BIO

Currently

  • Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC): member and writer since 2016
  • China-India Brief: writer since 2014
  • Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies: Associate Member since 2020
  • The Historian: book reviewer on Asia books, since 2024

As a successful lecturer in international relations at Brunel University, from where I retired in 2015, there was particular focus on teaching, research and prolific publications (see http://www.d-scott.com/publications ) on “Asia-Pacific” international relations as well as the rise of China and the rise of India in a Western-dominated international system undergoing change. Such teaching, research and publications incorporated the way in which perceptions and images (IR constructivism) play a key role in inter-state relations, alongside traditional geopolitics, critical geopolitics and structural power processes. The emergence of the “Indo-Pacific” was pinpointed back in 2012, and has accelerated since then in ongoing publications. This was complemented by studies on the emergence of the “Indo-Mediterranean” appearing in 2026 onwards.

Such interests also led to presentations at the Ministry of Defence in the UK, the European Parliament in Brussels, US agencies in Washington, and from 2011-2020 at the NATO Defense College in Rome, and to various Asian think tanks and institutions.

East-West themes had initially been pursued by me at Brunel University in its Religious Studies programme with particular regard to Buddhism and to Inter-faith issues; and in its History programme with particular regard to India, China, and East-West encounters. This progression from religious studies through history to international relations reflected Akira Iriye’s sense of “international relations as intercultural relations“. It came out of my earlier overlaying of a B.A in International Relations (School of African & Asian Studies) gained at Sussex, with an M.A in Religious Studies gained at Lancaster, and a Ph.D on East-West encounters in Afghanistan gained at Lancaster.

Consequently from 1984-2000 a swathe of Buddhism-related and inter-faith encounters articles appeared, while from 2001-present various articles on the theme of “Orientalism” (i.e. Western perceptions of “the East”) have continued to appear.