Kumar Ramarishna
Kumar Ramakrishna is Associate Professor and Head of the Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Singapore. In 1989, he obtained a First Class (Honors) in Political Science from the National University of Singapore and a Masters in Defence Studies from the University of New South Wales in 1992. He went to secure his PhD in History from Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London, in 1999. In June 2002, he was an Asia Foundation (US) Freeman Fellow and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, Washington D.C., from April to June 2003.
His current research interests include British propaganda in the Malayan Emergency; propaganda theory and practice; history of strategic thought; and counter-terrorism with a focus on radicalization. Ramakrishna has been a frequent speaker on counter-terrorism before local and international audiences, a regular media commentator on the issue and published in numerous internationally refereed journals. His first major single-authored book, Emergency Propaganda: The Winning of Malayan Hearts and Minds, 1948-1958, (2002) was described by the International History Review as “required reading for historians of Malaya, and for those whose task is to counter insurgents, guerrillas, and-terrorists”.
His most recent book, Radical Pathways: Understanding Muslim Radicalization in Indonesia (2009) was identified by Perspectives on Terrorism in May 2012 as one of the top 150 books on terrorism and counter-terrorism as well as “an important and insightful case study on the pathways to extremism and violent jihad in Indonesia”. Most recently Ramakrishna was inducted into the Executive Boards of the Philippine Institute for Political Violence and Terrorism Research as well as the Council for Asian Transnational Threats Research, a US-led network of think tanks and research institutions engaged in terrorism and transnational threats research.
He was an Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) Special Visitor. In 2008 he was appointed as a Senior Advisor to the Trusted Information Network on Extremism and Transnational Crime in Southeast Asia and Australia, a joint project of The Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C., and The Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney, Australia. He has served as a member of the Singapore Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) Resource Panel on Home Affairs and Law; the Board of Trustees, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, the Board of Governors of the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) Academy, and the Executive Committee of the Political Science Association (Singapore).