- Manager of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science
Petra holds a PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Leeds and recently completed a three-year research fellowship at the University of Birmingham's Centre for Elections, Democracy, Accountability and Representation (CEDAR). She currently manages the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Her research focuses on democracy, authoritarianism, and promotional politics, with a particular expertise on Thailand. She is the author of Branding Authoritarian Nations: Political Legitimation and Strategic National Myths in Military-Ruled Thailand (Routledge, 2023), a monograph that offers a novel approach to the study of nation branding in authoritarian regimes. Her other academic work has been published in leading disciplinary and area studies journals, including International Political Science Review, Geopolitics, Politics and the Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs. She also founded, managed, and co-hosted the popular People, Power, Politics podcast.
Experience
-
–presentManager of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science
-
2021–2025Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Birmingham
-
2019–2021Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Copenhagen
Publications
-
2025Subverting Elections in Thailand: Inclusion and independence in election commission design and practice, International Political Science Review
-
2024Authoritarian Electoral Management: Lessons from Thailand, Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs
-
2024All About China? (Mis)Reading domestic politics through a great power lens (with Duncan McCargo, Alfred Gerstl, and James Iocovozzi), Asien Survey
-
2024Vision Documents, Nation Branding and the Legitimation of Non-Democratic Regimes (with Kristin Eggeling), Geopolitics
-
2023Branding Authoritarian Nations: Political legitimation and strategic national myths in military-ruled Thailand, Routledge
-
2023Electoral Commissions and Non-Democratic Outcomes: Thailand’s contentious 2019 election (with Saowanee T. Alexander), Politics
-
2018Thailand 4.0 and the Internal Focus of Nation Branding, Asian Studies Review
-
2017Ordering Peace: Thailand’s 2016 constitutional referendum (with Duncan McCargo and Saowanee T. Alexander), Contemporary Southeast Asia
Contact Petra for
- General
- Media request
- Speaking request
- Consulting / Advising
- Research collaboration
- Research supervision
- Website
- Article Feed
- ORCID
- Joined
