Mr Minh Son To

I am a PhD student in International Relations at the College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University (ANU). I received my MSc in Asian Studies from RSIS, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, and my BA in Politics and Government from Sciences Po Paris, Campus du Havre. Prior to ANU, I worked as Research Assistant in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at NTU in Singapore.

I've published in multiple outlets and periodicals focusing on the Asia-Pacific, including The Diplomat, ISEAS-Fulcrum and Perspective, as well as peer-reviewed journals, namely Review of International Studies, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, and Millennium Journal of International Studies.

For my PhD, I am primarily interested in the politics of size in small states, focusing on Southeast Asian cases - Cambodia, Laos, and Singapore as currently proposed. I am interested in how small states have constructed notions of 'being small' in their strategic discourse and worldview, paying particular attention to their relations with bigger, more powerful neighbors as important 'Others' in their self-perceptions. I aim to use interpretivist methods and conceptual analysis to conduct my research - a methodogical interest that is well-reflected in my small but growing scholarship.

More broadly, I also maintain an interest in Southeast Asian international relations as a subdomain of area studies and a policy subject. As a keen observer of the region, I have written a number of accessible, policy-relevant commentaries and reports in relevant outlets, while also remain engaged in more theoretical discussions on knowledge-making from the region from the vantage point of internation relations discipline. Vietnam and, more recently, Singapore have been my concrete interests in these discussions, owing to my pedigree as a born-and-raised Vietnamese and and experience working in Singapore.

Beyond my academics, I like lifting weights, travelling (mostly Asia), and electronic music (anything besides EDM).