Possible Thesis? Archaeology of Southeast Asian Politics -- Negotiating Social and Cultural Spaces in Modernisation

I've been thinking a fair bit of late about a thesis title that I would
like to pursue if I could go back to school again. Today, the above title
came to mind as I was re-reading John Rawl's Political Liberalism in parts,
while trying to craft a speech about the inevitable desolation of
meritocracy -- in our desire to measure, to differentiate, meritocratic
Singapore has killed more than our fair share of social justice. Which got
me thinking about Singapore's socialism -- and how the political choice is
always this tension between social justice and meritocracy .... the
judicious balance of both is needed.

Last night I was thinking about researching into the roots of politics in
Southeast Asia. Let's look at the big 4 in ASEAN -- Indonesia, Vietnam,
Thailand and Philippines. All very different government structures,
resulting from very different histories (colonial or otherwise). Yes, we
acknowledge an implicit link between history and politics, but to what
extent does it affect the other? How much of Singapore politics is the
result of our history (which is similar to Malaysia) or toour demographics
or leaders? It's not a vaccuous question. It's a battle over our own
identity.

Which was something that I've always been keen on -- to examine the
formation of social identity through the lens of politics, except that I
would like to dig a little deeper to develop tools to "mine" the past to
understand the present, to understand who we are -- as Southeast Asians...
hence, the "archaeology of politics" ... sounds a Foucaltish ... but hey, I
quite like it ... =)

I realise my interest is really in political and social theory, with
Southeast Asia as the raw material for my investigations. That's a
significant development of what I would like to do in the long run ...