI18 campaign…
July 14, 2023
Ethnicity and Nation-Building in Myanmar
Did the bloody 1 February 2021 military coup in Myanmar produce an unexpected ‘solidarity dividend’ by unifying opponents of the new regime from a ran…
March 6, 2023
Constitutional Bricolage
Why has Thailand had 20 constitutions since 1932? What accounts for the remarkable veneration Thais often feel towards these short-lived documents? Ho…
February 24, 2023
Beijing's Global Media Offensive
How is China trying to influence media across Asia and indeed globally? Why has this ambitious project achieved rather mixed results so far? And how s…
December 16, 2022
Cultural Renewal in Cambodia
How far did post-UNTAC Cambodia exemplified an expanded Habermasian public sphere? What happened when a range of aid agencies, private donors, activis…