Kai Ostwald wins Best Paper Award from the American Political Science Association – Southeast Asia Politics Group

The SPPGA is pleased to congratulate Dr. Kai Ostwald for winning the Best Paper Award from the American Political Science Association – Southeast Asia Politics Group. His paper “Explaining Elections in Singapore: Party Credibility and Valence Politics,” written with Dr. Steven Oliver, makes an important contribution to the existing scholarly literature by explaining party durability in Singapore. The award committee felt this paper had a tight link between theory and empirics while remaining firmly grounded in Southeast Asia, and that it addressed an important issue of public support for a soft-authoritarian regime that is anomalous in comparative politics for its durability in a highly developed society. As such, the paper should also be of interest outside of the Southeast Asia context.