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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 director of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies and a professor of political science at the University of Copenhagen. He co-founded the Nordic Asia Podcast and is a host for the Literature and Southeast Asian Studies Channels on NBN. Contact: duncan@nias.ku.dk

Duncan McCargo is an eclectic, internationalist political scientist, and literature buff: his day job is directing the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, at the University of Copenhagen.

Duncan's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Duncan:

Southeast Asian Studies May 27, 2023

Tragic Nation

Burma--Why and How Democracy Failed

Amitav Acharya

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
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 conversation with Duncan McCargo, Amitav …
Southeast Asian Studies March 6, 2023

Constitutional Bricolage

Thailand's Sacred Monarchy vs. The Rule of Law

Eugénie Mérieau

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Why has Thailand had 20 constitutions since 1932? What accounts for the remarkable veneration Thais often feel towards these short-lived documents? How is that military coups can be viewed as …
Nordic Asia Podcast February 24, 2023

Beijing's Global Media Offensive

China's Uneven Campaign to Influence Asia and the World

Joshua Kurlantzick

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
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 should the rest of the world …
Southeast Asian Studies December 16, 2022

Cultural Renewal in Cambodia

Academic Activism in the Neoliberal Era

Philippe Peycam

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
How far did post-UNTAC Cambodia exemplified an expanded Habermasian public sphere? What happened when a range of aid agencies, private donors, activists and academics showed up with all sorts of …
Nordic Asia Podcast November 4, 2022

Civil-Military Relations and Global Security Governance

Strategy, Hybrid Orders and the Case of Pakistan

Cornelia Baciu

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
What are the problems with Samuel Huntington’s views about civil-military relations? Why do military coups persist in countries such as Pakistan, and what might be done to reduce their likelihood …
Nordic Asia Podcast July 22, 2022

Japanese Immigration and the Korean Minority

Sara Park

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Why does Japanese immigration policy have such a bad name? What are the historical origins of tight immigration policies? Where have these policies left immigrants of Korean descent, many of …
Nordic Asia Podcast July 15, 2022

Publishing in Asian Studies Journals

A Discussion with Julie Yu-Wen Chen and Hyung-Gu Lynn

Julie Yu-Wen Chen and Hyung-Gu Lynn

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
How can we get our articles in Asian studies published? What criteria should we use in selecting what journals to target? On what basis do journal editors make decisions on …
Southeast Asian Studies July 4, 2022

A Soldier King

Monarchy and Military in the Thailand of Rama X

Supalak Ganjanakhundee

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
What is the relationship between the military and the monarchy in Thailand? How has that relationship changed since King Vajiralongkorn (Rama X) assumed the throne in 2016? Why have recent …
Nordic Asia Podcast July 1, 2022

The Struggle for Hong Kong

A Conversation with Jeffrey Wasserstrom

Jeffrey Wasserstrom

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Why should we view the anti-China protests that began in Hong Kong in 2019 through a comparative lens? How do earlier episodes in Hong Kong’s history help us make sense …
Southeast Asian Studies May 2, 2022

Infiltrating Society

The Thai Military’s Internal Security Affairs

Puangthong Pawakapan

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Why is the Thai military so deeply embedded in socio-economic development projects, longer after the end of the Cold War? How come serving generals continue to exercise considerable authority over a …
Nordic Asia Podcast April 29, 2022

The Future of Japanese Studies

A Conversation with Aike P. Rots

Aike P. Rots

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Does the rise of China mean that studying Japan is inexorably declining? Many students become interested in Japan because of popular culture, such manga and video games: is this a …
Nordic Asia Podcast March 21, 2022

Understanding Timor-Leste's 2022 Presidential Elections

Amber Woortman in conversation with Duncan McCargo

Amber Woortman

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Timor-Leste is choosing a president. What is the significance of the 2022 presidential elections in Timor-Leste? Has Asia’s youngest and newest country become a prisoner of its short but turbulent …
Southeast Asian Studies March 1, 2022

Chasing Freedom

The Philippines Long Journey to Democratic Ambivalence

ADELE. WEBB

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
In conversation with Duncan McCargo about her new book Chasing Freedom: The Philippines Long Journey to Democratic Ambivalence (Sussex Academic Press, 2022), Adele Webb offers a spirited defence of what …
Nordic Asia Podcast February 4, 2022

The Politics of Protest in Myanmar

Van Tran

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Why has Myanmar experienced so many massive street protests recent years? How can we go about studying these sorts of mass demonstrations? What kinds of roles do bystanders perform in …
Southeast Asian Studies January 3, 2022

Power and Knowledge in Southeast Asia

State and Scholars in Indonesia and the Philippines

Rommel Argamosa Curaming

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Why did leading historians in both Indonesia and the Philippines become involved in projects to write national histories during the 1970s? How far were these projects essentially political undertakings to …
Nordic Asia Podcast December 27, 2021

East Asian Cold War History with a Maritime Twist

Kuan-Jen Chen

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
When did the Cold War in East Asia really begin? According to ADI-NIAS researcher Kuan-Jen Chen, the answer is 1945 – if we view the Cold War through a maritime …
Southeast Asian Studies November 15, 2021

Unwritten Rule

State-Making through Land Reform in Cambodia

Alice Beban

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Why do so many Cambodian small landholders live in fear? How did the issuance of official land titles contribute to growing indebtedness in rural areas? Why did the government send thousands …
Nordic Asia Podcast October 15, 2021

Beyond a Shadow

Southeast Asia Transcending US-China Rivalries

Joseph Liow Chin Yong

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Why do Southeast Asia specialists get tired of explaining that the politics of the region cannot be reduced to a zero-sum game of Chinese-US great power rivalries? How do relatively …
Southeast Asian Studies October 4, 2021

Rebel Politics

A Political Sociology of Armed Struggle in Myanmar's Borderlands

David Brenner

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
How can we best understand ethnic armed organizations on the borderlands of Myanmar? Why did the Karen embrace the military-initiated peace process in 2012, shortly after the Kachin had rejected …
Literature August 27, 2021

The Voice Over

Poems and Essays

Maria Stepanova

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Is it just a coincidence that three books by the major Russian writer Maria Stepanova have appeared in English in 2021? Why does Maria Stepanova deploy such a rich variety of voices …
Nordic Asia Podcast August 6, 2021

Labor Pioneers

Economy, Labor, and Migration in Filipino-Danish Relations, 1950-2015

Nina Trige Andersen

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
What happened to the Filipinas who migrated to Denmark to staff iconic new international hotels in the 1960s and 1970s? Why did the Philippine government encourage so many talented people …
Nordic Asia Podcast July 30, 2021

Teaching Cross-Cultural Communication

Understanding Asia in Pandemic Times

Annelise Ly

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Teaching cross-cultural communication is challenging at the best of times, but how can Nordic students learn to engage with Asian cultures when they are forced to study entirely online? Award-winning …
Art July 20, 2021

The Decisive Network

Magnum Photos and the Postwar Image Market

Nadya Bair

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
The legendary Magnum photo agency has long been associated with heroic lone wolf male photographers such as Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson, roaming the world in search of the “decisive …
Southeast Asian Studies July 15, 2021

Contested Territory

Ðien Biên Phu and the Making of Northwest Vietnam

Christian C. Lentz

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Why is Vietnam's modern history so closely associated with a place that lies only just within the country's borders? What was at stake in the contest for the mountainous Black …