Rachyl is a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Economy. Before joining King’s, she worked as a researcher at the Institute of Policy Studies, the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre, and the Ministry of Home Affairs in Singapore, where her work spanned civil conflict, political polarisation, race and ethnicity in multicultural societies, and the evaluation of social policies and programmes.

Rachyl holds a Master of Science in Strategic Studies from Nanyang Technological University, a Master of Arts in International Relations from the University of Warwick, and a Bachelor of Business Management from Singapore Management University. Her graduate thesis on multiculturalism and religious extremism in Singapore received the Best Thesis Award at both Nanyang Technological University and the University of Warwick.

Rachyl's doctoral research is generously supported by the Social Science Research Council Graduate Research Fellowship (Singapore) and the Tan Kah Kee Foundation Postgraduate Scholarship.

Research interests

• Civil conflict and political violence
• Social welfare and conflict mitigation
• Public spending, service delivery, and state legitimacy
• Political economy of redistribution and peacebuilding
• Race and ethnicity in multicultural societies

Doctoral research

Most studies of civil conflict focus on its triggers – ethnic tension, political exclusion, economic grievance. Rachyl's research turns instead to a less-examined question: once unrest takes hold, can states quell it through social spending? Her dissertation examines when and how government provision of education, health, and welfare in conflict-affected regions reduces violence, and when it backfires.

Drawing on evidence from various Southeast Asian countries, her central argument is that whether spending pacifies or provokes depends far less on how much governments spend than on what they fund, who delivers it, and whether state authority is accepted on the ground. The same social spending that signals inclusion in one setting can read as intrusion in another. By combining sub-national quantitative analysis with comparative case work across Southeast Asia, her research aims to give governments and organisations practical, evidence-based guidance on designing social provision that is more likely to build a durable peace.

PhD supervisors

Dr Alberto Vesperoni, Dr Krzysztof Krakowski and Dr Colin Jennings.