Rate My Professor Lena Tan

Dr. Lena Tan is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations in the Department of Politics, School of Social Sciences, Division of Humanities at the University of Otago. She holds a BA from Smith College, an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a PhD from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2007. Her doctoral dissertation examined disengaging from territory through identity and politics of contestation in cases including India and Britain (1929-1935) and Indonesia and East Timor (1975-1999). Tan's research interests include IR theory, constructivism, identity, postcolonial and decolonial approaches to international relations, the construction and constitution of the Global South, twentieth-century decolonization, Indonesian security and foreign policy, and the co-constitutive relations between North and South in the international system. She seeks to re-examine key IR concepts and theories by incorporating insights from the South and non-hegemonic core states for a fuller understanding of world politics.

Tan authored the monograph Metropolitan Identities and Twentieth-Century Decolonization (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), which explores how metropolitan identities shaped decolonization processes, including British responses to Indian nationalism. Other significant publications comprise "Being 'Muslim, modern and democratic': Indonesian foreign policy under Yudhoyono and the coloniality of the international order" (New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, 2022), "Whose democracy? Governing Indonesia in a globalized world" in Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order (Springer, 2020), "Postcolonialism and international relations" (Oxford Bibliographies in Political Science, 2017), and "Rethinking the role of ideas and norms in twentieth century decolonization: Constructing metropolitan British identities and responding to Indian nationalism (1929-1935)" (International Relations, 2015). She teaches POLS 218: Interventions, Peacekeeping and the Global South, POLS 325: International Relations: Theories and Concepts, and POLS 541: International Relations and the Global South, and supervises postgraduate students on topics in her research areas, US foreign policy, and international relations. Additionally, Tan serves as Co-Deputy Director of the Otago Global Health Institute and contributes to departmental research in postcolonial theory, identity and constructivism, foreign policies of emerging powers, global security, and critical IR approaches. Her work advances the field by challenging dominant narratives and emphasizing Global South agency.