Notes on Contributors
Aira Azhari
is a research manager at the Democracy and Governance Unit, ideas. She holds a Bachelor of Law from the University of Liverpool, UK and a Master of Law (Public International Law) from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has provided analysis on political and economic issues to the Malaysian and international press, including Channel News Asia and the bbc.
Kaustuv Kanti Bandyopadhyay
is the director of Participatory Research in Asia, New Delhi, working on participation, democratic governance, and civil society development for more than three decades. He has 25 years of professional experience working with universities, research institutions, and csos. He serves on the Steering Committee of adrn and the Asia Democracy Network (adn). He holds a PhD in anthropology for his work with the Parhaiya tribes of Chotanagpur in India.
Thawilwadee Bureekul
is the director of the Research and Development Office at King Prajadhipok’s Institute (kpi), Thailand, where she is involved in the planning, management, implementation, and coordination of the Institute’s research projects. In addition to her role at kpi, she is a professor at several universities in Thailand, including the Asian Institute of Technology, Thammasat University, Burapha University, Mahidol University, and Silpakorn University. She succeeded in proposing “Gender Responsive Budgeting” in the Thai Constitution and she was granted the “Woman of the Year 2017” award as a result.
Kaustuv Chakrabarti
is a senior program officer at Participatory Research in Asia (pria), New Delhi. Kaustuv is working on the issues of civic space, multi-stakeholder partnerships, South-South Cooperation, and building civil society organization (cso) capacities. He has been passionately engaged with pria’s work on civic space both at the Asian and South Asian level. He co-authored Civic Space under Siege: Experiences from South Asia; the “State of Democracy: India” report in 2018, and the synthesis report on “Civic Space in Asia: Emerging Issues and Policy Lessons from Six Asian Countries 2018.” He has an ma in globalization and development from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UK.
Yun-han Chu
is a distinguished research fellow of the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica and Professor of Political Science at National Taiwan University. He serves concurrently as president of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. He is the founding director of the Asian Barometer Survey, a regional network of surveys on democracy, governance, and development covering more than 18 Asian countries. Professor Chu received his PhD in political science from the University of Minnesota and joined the faculty of National Taiwan University in 1987.
Ganbat Damba
is currently Chairman of the Board, APEserved as the Ambassador of Mongolia to Germany and was the former director of the Institute for Strategic Studies of the National Security Council of Mongolia. Previously, he served as the managing director of the Academy for Political Education of Mongolia. He earned his PhD in political science at the Academy of Sciences of Mongolia.
Gerelt-Od Erdenebileg
is associate professor of the Mongolian National University of Education (MNUE), Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. He specializes in research on internal party democracy, party development and electoral system in Mongolia. Previously, he served as the national project manager in the UNDP Mongolia. He completed his PhD in political science at the Mongolian National University of Education in 2009.
Faiz Abdul Halim
has been an assistant researcher at the Democracy and Governance Unit, the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (ideas), a public policy research organization based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He holds a ba degree in political science from the International Islamic University of Malaysia.
Pasan Jayasinghe
is a researcher at the Centre for Policy Alternatives (cpa) in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He is involved with research and advocacy work primarily covering constitutional reform, electoral law, and transitional justice. He also acts as the Information Officer for the cpa, responsible for its Right to Information Act compliance and policy. Pasan holds ba, llb, and ma degrees, and has previously worked as a policy advisor for the New Zealand government.
Sook Jong Lee
is a professor of public administration at Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, South Korea, and senior fellow of the East Asia Institute. She has been directing the Asian Democracy Research Network (adrn) since its formation in 2015, leading a network of research organizations across Asia to promote democracy with the support of the National Endowment for Democracy. Her recent publications include Transforming Global Governance with Middle Power Diplomacy: South Korea’s Role in the 21st Century (ed. 2016), and Keys to Successful Presidency in South Korea (ed. 2013 and 2016).
Francisco A. Magno
teaches Political Science and Development Studies at De La Salle University (dlsu), Manila, Philippines. He is the Founding Director of the dlsu Jesse M. Robredo Institute of Governance. He served as president of the Philippine Political Science Association from 2015 to 2017. He completed his PhD in political science at the University of Hawaii.
Nuchaprapar Moksart
is a researcher assigned to the Research and Development Office at kpi. Her research includes social policy and political economy theory. She also writes on socioeconomic issues.
Sri Nuryanti
is a researcher at the Center for Political Studies, the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Jakarta, Indonesia. She is the former Election Commissioner of the Indonesian General Election Commission 2007–12, where she successfully oversaw the Parliamentary election and Presidential election 2009, as well as local elections from 2007 to 2012. She is an active participant in various academic activities at the national as well as the international level. She is a Co-Secretary General of the Asia Pacific Peace Research Association and the Executive Council member of the International Peace Research Association. She is director in charge of the Electoral Research Institute, Jakarta, Indonesia.
Aasiya Riaz
is joint director at pildat, the leading Pakistani think tank she co-founded in 2001, and she leads pildat’s projects and activities. Trained in the field of media and political communication at the London School of Economics, UK, Aasiya has also worked with the mainstream press and electronic media in Pakistan as a political analyst. She has been a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, as well as a distinguished fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at the Stanford University.
Ratchawadee Sangmahamad
is a researcher assigned to the Research and Development Office at kpi. Her research focuses on citizenship, gender, and election studies. Her publications include Value Culture and Thermometer of Democracy (with Thawilwadee Bureekul), Thai Citizens: Democratic Civic Education (with Thawilwadee Bureekul and Eugenie Mario), and many articles.
Myat Thu
led a student protest for democracy, human rights, and educational reform in 2000 at Pyay Technological University in Pyay, Bago Division and was arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison. He was released in 2002 and resumed his studies, to receive his be in Engineering from Yangon Technological University. In 2011 he founded Yangon School of Political Science (ysps). He received a Chevening Scholarship in 2012 and graduated from London School of Economics and Political Science with an MSc in political theory in 2013. He was a visiting scholar at St. Anthony’s College, University of Oxford in 2018. He currently serves as the Chairperson of ysps.
Ariunbold Tsetsenkhuu
is a researcher at the Academy of Political Education of Mongolia and the Institute of Strategic Studies of the National Security Council of Mongolia. His research focuses on the interactions between the media and political forces.
Chin-en Wu
is an associate research fellow at the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica, Taiwan. He received his PhD from the University of Michigan. He serves as one of the co-PIs of the Asian Barometer Survey. His main research interests include political economy, democratization, and the relationship between regime type and economic reforms.