Kai Ostwald is the HSBC Chair in Asian Research and an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia, jointly appointed in the School of Public Policy & Global Affairs and the Department of Political Science. He also serves as Director of UBC’s Institute of Asian Research and Associate Editor for Pacific Affairs. His work focuses on political economy, governance, and development in Southeast Asia, with a particular emphasis on democratization, geopolitics, and Canada’s engagement with the Indo-Pacific.

Kai connects academic research with real-world policy challenges, working closely with practitioners across governments, international organizations, and think tanks. He regularly participates in Track 1.5 and Track 2 diplomatic dialogues, contributing to discussions on geopolitics and regional cooperation. He has testified before Canadian parliamentary special committees and has delivered training sessions and briefings to Global Affairs Canada, the US State Department, and the Canadian Forces College on regional geopolitics and governance.

Kai is a Senior Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, an Associate Senior Fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, and a Distinguished Fellow at the Penang Institute in Malaysia. He has also conducted consulting work with organizations including the International Development Research Centre, the World Bank, and the Canada-ASEAN Business Council, among others. His research and policy commentary have been featured in leading academic journals such as the American Political Science Review, Democratization, Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, Political Science Research and Methods, Journal of East Asian Studies, and Asian Survey. His insights have also appeared in major media outlets, including The Atlantic, Bloomberg, CBC, Nikkei Asian Review, Globe and Mail, The Guardian, and the South China Morning Post.

Kai’s research examines governance, political economy, democratization, and international relations in Southeast Asia, with a focus on connecting academic insights to real-world policy challenges. He leads the UBC Myanmar Initiative, which facilitates capacity-building and supports democratization in a challenging political environment. His consulting work includes projects for the World Bank on governance reforms in Southeast Asia and IDRC on economic and institutional development in Southeast Asia. He also contributes as a country expert for numerous cross-national projects and indices.

– “Regime Resilience in Malaysia and Singapore Revisited: Ideologically-Bounded Democracies?” – Oxford Research Encyclopedia, 2024.
– “Canada’s Evolving Relationship with the ASEAN Region,” in Charting New Waters: Assessing Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy One Year On, Institute for Peace and Diplomacy, 2024.
– “Canada and Southeast Asia in the new Indo-Pacific Era” special issue of the Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, co-edited with Gregoire Legault and Dominique Caouette, 2023.
– “Four Arenas: Malaysia’s 2018 Election, Reform, and Democratization” (Democratization, 2020), with Steven Oliver.
– “Myanmar’s Transition Stalled: From Opening to Coup” special issue in the Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia, 2021, with Kyaw Yin Hlaing.
– “Ethnic and National Identity: Origins, Contestation, and Polarization in Malaysia and Singapore” (Routledge Handbook on Race and Ethnicity in Asia, 2021), with Isabel Chew.
– “Language Politics, Education, and Ethnic Integration: The Pluralist Dilemma in Singapore” (Politics, Groups, and Identities, 2019), with Elvin One and Dimitar Gueorguiev.
– “National Service and Nation Building: Successes and Limitations of the Singaporean Model” in National Service in Singapore, 2019.
– “Ethnic Segregation and Public Goods: Evidence from Indonesia” (American Political Science Review, 2018), with Yuhki Tajima and Krislert Samphantharak.
– “Canada’s Foreign Policy and Bureaucratic (un)Responsiveness: Public Diplomacy in the Digital Domain” (Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, 2018) with Julian Dierkes.

Major Grants:

– Luce Foundation, Canadian Southeast Asian Studies Initiative ($550,000 USD, 2023–2028).
– International Development Research Centre (IDRC) – Capacity-Building Project in Myanmar ($1.01M CAD, 2022–2025).
– Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant ($49,000 CAD, 2019–2021).