See Seng Tan
Biographic Data
| ID | 1199738 |
|---|---|
| NAME | See Seng Tan |
| GIVEN NAMES | See Seng |
| FAMILY NAME | Tan |
| SIGNATURE | TAN S S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Nanyang Technological University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0363-5082 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 85 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
America's foreign policy after Biden
What might the foreign policy of a potential Trump presidency or that of a Harris presidency look like, and what could their respective implications for the Indo‐Pacific be? The likelihood that Trump will revive his “America First” doctrine, including his trade war with China, suggests that the region may be in for another bumpy ride from a “Trump 2.0.” A Harris presidency will likely continue Biden's policy in engaging deeply (but selectively) w…
Singapore’s stand on Russia’s war against Ukraine
Whither the people in the Asean Community
The longstanding effort to develop a people-based regionalism in Southeast Asia has been shaped by an inherent tension between the liberal inclination to privilege the individual and the community under formation, on the one hand, and the realist insistence on the primacy of the state, on the other. This article explores the conditions and constraints affecting ASEAN’s progress in remaking Southeast Asia into a people-focused and caring community…
Consigned to hedge
This article assesses how south-east Asian countries and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have responded to the 'free and open Indo-Pacific' (FOIP) strategies promoted by the United States and the other countries in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the 'Quad': US, Japan, Australia and India). Their nuanced ripostes imply a persistent commitment to hedging and shifting limited alignments in the face of growing great rivalry a…
Is Asean Finally Getting Multilateralism Right? From ARF to ADMM
ASEAN-led security multilateralism in the contemporary Asia–Pacific has been described as a frustrating enterprise. While many ASEAN-led regional arrangements have been perceived as mostly ineffective, the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in particular has been singled out as the poster child for what is wrong with Asia–Pacific multilateralism. In contrast, the progress in security cooperation achieved by the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM…
American Grand Strategy and East Asian Security in the Twenty-First Century
David C. Kang’s latest book, American Grand Strategy and East Asian Security in the Twenty-First Century (hereafter, AGS) by Cambridge University Press is an elegant restatement of an argument – albeit with a couple of interesting twists – first rendered in earlier efforts such as China Rising: Peace, Power, and Order in East Asia (Columbia University Press, 2007). Essentially, Kang takes Realpolitik suppositions expectations about East Asian res…
Providing for the other
This article assesses the ethical discourse on and practice of ‘responsible provision’ adopted by the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) and the ADMM-Plus and their member countries. Despite their ambivalence towards the ‘responsibility-to-protect’ (R2Protect) norm advocated by the United Nations, Southeast Asian countries have in fact been developing a brand of sovereign responsibility that could be termed a ‘responsibility-to-provide’. Tho…
Southeast Asian Perspectives on South Korea’s Middle Power Engagement Initiatives
Perspectives from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam show that South Korea’s middle power role in Southeast Asia is confined to economics and capacity building. Despite being absent from Southeast Asia’s geostrategic calculus, Korea’s non-revisionist inclination is seen to be advantageous in its pursuit of enhanced middle power status
America the Indispensable Power
Security relations between Singapore and the United States have evolved significantly since the former gained independence in 1965. From an unlikely partnership pursued by Singapore by default rather than choice during Singapore's formative years, the United States has since evolved into a vital partner of Singapore because of the indispensable role it has played in ensuring a stable balance of power in the Asia‐Pacific and in facilitating the ec…
Multilateral Asian Security Architecture
This book provides a comparative assessment of the material and ideational contributions of five countries to the regional architecture of post-Cold War Asia. In contrast to the usual emphasis placed on the role and centrality of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Asia’s multilateral architecture and its component institutions, this book argues that the four non-ASEAN countries of interest here 3⁄4 Australia, Japan, China and t…
Seeking Stability in Turbulent Times
Southeast Asian Affairs is the only one of its kind: a comprehensive annual review devoted to the international relations, politics, and economies of the region and its nation-states. The collected volumes of Southeast Asian Affairs have become a compendium documenting the dynamic evolution of regional and national developments in Southeast Asia from the end of the 'second' Vietnam War to the alarms and struggles of today. Over the years, the edi…
Asian Multilateralism in the Age of Japan's ‘New Normal’
This paper makes three related points. First, Japan has played an instrumental role in helping to define the shape and substance of multilateralism in Asia in ways deeper than scholarly literature on Asia's regional architecture has allowed. A key driving force behind Japan's contributions is the perceived utility of multilateralism in facilitating Japan's engagement of and/or balancing against China. Second, Japan has been able to achieve this b…
Mailed Fists and Velvet Gloves
This paper critically assesses the conceptual utility of smart power to Singapore’s evolving defence and foreign policy and behaviour. First, as a political concept adopted by the United States for its post-Afghanistan strategy, smart power does not travel easily. With qualifications, however, the notion is relevant to Singapore’s policy pragmatism and its emphasis on deterrence and diplomacy. Second, Singapore’s willingness to employ its militar…
Talking Their Walk’? The Evolution of Defense Regionalism in Southeast Asia
This article looks at the regionalization of defense relations in Southeast Asia from the Cold War to the present. The evolution of defense cooperation involving the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries and their dialogue-partner countries has been impressive, with the formation of the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting (ADMM) and ADMM+ defense-ministerial arrangements, themselves the beneficiaries of more established dialogue pr…
Spectres of Leifer
Contemporary Southeast Asia (CSEA) is one of the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute"s flagship publications. Now in its fourth decade of publication, CSEA has succeeded in building up an international reputation as one of Southeast Asia"s premier academic journals. The aim of the peer reviewed journal is to provide subscribers with up to date and in-depth analysis of critical trends and developments in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific region.…
The Asean Regional Forum and Preventive Diplomacy
Various reasons purport to explain why the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum (ARF) has failed to evolve from confidence building to preventive diplomacy (PD). These include the ARF's large membership, its strict adherence to sovereignty and noninterference principles that contradict any effective implementation of PD, and contrasting strategic perspectives among its participants. Although these factors have certainly hindered …
Providers Not Protectors
Despite their declaratory support for the United Nations' adoption of the “responsibility to protect” (R2P) principle, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) governments nonetheless reject the UN proposition that military intervention can and should be employed for implementing the R2P. However, this reluctance has not precluded the development of an ethic of responsible sovereignty in Southeast Asia. But rather than responsibility as pro…
America the Indispensable
Governing Singapore ́ s Security Sector
Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs - Volume 30, Number 2, August 2008
Whither societas civilis in the Asia–Pacific after 11 September
Dominant discourses and strategies of the post-11 September ‘war on terror’ reflect an ideological absolutism that has left the democratic space of civil society in the Asia–Pacific severely curtailed and compressed. Recovery of this distinct space of freedom, so crucial to ‘civilisational’ amity, begins with the strategic deconstruction of the totalising logics and practices underwriting not only the words and deeds of religious militants but al…
Rescuing constructivism from the constructivists
Constructivist contributions to the study of Southeast Asian security raise much-needed awareness of identity concerns and introduce conceptual and methodological innovations into the study of identity. However, their shared rationalist proclivity to couple subjectivity with sovereignty revives the enduring problem of treating agency as ultimately pre-given. Contrary to their professed aim to restore to security studies an appreciation for histor…
Untying Leifer's discourse on order and power
Neo-realists often appeal to a presumed unity and harmony in political realism. This imagined wholeness, with a modest allowance for diversity, conveniently ignores the ambivalent and contradictory aspects of realist discourse. Why this is so has to do with the rationalist–positivist commitment to the notion that some deep structure that is autonomous, objective, extra-historical and extra-political underlies and unifies the realist tradition. Co…
Non‐ official Diplomacy in Southeast Asia
Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs - Volume 27, Number 3, December 2005
NGOs in conflict management in Southeast Asia
Changes in the nature and context of conflicts in the post-Cold War era have led to the reformulation of conflict management modalities. This has involved the growing participation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in UN mandated peace missions. The implications of this trend for Southeast Asia, a region where conflict management has long been viewed as the exclusive preserve of governments and militaries, are explored in this study. It sh…
After Bali - The Threat of Terrorism in Southeast Asia
This book critically analyses the specific threat of terrorism in Southeast Asia since the Bali blasts of 12 October 2002 and the US-led war on Iraq. It offers a comprehensive and critical examination of the ideological, socioeconomic and political motivations, trans-regional linkages, and media representations of the terrorist threat in the region, assesses the efficacy of the regional counter-terror response and suggests a more balanced and nua…
Consigned to hedge
This article assesses how south-east Asian countries and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have responded to the 'free and open Indo-Pacific' (FOIP) strategies promoted by the United States and the other countries in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the 'Quad': US, Japan, Australia and India). Their nuanced ripostes imply a persistent commitment to hedging and shifting limited alignments in the face of growing great rivalry a…
The Asean Regional Forum and Preventive Diplomacy
Various reasons purport to explain why the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum (ARF) has failed to evolve from confidence building to preventive diplomacy (PD). These include the ARF's large membership, its strict adherence to sovereignty and noninterference principles that contradict any effective implementation of PD, and contrasting strategic perspectives among its participants. Although these factors have certainly hindered …
Rescuing constructivism from the constructivists
Constructivist contributions to the study of Southeast Asian security raise much-needed awareness of identity concerns and introduce conceptual and methodological innovations into the study of identity. However, their shared rationalist proclivity to couple subjectivity with sovereignty revives the enduring problem of treating agency as ultimately pre-given. Contrary to their professed aim to restore to security studies an appreciation for histor…
Talking Their Walk’? The Evolution of Defense Regionalism in Southeast Asia
This article looks at the regionalization of defense relations in Southeast Asia from the Cold War to the present. The evolution of defense cooperation involving the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries and their dialogue-partner countries has been impressive, with the formation of the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting (ADMM) and ADMM+ defense-ministerial arrangements, themselves the beneficiaries of more established dialogue pr…
Southeast Asian Perspectives on South Korea’s Middle Power Engagement Initiatives
Perspectives from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam show that South Korea’s middle power role in Southeast Asia is confined to economics and capacity building. Despite being absent from Southeast Asia’s geostrategic calculus, Korea’s non-revisionist inclination is seen to be advantageous in its pursuit of enhanced middle power status
Providers Not Protectors
Despite their declaratory support for the United Nations' adoption of the “responsibility to protect” (R2P) principle, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) governments nonetheless reject the UN proposition that military intervention can and should be employed for implementing the R2P. However, this reluctance has not precluded the development of an ethic of responsible sovereignty in Southeast Asia. But rather than responsibility as pro…
Is Asean Finally Getting Multilateralism Right? From ARF to ADMM
ASEAN-led security multilateralism in the contemporary Asia–Pacific has been described as a frustrating enterprise. While many ASEAN-led regional arrangements have been perceived as mostly ineffective, the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in particular has been singled out as the poster child for what is wrong with Asia–Pacific multilateralism. In contrast, the progress in security cooperation achieved by the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM…
Governing Singapore ́ s Security Sector
Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs - Volume 30, Number 2, August 2008
Untying Leifer's discourse on order and power
Neo-realists often appeal to a presumed unity and harmony in political realism. This imagined wholeness, with a modest allowance for diversity, conveniently ignores the ambivalent and contradictory aspects of realist discourse. Why this is so has to do with the rationalist–positivist commitment to the notion that some deep structure that is autonomous, objective, extra-historical and extra-political underlies and unifies the realist tradition. Co…
The keystone of world order
Traditional U.S. allies, including Singapore, have long perceived the United States as the region's great stabilizer and honest broker. As the keystone of regional and world order, however, Washington must have an appreciation for moderation and restraint
America's foreign policy after Biden
What might the foreign policy of a potential Trump presidency or that of a Harris presidency look like, and what could their respective implications for the Indo‐Pacific be? The likelihood that Trump will revive his “America First” doctrine, including his trade war with China, suggests that the region may be in for another bumpy ride from a “Trump 2.0.” A Harris presidency will likely continue Biden's policy in engaging deeply (but selectively) w…
Mailed Fists and Velvet Gloves
This paper critically assesses the conceptual utility of smart power to Singapore’s evolving defence and foreign policy and behaviour. First, as a political concept adopted by the United States for its post-Afghanistan strategy, smart power does not travel easily. With qualifications, however, the notion is relevant to Singapore’s policy pragmatism and its emphasis on deterrence and diplomacy. Second, Singapore’s willingness to employ its militar…
America the Indispensable
NGOs in conflict management in Southeast Asia
Changes in the nature and context of conflicts in the post-Cold War era have led to the reformulation of conflict management modalities. This has involved the growing participation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in UN mandated peace missions. The implications of this trend for Southeast Asia, a region where conflict management has long been viewed as the exclusive preserve of governments and militaries, are explored in this study. It sh…
Providing for the other
This article assesses the ethical discourse on and practice of ‘responsible provision’ adopted by the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) and the ADMM-Plus and their member countries. Despite their ambivalence towards the ‘responsibility-to-protect’ (R2Protect) norm advocated by the United Nations, Southeast Asian countries have in fact been developing a brand of sovereign responsibility that could be termed a ‘responsibility-to-provide’. Tho…
Spectres of Leifer
Contemporary Southeast Asia (CSEA) is one of the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute"s flagship publications. Now in its fourth decade of publication, CSEA has succeeded in building up an international reputation as one of Southeast Asia"s premier academic journals. The aim of the peer reviewed journal is to provide subscribers with up to date and in-depth analysis of critical trends and developments in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific region.…
Non‐ official Diplomacy in Southeast Asia
Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs - Volume 27, Number 3, December 2005
The keystone of world order
Traditional U.S. allies, including Singapore, have long perceived the United States as the region's great stabilizer and honest broker. As the keystone of regional and world order, however, Washington must have an appreciation for moderation and restraint
After Bali - The Threat of Terrorism in Southeast Asia
This book critically analyses the specific threat of terrorism in Southeast Asia since the Bali blasts of 12 October 2002 and the US-led war on Iraq. It offers a comprehensive and critical examination of the ideological, socioeconomic and political motivations, trans-regional linkages, and media representations of the terrorist threat in the region, assesses the efficacy of the regional counter-terror response and suggests a more balanced and nua…
After Bali
After Bali
NGOs in conflict management in Southeast Asia
Changes in the nature and context of conflicts in the post-Cold War era have led to the reformulation of conflict management modalities. This has involved the growing participation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in UN mandated peace missions. The implications of this trend for Southeast Asia, a region where conflict management has long been viewed as the exclusive preserve of governments and militaries, are explored in this study. It sh…
Untying Leifer's discourse on order and power
Neo-realists often appeal to a presumed unity and harmony in political realism. This imagined wholeness, with a modest allowance for diversity, conveniently ignores the ambivalent and contradictory aspects of realist discourse. Why this is so has to do with the rationalist–positivist commitment to the notion that some deep structure that is autonomous, objective, extra-historical and extra-political underlies and unifies the realist tradition. Co…
Non‐ official Diplomacy in Southeast Asia
Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs - Volume 27, Number 3, December 2005
Rescuing constructivism from the constructivists
Constructivist contributions to the study of Southeast Asian security raise much-needed awareness of identity concerns and introduce conceptual and methodological innovations into the study of identity. However, their shared rationalist proclivity to couple subjectivity with sovereignty revives the enduring problem of treating agency as ultimately pre-given. Contrary to their professed aim to restore to security studies an appreciation for histor…
Whither societas civilis in the Asia–Pacific after 11 September
Dominant discourses and strategies of the post-11 September ‘war on terror’ reflect an ideological absolutism that has left the democratic space of civil society in the Asia–Pacific severely curtailed and compressed. Recovery of this distinct space of freedom, so crucial to ‘civilisational’ amity, begins with the strategic deconstruction of the totalising logics and practices underwriting not only the words and deeds of religious militants but al…
Governing Singapore ́ s Security Sector
Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs - Volume 30, Number 2, August 2008
The Asean Regional Forum and Preventive Diplomacy
Various reasons purport to explain why the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum (ARF) has failed to evolve from confidence building to preventive diplomacy (PD). These include the ARF's large membership, its strict adherence to sovereignty and noninterference principles that contradict any effective implementation of PD, and contrasting strategic perspectives among its participants. Although these factors have certainly hindered …
Providers Not Protectors
Despite their declaratory support for the United Nations' adoption of the “responsibility to protect” (R2P) principle, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) governments nonetheless reject the UN proposition that military intervention can and should be employed for implementing the R2P. However, this reluctance has not precluded the development of an ethic of responsible sovereignty in Southeast Asia. But rather than responsibility as pro…
America the Indispensable
Talking Their Walk’? The Evolution of Defense Regionalism in Southeast Asia
This article looks at the regionalization of defense relations in Southeast Asia from the Cold War to the present. The evolution of defense cooperation involving the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries and their dialogue-partner countries has been impressive, with the formation of the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting (ADMM) and ADMM+ defense-ministerial arrangements, themselves the beneficiaries of more established dialogue pr…
Spectres of Leifer
Contemporary Southeast Asia (CSEA) is one of the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute"s flagship publications. Now in its fourth decade of publication, CSEA has succeeded in building up an international reputation as one of Southeast Asia"s premier academic journals. The aim of the peer reviewed journal is to provide subscribers with up to date and in-depth analysis of critical trends and developments in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific region.…
Multilateral Asian Security Architecture
This book provides a comparative assessment of the material and ideational contributions of five countries to the regional architecture of post-Cold War Asia. In contrast to the usual emphasis placed on the role and centrality of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Asia’s multilateral architecture and its component institutions, this book argues that the four non-ASEAN countries of interest here 3⁄4 Australia, Japan, China and t…
Seeking Stability in Turbulent Times
Southeast Asian Affairs is the only one of its kind: a comprehensive annual review devoted to the international relations, politics, and economies of the region and its nation-states. The collected volumes of Southeast Asian Affairs have become a compendium documenting the dynamic evolution of regional and national developments in Southeast Asia from the end of the 'second' Vietnam War to the alarms and struggles of today. Over the years, the edi…
Asian Multilateralism in the Age of Japan's ‘New Normal’
This paper makes three related points. First, Japan has played an instrumental role in helping to define the shape and substance of multilateralism in Asia in ways deeper than scholarly literature on Asia's regional architecture has allowed. A key driving force behind Japan's contributions is the perceived utility of multilateralism in facilitating Japan's engagement of and/or balancing against China. Second, Japan has been able to achieve this b…
Mailed Fists and Velvet Gloves
This paper critically assesses the conceptual utility of smart power to Singapore’s evolving defence and foreign policy and behaviour. First, as a political concept adopted by the United States for its post-Afghanistan strategy, smart power does not travel easily. With qualifications, however, the notion is relevant to Singapore’s policy pragmatism and its emphasis on deterrence and diplomacy. Second, Singapore’s willingness to employ its militar…
Southeast Asian Perspectives on South Korea’s Middle Power Engagement Initiatives
Perspectives from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam show that South Korea’s middle power role in Southeast Asia is confined to economics and capacity building. Despite being absent from Southeast Asia’s geostrategic calculus, Korea’s non-revisionist inclination is seen to be advantageous in its pursuit of enhanced middle power status
America the Indispensable Power
Security relations between Singapore and the United States have evolved significantly since the former gained independence in 1965. From an unlikely partnership pursued by Singapore by default rather than choice during Singapore's formative years, the United States has since evolved into a vital partner of Singapore because of the indispensable role it has played in ensuring a stable balance of power in the Asia‐Pacific and in facilitating the ec…
Providing for the other
This article assesses the ethical discourse on and practice of ‘responsible provision’ adopted by the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) and the ADMM-Plus and their member countries. Despite their ambivalence towards the ‘responsibility-to-protect’ (R2Protect) norm advocated by the United Nations, Southeast Asian countries have in fact been developing a brand of sovereign responsibility that could be termed a ‘responsibility-to-provide’. Tho…
American Grand Strategy and East Asian Security in the Twenty-First Century
David C. Kang’s latest book, American Grand Strategy and East Asian Security in the Twenty-First Century (hereafter, AGS) by Cambridge University Press is an elegant restatement of an argument – albeit with a couple of interesting twists – first rendered in earlier efforts such as China Rising: Peace, Power, and Order in East Asia (Columbia University Press, 2007). Essentially, Kang takes Realpolitik suppositions expectations about East Asian res…
Is Asean Finally Getting Multilateralism Right? From ARF to ADMM
ASEAN-led security multilateralism in the contemporary Asia–Pacific has been described as a frustrating enterprise. While many ASEAN-led regional arrangements have been perceived as mostly ineffective, the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in particular has been singled out as the poster child for what is wrong with Asia–Pacific multilateralism. In contrast, the progress in security cooperation achieved by the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM…
Whither the people in the Asean Community
The longstanding effort to develop a people-based regionalism in Southeast Asia has been shaped by an inherent tension between the liberal inclination to privilege the individual and the community under formation, on the one hand, and the realist insistence on the primacy of the state, on the other. This article explores the conditions and constraints affecting ASEAN’s progress in remaking Southeast Asia into a people-focused and caring community…
Political science (25 works) · Politics (18 works) · Law (16 works) · Law (15 works) · Economics (13 works) · Sociology (13 works) · International Relations and Foreign Policy (12 works) · Political economy (12 works) · Peacebuilding and International Security (11 works) · Development economics (10 works)