Duncan McCargo

I first travelled to Thailand as an undergraduate student, on a backpacking trip that changed the course of my life: a bizarre coup attempt during my visit left me intrigued about the politics of the country. I ended up writing a PhD thesis about Thai politics, spending several years in Thailand, and becoming fluent in Thai. Along the way, I became fascinated by political power: how do people gain power, how do they exercise power, and how do they lose power?

I'm Duncan McCargo, professor of global affairs at Naynang Technological University in Singapore. I previously taught at Leeds for many years, and am still a visiting professor here. In addition, I was a visiting professor of political science at Columbia University in New York from 2015 to 2019, and served as director of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies at the University of Copenhagen from 2019 to 2023.

I work mainly (though not solely) on the politics of Thailand, broadly defined, about which I've published nine books, fifty journal articles and twenty-seven chapters. My publications are listed on ORCID (0000-0002-4352-5734) and here as a document, which also includes my podcasts, photo essays and op-eds. My work is all about academic collaborations: eighteen students have written their PhDs on Thailand's politics under my supervision, and I have co-authored seventeen publications (including two books) with ten different Thai colleagues.

You can find many of my recent publications on this site, but if you need copies of anything, or have any questions, please contact me at d.j.mccargo@leeds.ac.uk, or duncan.mccargo@ntu.edu.sg.