According to SMU Assistant Professor of Political Science Colm Fox from the School of Social Sciences, there is no better place to study identity politics than Southeast Asia. He sees the region as a hotbed of political, ethnic and religious diversity with a mix of democratic, semi-authoritarian and fully authoritarian regimes, offering opportunities for comparison in the hope of gaining a better understanding of elections and regimes. He is keen to study more about the personalisation of politics which is on the rise in the west but little research has been done on this topic in Southeast Asia.