This study examines how differences in state intervention are associated with foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in Indonesia and the Philippines from 2000 to 2019. Using a comparative case study design, the study analyzes national-level policy instruments including foundational investment laws, Foreign Investment Negative Lists (FINL) and Special Economic Zones
(SEZs), alongside quantitative data on the sectoral distribution of FDI. Despite similar developmental constraints as middle-income Southeast Asian economies, the two countries exhibited divergent FDI trajectories. Indonesia attracted larger, more stable inflows concentrated in manufacturing and increasingly diversified into mining, electricity, and infrastructure. The Philippines received smaller, more volatile FDI concentrated in manufacturing and Information Technology-Business Process Outsourcing (IT-BPO) services. The findings suggest that these differences are not simply a function of how open each economy is to foreign investment, but rather how openness is structured through specific policy instruments. Indonesia employed a tiered, conditional approach with calibrated ownership caps and incentives linked to developmental objectives, while the Philippines adopted a more exportfocused, enclave-based approach shaped by constitutional ownership caps. The study contributes to the literature on the role of the state in development by moving beyond FDI volume to focus on how states structure investment policies and how these can be associated with sectoral investment patterns in emerging market economies.

Current trends in global history and memory politics necessitate Japan to renegotiate its collective memory of the Second World War. Existing scholarship on the subject is critical of the Japanese state’s attempts at denial or rationalization of their role as aggressors. They also highlight the significant role of the hibakusha—victim-urvivors of the atomic bomb—in countering state propaganda. However, literature on hibakusha memory activism is largely based on their efforts in Japan and in the United States. In East and Southeast Asia, scholarship on war memory negotiation is limited mostly on state-initiated strategies, revealing a gap in the role of grassroots-initiated efforts.

The present research intends to fill this gap through an assessment of hibakusha-led efforts on war memory negotiation from 1946 to the present. The research conducted a qualitative analysis of hibakusha testimonies as published in the Asahi Shimbun and the manga Barefoot Gen: Ang Karanasan ni Gen; and semi-structured interviews with founders and members of hibakusha-led nonprofit organizations such as Asian Network of Trust – Hiroshima (ANTHiroshima), Philippines-Hiroshima Exchange through History and Peace Education Projects (PHETHAPEP), and Pamana Rin Tayo (PART / “Let us be successors too”). Through this assessment, the research identified the potencies and limitations of civil society in general and hibakusha activism in particular, in leading war memory negotiation between perpetrators and their victims. Thus, the research shows how grassroots actors and organizations can direct discourse not only in global history and memory, but in contemporary global issues as well.

This study examines American wartime newsreels about the Philippines, specifically the United News series produced between 1944 and 1946. It interrogates how Filipinos were visually
represented during the late colonial period under American rule, the Second World War, and the transition to Philippine independence. While created as news reports and propaganda to advance
American wartime interests, these newsreels also reveal recurring colonial narratives shaped by the imperial gaze of the United States, which contain contradictions and tensions, revealing
ambivalence in a colonial discourse that presents itself as stable and authoritative. This ambivalence creates “cracks” in the footage, where Filipino presence, capability, and agency
emerge through acts of gazing.

Grounded in the complex “looking relations” between American and Filipino subjects, the study introduces balik-titig, a Filipino-based gaze framework that highlights moments when Filipinos looked back at or interacted unexpectedly with the camera, thereby disrupting or complicating the colonial narratives imposed upon them. Situating newsreels within the context of American colonialism and wartime history, the study extracts direct and indirect histories through a reading against the grain informed by postcolonial theory.

Organized around different forms of agency, the analysis considers Filipino political leaders, guerrillas, and civilians, each engaging the camera differently through balik-titig. Political leaders employed subtle mimicry and measured civility. Guerrillas asserted their indispensability through strategic presence, awareness, and everyday knowledge. Civilians responded with ambiguous or fleeting gazes that conveyed endurance, elation, or resistance to colonial scripting.

By foregrounding Filipino presence, capacity, and agency through balik-titig in American wartime newsreels, this thesis advances the scholarly use of newsreels in film history and Philippine historiography, addressing their longstanding marginalization while proposing a Filipino-centered method for studying wartime and colonial cinema. Through this lens, it examines the visual politics of the American empire in the Philippines, centering Filipino narratives and experiences while contributing fresh perspectives to Philippine history under American colonialism and Second World War studies.

Boys’ love (BL) media, a genre centered on male-male romance, has emerged as a global media phenomenon, yet its transnationalization across Southeast Asia highlights stark contrasts shaped by institutional and cultural disparities. This thesis compares the Philippines and Thailand through the lenses of Historical Institutionalism and Queer Theory, examining how government participation, private sector, and the viewing public interplay with queer identities in shaping BL media. By analyzing government and corporate documents, Pinoy and Thai BL series, and in-depth interviews with leading media practitioners, the study reveals the factors accounting for the diverging outcomes of BL media in both countries. In the Philippines, weak institutional pathways—marred by state censorship anchored on moral policing, a reluctant and homophobic media industry, and a divided viewing public lacking BL literacy—relegated Pinoy BL media into the periphery of the industry, exposing its precarity. In Thailand, its conducive institutional pathways, especially through investments from media companies, enabled the mainstreaming of BL in Thai media but commodified queerness in favor of marketable, masculine gay images. These findings highlight a contradiction: BL media’s potential to challenge heteronormativity is often coopted by institutional forces that prioritize profitability. The thesis concludes with a challenge to reimagine BL not as a genre controlled by market logic but as a platform for genuine queer representation.