Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Building An Equitable And Inclusive City Through Housing Policies: Singapore's Experience, S Y Phang

PHANG Sock Yong

No abstract provided.

The Quest For Recognition: Taiwan’S Military And Trade Agreements With Singapore Under The One-China Policy, Pasha L. Hsieh

Pasha L. HSIEH

The Discretionary Death Penalty For Drug Couriers In Singapore: Four Challenges, Siyuan Chen

Siyuan CHEN

In 2012, Singapore amended its Misuse of Drugs to give courts hearing capital drug trafficking cases the discretion to replace the default death penalty with life imprisonment and caning, provided that the accused person can show that he was merely a drug courier and the prosecution certifies that he had substantively assisted the authorities in disrupting drug trafficking activities. The Singapore High Court and Court of Appeal have since made important pronouncements on the 2012 amendments, but several challenges remain: first, whether the privilege against self-incrimination has been further eroded; secondly, whether an accused person can invoke the statutory relief …

'In The Interests Of Justice' As The New Test To Exclude Relevant Evidence In Singapore: Anb V Anc [2014] Sghc 172; Wan Lai Ting V Kea Kah Kim [2014] Sghc 180, Siyuan Chen

Siyuan CHEN

In 2012, Singapore’s venerable Evidence Act (EA), which is based on Stephen’s Indian Evidence Act of 1872, underwent major amendments for only the third time in 120 years. Previously, conflicting case law had created long-standing confusion as to whether the Singapore courts possessed any discretion to exclude evidence even when was found relevant under the EA. The main reason driving this jurisprudential inconsistency was that while the relevancy provisions in the EA were meant to provide exhaustive definitions of admissibility, Stephen’s then-revolutionary ‘inclusionary’ approach to relevance was simply at odds with modern conceptions of relevance and modern litigation practice. Thus, …

Rethinking Linkage To The West: What Authoritarian Stability In Singapore Tells Us, Su-Mei Ooi

Su-Mei Ooi

Recent regime change literatures compellingly assert that linkage to the West has been a significant factor in democratisation where the organisational capacity of authoritarian incumbents has overwhelmingly weakened pro-democracy forces. Detailed case studies confirming these findings have not included Singapore although high levels of linkage to the West suggest that democratisation should have taken place there. This qualitative case study fills the empirical and theoretical gap by explaining why linkage has so far failed to raise the cost of authoritarianism for Singapore's government. By eschewing the current structural approach, which conceptualises linkage as mere channels of external pressure or influence, …

Changing Labor Market Conditions And Economic Development In Hong Kong, The Republic Of Korea, Singapore, And Taiwan, China, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

In the newly industrializing economies (NIEs) of Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan (China), the entire working population has benefited from labor market institutions. The East Asian NIEs attained and maintained generally full employment, improved their job mixes, raised real earnings, and lowered their rates of poverty. This article reaches two principal conclusions. First, labor market conditions continued to improve in all four economies in the 1980s at rates remarkably similar to their rates of aggregate economic growth. Second, labor market repression was not a major factor in the growth experiences of these economies in the 1980s. …

Visionaries, Architects And Pioneers: Conceptualising Smu, Pin Pin Yeo, Patricia Meyer

YEO Pin Pin

The Singapore Management University (SMU) Library was tasked with documenting the early history of SMU by the chairman of its board of trustees. An oral history project to interview the pioneers involved in the formation of the university began in 2011. The project team included the Library, the Information Technology department, and a researcher/interviewer who was familiar with SMU. It was a steep learning curve for the team. As they conducted and processed the interviews, they learned about and made decisions on interviewing, recording, transcribing, storage, website design, discoverability, usability, and sustainability. The resulting oral history website presents the interviews …

Microblogging For Engaged Teaching And Learning, Thomas Menkhoff, Kok Siew Benjamin Gan, Charles Jason Woodard, Yue Wah Chay

C. Jason Woodard

In this paper, we report how we put a newly developed Twitter application to work in the context of a Knowledge Management course taught at the Singapore Management University (SMU) allowing students to post and view relevant tweets in an organized manner for the benefit of collaborative class discussions and learning. Innovative elements of the ongoing project include the explorative usage of social media such as Twitter in the higher education context, student participation in providing initial evidence and qualitative feedback that tweeting is pedagogically meaningful and a newly built-in feature which can resolve tweeting challenges which occurred in class …

Singapore: Forward Operating Site, Christopher Rahman

Chris Rahman

Historically, Singapore functioned as a major naval hub supporting the British Empire's position in the Far East. The island was viewed by Admiral Sir John "Jackie" Fisher as one of the world's five key locations enabling Britain's global naval superiority. The fortification of the British strategic position on Singapore reached both its zenith and its nadir with the development in the interwar years of the "Singapore Strategy," which was designed to buttress the empire's Far Eastern defenses agajnst possible Japanese aggression. That controversial plan failed miserably in the breach. However, the island continued to host a significant British military presence …

Political Values In Singapore: A Confucian Perspective, Vicente C. Reyes Jr

Dr. Vicente C Reyes Jr

In the ASEAN Charter, all member states are committed to common political values such as human rights, fundamental freedoms, democracy and the rule of law. These political values, as well as related political institutions and structures, are predominantly of Western origin. There is a need to recognize alternative models of organizing state and normative orders in Asia. One alternative is the political values that are derived and adapted from Asian philosophies. This paper critically discusses political values in Asia with a focus on the relevance of Confucius’ philosophy to the ASEAN political security community. The paper begins by examining the …

Evolving An Information Systems Capstone Course To Align With The Fast Changing Singapore Marketplace, Chris Boesch, Benjamin Kok Siew Gan

Chris BOESCH

Every year, around fifty-five undergraduate teams of four to six students are required to complete a capstone course for the School of Information Systems at Singapore Management University. Each team spends approximately five months working with an industry sponsor using the latest tools and techniques. Students actively learn by implementing the system to solve a real world problem. In addition to delivering value to the local sponsor, our students learn specialized skills currently needed in the marketplace, which might not yet be incorporated into electives and core courses. In this paper, we discuss the tradeoffs of providing students and project …

Housing Policies In Singapore: Evaluation Of Recent Proposals And Recommendations For Reform, Sock Yong Phang, David K. C. Lee, Alan Cheong, Kok Fai Phoon, Karol Wee

David LEE Kuo Chuen

The Singapore housing market is unusual in its high homeownership rate, the dominance of HDB housing, and the extensive intervention of the government in regulating housing supply and demand in both the HDB and private housing sectors. Recent rapid population increases in a low interest rate and high global liquidity environment has resulted in accelerated house prices increases in Singapore. Earlier this year, the government launched “Our Singapore Conversation” of which discussion on housing policies constitutes one major component. This “conversation” comes in the wake of several consecutive rounds of measures to stabilize housing prices using various instruments. This paper …

Academic Paper Supports Housing Curbs For Prs, Foreigners, Mindy Tan, David Kuo Chuen Lee

David LEE Kuo Chuen

No abstract provided.

Reit To Deal With Hdb Demand-Supply Challenges, Chor Hao Ong, David Kuo Chuen Lee

David LEE Kuo Chuen

A group of academics from the Singapore Management University (SMU) and a noted property consultant are making the case for a REIT comprising Housing and Development Board (HDB) residential and commercial units.

Milestones For Animal Welfare: Public Prosecutor V. Ling Chung Yee Roy, Alvin W. L. See

Alvin W-L SEE

Animal law is a little-known subject in Singapore. However, the increase in public awareness and concern about animal welfare issues demand that more attention is directed at the legal aspects of such issues. An opportunity to examine this area of the law arose in the case of Ling Chung Yee Roy. The District Court, presided by District Judge Ng Peng Hong, had to decide whether the accused was guilty of an animal cruelty offence under s. 42(1)(e) of the Animals and Birds Act. The majority of animal cruelty complaints were against pet owners, of which a significant number concerned the …

Review Of The Singapore Companies Act: Consultation On Draft Legislative Changes To Companies Act, Wai Yee Wan

Wai Yee WAN

In October 2013, MOF and ACRA sought further public consultation (“Second Consultation”) on the second part of the Draft Companies (Amendment) Bill 2013 that covers legislative amendments relating to foreign companies and other aspects of the Companies Act, including those relating to enhancing the powers of the Registrar of Companies to strike off companies and to share buyback limits. This note discusses some of the more controversial, as well as the significant, changes that are proposed in the Second Consultation.

Coping With Growth Transitions: The Case Of Chinese Family Businesses In Singapore, Wee-Liang Tan, Siew Tong Fock

Wee Liang TAN

Families control more than half of the corporations in East Asia. The contribution of family businesses to Asia's economic growth is predicated upon successfully growing their businesses. Many family businesses in East Asia, spanning countries such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia, are Chinese owned and managed. Some claim that these businesses will never develop into full-fledged multinational enterprises because of their cultural heritage (Redding, 1990). However, some Chinese family businesses have successfully made the transition.This paper presents an in-depth study of five Chinese family businesses in Singapore that have successfully made the transition in growth and size …

Singapore's New Discretionary Death Penalty For Drug Couriers: Public Prosecutor V Chum Tat Suan, Siyuan Chen

Siyuan CHEN

The article offers information on the history, evolution and significance of the new discretionary death penalty legislation for drug couriers in Singapore under the application of the Misuse of Drugs Act (MDA). It discusses the judicial decision of the Singaporean High Court in the case of Public Prosecutor v. Chum Tat Suan in which the Court convicted the accused with chareges of importing of more than 94.96g of diamorphine into Singapore that was punishable under section 33 of the MDA.

Following English Footsteps? An Empirical Study Of Singapore's Reported Insurance Judgments And Disputes Between 1965 And 2012, Christopher Chao-Hung Chen

Christopher Chao-hung Chen

This article presents an empirical study of the development of Singapore’s insurance contract law in relation to English law. The gene of Singapore’s insurance law is very English. The empirical data show a lack of momentum in driving insurance law forward by case law. This may justify further legislative reform to address not only the known doctrinal issues inherited from English law but also the specific problems facing consumer insurance. Singapore’s competitiveness in the global insurance market will be an instrumental factor to determine how far Singapore continues to follow English law in the future.

Measuring The Transplantation Of English Commercial Law In A Small Jurisdiction: An Empirical Study Of Singapore’S Insurance Judgments Between 1965 And 2012, Christopher Chen

Christopher Chao-hung CHEN

This article seeks to measure the development of law after transplanting common law and statutes from another country by conducting an empirical study of the citation of precedents and demography of disputes of insurance cases in Singapore. This article recognizes that there are justifications for Singapore to transplant English insurance law. However, this research shows that the transplantation of English commercial law into a small jurisdiction, even within the common law family, may cause the law to be in a static state if courts do not have enough cases to maintain the development of law or to consider new development …

Housing Policies In Singapore: Evaluation Of Recent Proposals And Recommendations For Reform, S Y Phang, David Lee, Alan Cheong, Kok-Fai Phoon, Karol Wee

PHANG Sock Yong

No abstract provided.

Social Sensing For Urban Crisis Management: The Case Of Singapore Haze, Philips Kokoh Prasetyo, Ming Gao, Ee Peng Lim, Christie N. Scollon

Ming Gao

Sensing social media for trends and events has become possible as increasing number of users rely on social media to share information. In the event of a major disaster or social event, one can therefore study the event quickly by gathering and analyzing social media data. One can also design appropriate responses such as allocating resources to the affected areas, sharing event related information, and managing public anxiety. Past research on social event studies using social media often focused on one type of data analysis (e.g., hashtag clusters, diffusion of events, influential users, etc.) on a single social media data …

Gender And Divorce In Contemporary Singapore, Shirley Hsiao-Li Sun

Shirley Hsiao-Li SUN

How do individuals perceive and experience divorce in a self-proclaimed Confucian state, but with a legal system based on the English common law system? Moreover, are there differences in the experiences between divorced women with professional careers and divorced men whose ex-wives are professional women? This paper attempts to address these questions in the context of Singapore, a city-state in Southeast Asia, where more than 70% of the citizenry is Singaporean Chinese. While most existing studies have examined women’s and men’s experiences with divorce separately, we compare and contrast these individuals’ experiences in the same cultural and legal context. We …

Exporting Expertise: A Note On Singapore's Gambit In Bangalore, India, Caroline Yeoh, Amrit Vaidyanath, Siang Yeung Wong

Caroline Yeoh

Infrastructure can be unreliable and administration subject to corruption in Asia’s rapidly emerging economies. This context presented Singapore with unique opportunities to export its ‘positive reputation’ to locations where these attributes are less certain, through the provision of superior infrastructure, the ability to negotiate investment concessions and, where existing, through the links to influential business groups in the investment location. This strategic initiative is premised on the perception that Singapore’s good relations with multinationals, as well as “connections” with Asian business networks, will give the industrial-township projects a marketing advantage. To complement the extensive literature on Singapore’s flagship projects in …

Embedded Co-Operation In The Context Of Singapore's Regionalization Program: The Batamindo Experiment Revisited, Caroline Yeoh, Adeline Kwan, Siang Yeung Wong

Caroline Yeoh

The development of Singapore-styled industrial parks has resided on the country’s ability to negotiate investment concessions at inter-government level, to provide superior infrastructure, and where existing, through the links to influential business groups in the investment location. Singapore’s first transborder industrialization project in Batam (Indonesia) reflects this stratagem. This paper revisits the debate on the attractiveness of the low-cost investment enclaves for multinational investments, with insights from Batamindo Industrial Park. Through evidence from on-site interviews and case studies, this paper concludes that while the project’s progress to date has been largely overshadowed by socio-political uncertainties in the host environment, its …

Regionalisation And Singapore's Transborder Industrialisation: A New Perspective On Suzhou Industrial Park, Xun Cai, Lu Gao, Caroline Yeoh

Caroline Yeoh

The dynamics of international economic competition have prompted governments to re-examine accustomed policies, and search for alternative strategies, in order to re-position their economies for the future. This paper takes a look at Singapore’s search for a competitive positioning in the global marketplace, and focuses on the city-state’s much-publicized, and controversial, flagship project in China, viz, the Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP). This strategic initiative is premised on the perceptions that Singapore’s positive reputation with multinational corporations, and ‘guanxi’ (or connections) with regional governments, will give the regional sites a strategic advantage in the competition for foreign investments. Earlier studies have …

Embedded Co-Operation In The Context Of Singapore's Regionalization Program: The Batamindo Experiment Revisited, Caroline Yeoh, Adeline Kwan, Siang Yeung Wong

Caroline Yeoh

The development of Singapore-styled industrial parks has resided on the country’s ability to negotiate investment concessions at inter-government level, to provide superior infrastructure, and where existing, through the links to influential business groups in the investment location. Singapore’s first transborder industrialization project in Batam (Indonesia) reflects this stratagem. This paper revisits the debate on the attractiveness of the low-cost investment enclaves for multinational investments, with insights from Batamindo Industrial Park. Through evidence from on-site interviews and case studies, this paper concludes that while the project’s progress to date has been largely overshadowed by socio-political uncertainties in the host environment, its …

Staying Ahead Of The Competition: Insights From Singapore's Manufacturing Enclave In Vietnam, Caroline Yeoh, Di Kun Goh, Wilfred Pow Ngee How

Caroline Yeoh

The apparent success of Singapore-styled industrial parks in attracting foreign investments into the emerging Asian economies to capitalize on cheap and abundant resources has led, pari passu, to a mushrooming of similarly-patterned competitor parks in close proximity to the flagship projects. Many of the competitor parks offer either similar or comparable facilities, lower rates, or, in some cases, both. The ensuing dynamic competitive interactions between the competitor parks and the Singapore-styled parks have forced a re-examination of the viability of the Singapore advantage in navigating the economics of competition, and in sustaining competitive advantage. The Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP), unsurprisingly, …

The Singapore "Advantage" In India: A Perception Or A Premium?, Alexandra Si-Lan Wee, Ai Lin Leong, Caroline Yeoh

Caroline Yeoh

Singapore’s regionalisation strategy has been applied in various countries, such as China, Vietnam and India, through the establishment of industrial parks. The parks are marketed as a winning combination of the host country’s unique location advantages and Singapore style efficiency and management know-how. Singapore’s foray into India was marked by the setting up of the ITPL in Bangalore, and furthered by its venture into a future phase of HITEC City, based on her success in Bangalore. However, with global businesses shifting interests towards India, and competing industrial parks emerging to meet the increasing demand, ITPL is faced with stiff competition …

Economics Of Competition': A Study Of Low-Cost Manufacturing Enclaves In Batam Island, Indonesia, Caroline Yeoh, Feng Hao Chua, Sylvie Tan

Caroline Yeoh

Singapore’s transborder industrialization projects in China and India have received much attention. This regionalization initiative was intended to set in place a strategic configuration for the city-state to restructure its domestic industries and, pari passu, retain important linkages with contiguous, low-cost environments. Our study reports on Singapore’s pioneering, albeit lesser-known, project - Batamindo Industrial Park – in neighboring Batam Island, Indonesia, and finds that the strategic intent of this policy gambit remains stymied by non-economic, socio-political complexities in the host environment, and the economics of competition from other industrial estates in the vicinity of this prototype, remains to be addressed.