Blog
The blog echoes the remit of the RSAA, covering current affairs, culture, travel, exploration and recent history from the Levant to East Asia.
Opinions expressed in posts are those of the contributor, not of the RSAA.
Contributions
Got a subject you would like to post about? Please contact us for a copy of our editorial guidance. Publication is at the RSAA’s discretion
Politics and Religion: Sectarianism in the Middle East
Professor Simon Mabon is Director of the Sectarianism, Proxies and De-sectarianisation (SEPAD) project at Lancaster University’s Richardson Institute and Chair in International Politics On 12 January, US and UK militaries struck targets across Yemen in an effort to prevent Houthi attacks against ships passing through the Red Sea. The Houthis, a violently intolerant Islamist group…
Ismaili Tradition and its Global Communities in the Modern World
Wafi A. Momin is an Assistant Professor and Head of the Ismaili Special Collections Unit at The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London The Ismailis form a branch of Shia Islam and, though numerically much smaller in comparison to the Ithna‘ashari (‘Twelver’) brand of the Shias, are among the most prosperous and progressive of the Muslim communities…
No Change for Turkmenistan
Anabel Loyd has spent much of her adult life travelling in search of the lost, forgotten or obscure. She has been a regular columnist for the Indian Telegraph for many years and has a particular interest in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Indian history. I have spent much of the past four years, literarily…
Mongolian Archaeology Tomorrow
Dr Joshua Wright is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Aberdeen. He is a landscape archaeologist with a research focus on East Asia. A national museum focused on Chinggis Khaan opened in Ulaanbaatar in 2022. In November of 2022, the National University of Mongolia hosted a conference to open their…
Asia’s Stock Markets, From The Ground Up
Herald van der Linde is the author of Asia’s Stock Market: From the Ground Up, an Adjunct Assistant Professor in finance at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and HSBC’s Chief Asian Equity Strategist. “Asia stock markets rallied as earnings rise” or “Asian stocks sink as COVID spreads” are commonly found headlines on newspaper’s…
The Mongolian Mindset on Uncertainty: Insights for Learning
Dr Saranzaya Manalsuren is a Senior Lecturer at LSBU Business School, London South Bank University. Her research focuses on themes related to sustainable and equitable managerial practices, supporting the equality, diversity, and inclusion agenda, emotional and cultural intelligence and leadership. The latest IMF report highlights a surge in global uncertainty attributed to a myriad…
The Persistent Challenge of ‘Islamic Exceptionalism’
Hadi Enayat is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations at the Aga Khan University in London. He is a political sociologist specialising in the Middle East with a particular focus on religion, law, political theology and intellectual history. The notion of national or civilisational ‘exceptionalism’ was first used in…
The Crisis of Responsibility to Protect in Myanmar: Failing to Prevent and Respond to Atrocities
Dr Noel M Morada is a Visiting Research Professor at the Nelson Mandela Centre for Conflict Resolution, Atrocities Prevention and Human Security, Chulalongkorn University. He is also a Research Fellow at the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect at the University of Queensland and Co-Chair of the Asia Pacific Working Group at Global…
Sufism in the 21st Century: A Living Tradition
Dr Ines Aščerić-Todd is a Lecturer in Arabic and Middle Eastern Cultures at the University of Edinburgh Sufism – Islamic mysticism – encompasses a set of beliefs and practices used by many Muslims as a way of drawing closer to God and attaining personal experience or knowledge of the Divine. Sufism has a long history…
Religious Regulations in Malaysia and their Implications: Lessons from Mentega Terbang
Dr Choong Pui Yee is a senior lecturer at the Department of Southeast Asian Studies at University Malaya. She teaches ASEAN studies and security issues in Southeast Asia. In January, a director and a producer of the Malaysian fictional film Mentega Terbang were charged with “wounding the feelings” of others under Section 298 of the Penal…
Filipino Migrants as Agents of Change
Dr Mina Roces is a Professor of History in the Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture at the University of New South Wales This year marks fifty years since President Ferdinand Marcos signed the labour code that sent Filipino workers all over the world leaving around ten million/ ten percent of the population as migrants today. Since then, migration has…
Majapahit: The Most Powerful Empire in Asia That Most People Have Never Heard Of
Herald van der Linde is the author of Majapahit: Intrigue, Betrayal and War in Indonesia’s Greatest Empire and HSBC’s Chief Asian Equity Strategist As diplomatic showdowns go, this summit was without parallel. In a grand pavilion in the magnificent grounds of the royal palace of Singasari in eastern Java, an envoy from Kublai Khan, probably the…
China Rising, Latin America Swooning
Professor Chris Alden (Director of LSE IDEAS) and Professor Alvaro Mendez (Director of the LSE Global South Unit) co-authored China and Latin America: Development, Agency and Geopolitics The rising fortunes of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) over the last decades launched an economic and social transformation every bit as consequential as the onset of…
South Korean Grand Strategy
Dr Christoph Bluth is Professor of International Relations at the University of Bradford South Korea, in the 21st century, is facing a complex security environment as one of the few liberal democratic states persistently threatened by its neighbour and, therefore, a frontline state in the the emerging geopolitical configuration of the region. The persistent conflict…
Will Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin survive?
Dr Punchada Sirivunnabood is Associate Professor of Political Science at Mahidol University in Thailand After eleven months as Prime Minister of Thailand, real-estate tycoon Srettha Thavisin, backed by the Pheu Thai-led coalition, has not yet successfully implemented any policies promised during his campaign. These include Pheu Thai’s signature 10,000 baht digital wallet, the Thai soft…
“Our (First) Man in Pyongyang”
Dr J E Hoare is an academic and historian specialising in Korean and Chinese studies and was formerly a career diplomat in the British Foreign Office. In London on 12 December 2000, Sir John Kerr, the Permanent Undersecretary of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and Kim Chun Guk, head of the European Department of…
Pyongyang Prospect
Glyn Ford is a former member of the European Parliament and author of Talking to North Korea (2018) and Picturing the DPRK (2024) North Korea’s nuclear programme is the symptom of weakness, not strength. Pundits confuse David with Goliath. The reality is that Pyongyang is comprehensively out-spent, out-gunned and out-resourced by its southern alter ego. Seoul’s military budget dwarfs…
Less Than a Decade to Decide What to do about Hong Kong?
Matthew Hurst is a doctoral student at the University of York researching the Sino-British negotiations over the future of Hong Kong during the 1980s and ’90s. The past can be a poor indicator of the future. Anyone looking to history books as if they were a crystal ball is likely to find themselves disappointed. In…