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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Between Equal Rights: Primitive Accumulation And Capital's Violence, Onur Ulas Ince Dec 2017

Between Equal Rights: Primitive Accumulation And Capital's Violence, Onur Ulas Ince

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper attempts to elaborate a political theory of capital’s violence. Recent analyses haveadopted Karl Marx’s notion of the “primitive accumulation of capital” for investigating theforcible methods by which the conditions of capital accumulation are reproduced in the present.I argue that the analytic function accorded to primitive accumulation can be better performedby a pair of new concepts: “capital-positing violence” and “capital-preserving violence.” Irefine the conceptual core primitive accumulation (coercive capitalization of social relations ofproduction) by focusing on the role of colonial violence in the history of capitalism, which Ithen elucidate with reference to Carl Schmitt’s account of European colonial expansion …


Is Agent-Neutral Deontology Possible?, Matthew Hammerton Dec 2017

Is Agent-Neutral Deontology Possible?, Matthew Hammerton

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

It is commonly held that all deontological moral theories are agent-relative in the sense that they give each agent a special concern that she does not perform acts of a certain type rather than a general concern with the actions of all agents. Recently, Tom Dougherty has challenged this orthodoxy by arguing that agent-neutral deontology is possible. In this article I counter Dougherty's arguments and show that agent-neutral deontology is not possible.


Assertion And Its Many Norms, John N. Williams Dec 2017

Assertion And Its Many Norms, John N. Williams

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Timothy Williamson offers the ordinary practice, the lottery and the Moorean argument for the ‘knowledge account’ that assertion is the only speech-act that is governed by the single ‘knowledge rule’ or norm, that one must know its content. I show that the emptiness of the knowledge account renders mysterious why breaking the knowledge rule should be a source of criticism. I then argue that focussing exclusively on the sincerity of the speech-act of letting one know engenders a category mistake about the nature of constraints on assertion. For Williamson and those in his tradition, assertion alls under purely epistemic norms. …


Uncertain Skies: Forecasting Typhoons In Hong Kong Ca. 1874-1906, Fiona Williamson Dec 2017

Uncertain Skies: Forecasting Typhoons In Hong Kong Ca. 1874-1906, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper explores the conceptualisation of «uncertainty» in late nineteenth- century meteorological thought. By investigating the story of meteorological forecasting in nineteenth and early twentieth century Hong Kong, it considers the changing ways in which forecasting was judged historically. In the early nineteenth century forecasting the weather was considered impossible. By the end of the century, it was confidently expected that the much improved understanding of weather patterns would lead to the ability to better predict them. During the intervening period «uncertainty» competed with «certainty» and «prediction» was mistaken for «predictability». The shift in perception was driven by various factors, …


Cultural Capital Schemes In Asia: Mirroring Europe Or Carving Out Their Own Concepts?, David Ocon Dec 2017

Cultural Capital Schemes In Asia: Mirroring Europe Or Carving Out Their Own Concepts?, David Ocon

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Despite bearing similar names and sharing certainaims, the implementation of the CulturalCity/Capital initiative in Europe and in the sub-regions of Southeast andNortheast Asia has been substantially dissimilar. In Europe, the annual EuropeanCity of Culture (ECOC) status commonly constitutes an opportunity toshowcase the best of the arts and culture of the host city, and counts on thesupport of sizable public funding. In Southeast Asia, the initiative scarcelyreceives any public or regional funds and the understanding of what thedesignation means varies widely from country to country. In Northeast Asia,regional diplomacy is one of the main motivations for initiating the scheme. This paper …


The Role Of Historians In East Asia’S History Problem, Hiro Saito Dec 2017

The Role Of Historians In East Asia’S History Problem, Hiro Saito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

At first glance, historians may not look like the best candidates for facilitating a resolution of the history problem. This is because historians have traditionally used the nation as a primary unit of analysis, helping to naturalize it as a primordial entity. They have also created professional associations and delimited their membership along national borders, consistent with the nationalist logic of self-determination; for example, when Japanese historians write about the history of Japan, they often talk among themselves without consulting with foreign historians who study Japan. This nationally bounded content focus and membership reinforces the logic of nationalism that divides …


Harnessing The Potential Of The Indonesian Diaspora, Charlotte Setijadi Dec 2017

Harnessing The Potential Of The Indonesian Diaspora, Charlotte Setijadi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this article, I examine recent issues and developments in Indonesian diaspora activism, including the progress of long-standing requests such as changes to the dual citizenship law. I then discuss some of the ways in which the Indonesian government may harness the potential of its diaspora in the future, especially since overseas Indonesians are now wealthier, more mobile, and better connected than ever before. I argue that the case study of the Indonesian state’s growing relationship with its diaspora can enrich our understanding of how Southeast Asian countries are cultivating better and more beneficial relationships with their diaspora communities.


The Weekend Effect In Television Viewership And Prime-Time Scheduling, Jung Won Yeo Nov 2017

The Weekend Effect In Television Viewership And Prime-Time Scheduling, Jung Won Yeo

Research Collection School Of Economics

The observed drops in the ratings of television programs on Fridays and Saturdays are likely a result of two factors: intrinsic contraction in demand for television watching and endogenous scheduling. I decompose the observed weekend effect into the effects from these two factors. To this end, I estimate a viewer choice model that uses aggregate Nielsen ratings data for prime-time network television shows over 11 years. The long span of the data enables me to control for television series qualities. The estimation results reveal that the estimated weekend effect is dampened as the empirical model accounts for variation in the …


Above, On, Or Shang (上)? Language And Spatial Representations Among English–Mandarin Bilinguals, Wei Xing Toh, Lidia Suãrez Nov 2017

Above, On, Or Shang (上)? Language And Spatial Representations Among English–Mandarin Bilinguals, Wei Xing Toh, Lidia Suãrez

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This study investigated if exposure to spatial language could affect spatial cognition in English-Mandarin bilinguals by focusing on contact/noncontact distinctions, an area that has been a source of contention in the language-and-thought literature. Sixty-three participants were first primed with sentences containing spatial terms (e.g., above, on) before performing a spatial decision task. Approximately half of the participants (n = 33) were primed in English; for the remaining participants (n = 30), primes comprising Mandarin spatial terms―which mark spatial distinctions differently than in English (e.g., shang in Mandarin signifies both above and on in English)―were employed instead. Our findings revealed that …


George Yeo [Singapore, Minister Of Foreign Affairs], George Yeo Aug 2017

George Yeo [Singapore, Minister Of Foreign Affairs], George Yeo

Digital Narratives of Asia

George Yeo, former Minister of Foreign Affairs who became a business leader, speaks to DNA about his philosophical Taoist worldview, the impact of the rise of China, and the challenges facing ASEAN at its 50th year. He talks on how the soft power of ASEAN's policy of non-interference has yield some successes.


Understanding Music Track Popularity In A Social Network, Jing Ren, Robert J. Kauffman Jun 2017

Understanding Music Track Popularity In A Social Network, Jing Ren, Robert J. Kauffman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Thousands of music tracks are uploaded to the Internet every day through websites and social networks that focus on music. While some content has been popular for decades, some tracks that have just been released have been ignored. What makes a music track popular? Can the duration of a music track’s popularity be explained and predicted? By analysing data on the performance of a music track on the ranking charts, coupled with the creation of machine-generated music semantics constructs and a variety of other track, artist and market descriptors, this research tests a model to assess how track popularity and …


The Dumb Prof Considers Intersectionality In The Age Of Trump, Justin Kh Tse Jun 2017

The Dumb Prof Considers Intersectionality In The Age Of Trump, Justin Kh Tse

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Among decent, intelligent, and respectable human beings in the United States and around the world, the occupation of Donald Trump of the American presidency is the shock that never ends. Much of this has to do with how vulgar the man is. The activist-academic terms intersectionality and identity politics have in turn entered into our popular vocabulary as words that might describe how all of these aggrieved groups might resist the Trump Administration. This resistance, it is claimed, is necessary because these various groups have not only been insulted by Trump’s rhetoric, but have also been oppressed by draconian policies …


Trump And Asia, Singapore Management University May 2017

Trump And Asia, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

The American president is off to an uncertain start in his first 100 days in office but his administration could yet develop a coherent foreign policy


Adam Smith, Settler Colonialism, And Cosmopolitan Overstretch, Onur Ulas Ince May 2017

Adam Smith, Settler Colonialism, And Cosmopolitan Overstretch, Onur Ulas Ince

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Adam Smith has recently been celebrated as a precocious theorist of commercialcosmopolitanism who decried the injustice of imperial conquest and extraction. This paperfocuses on Smith’s endorsement of settler colonialism in North America and argues thatSmith’s newfound cosmopolitanism is overstretched. Smith welcomed settler colonies as theembodiment of the “natural progress of opulence” and spared them from his invective againstother imperial practices like chattel slavery and trade monopolies. Smith’s embrace of settlercolonies, however, involved him in an ideological conundrum insofar as the prosperity ofoverseas settlements rested on imperial expansion and seizure of land from Native Americans.I contend that Smith muffled this disturbing …


A New Performance Review Process Could Fight Cultural Bias Against Women At Work, Aliya Hamid Rao May 2017

A New Performance Review Process Could Fight Cultural Bias Against Women At Work, Aliya Hamid Rao

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A month or so ago, a friend of mine—a postdoctoral fellow at my university—invited me out for lunch, along with a colleague I’d never met. At lunch, my friend introduced me: “Aliya is a postdoc here. She studies unemployment with a focus on gender, so she can tell you about that if you have any questions


The Woman Behind The Man: Unemployed Men, Their Wives, And The Emotional Labor Of Job-Searching, Aliya Hamid Rao Mar 2017

The Woman Behind The Man: Unemployed Men, Their Wives, And The Emotional Labor Of Job-Searching, Aliya Hamid Rao

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

“How’re you going to find a job when you have no confidence and are very emotional?”


Veiled Lives? Muslim Women, Headscarves, And Manufacturing Islam, Aliya Hamid Rao Mar 2017

Veiled Lives? Muslim Women, Headscarves, And Manufacturing Islam, Aliya Hamid Rao

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The essentialist and dichotomizing battle over who is ideologically, morally, indeed humanly, more advanced (the West or the rest), has for centuries been fought over women’s bodies. A few hundred years ago the rationale for imperialism in the case of the British Raj included the idea of white men saving brown women from brown men. The post 9/11 invasion of Afghanistan was also partly justified as a war between good and evil, with the US representing all that is good in terms of democracy, human rights, and, significantly, women’s rights.


Jobs For Justice(S): Corruption In The Supreme Court Of India, Madhav S. Aney, Shubhankar Dam, Giovanni Ko Feb 2017

Jobs For Justice(S): Corruption In The Supreme Court Of India, Madhav S. Aney, Shubhankar Dam, Giovanni Ko

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate whether judicial decisions are affected by career concerns of judges byanalysing two questions: Do judges respond to pandering incentives by ruling in favourof the government in the hope of receiving jobs after retiring from the Court? Does thegovernment actually reward judges who ruled in its favour with prestigious jobs? To answerthese questions we construct a dataset of all Supreme Court of India cases involving thegovernment from 1999 till 2014, with an indicator for whether the decision was in its favouror not. We find that pandering incentives have a causal effect on judicial decision-making.The exposure of a judge to …


Scaling Impact Investing Through Innovative Finance: A Focus On Women's Livelihoods, Durreen Shahnaz Jan 2017

Scaling Impact Investing Through Innovative Finance: A Focus On Women's Livelihoods, Durreen Shahnaz

Social Space

I embarked on a journey from the first steps of my career to utilise finance to do good for the world. This journey has now turned into a global movement that is taking the world by a storm, known as impact investing or social finance.


Remembering 1965: Indonesian Cinema And The 'Battle For History', Espena Darlene Machell Jan 2017

Remembering 1965: Indonesian Cinema And The 'Battle For History', Espena Darlene Machell

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Using four films to probe the transformations in Indonesia’s historical memory, this paper examines how the Indonesian society remembers, interrogates, and comes to terms with one of their nation’s most traumatic episodes: the widespread communist purge that followed the failed coup on 30 September 1965. It also demonstrates how they reflect various perspectives on the 1965 killings that are—to an extent—part of the “Battle of History” (van Klinken 2001) in postSuharto Indonesia, wherein different historiographic traditions introduce new actors, reveal the nuances, and challenge longstanding dominant understandings of 1965.