International and Area Studies Commons^™

The Mediterranean Refugee Crisis: Heritage, Tourism, And Migration, Marxiano Melotti

New England Journal of Public Policy

The Mediterranean Sea has become a huge cemetery: many thousands of migrants have lost their lives trying to cross it in search of a better future. In 2015, more than a million migrants and refugees reached Europe through irregular means, but almost 4,000 went missing and probably drowned. In 2016, 364,000 arrived in Europe and more than 5,000 were lost en route. The arrivals in Italy by sea were 181,436 in 2016 and 119,369 in 2017. While UN organizations and EU governments seem unable or unwilling to face this epoch-making drama, the culture industry has begun to exploit it. Migrant …

Government Roles In Regulating Medical Tourism: Evidence From Guatemala, Ronald Labonté, Valorie A. Crooks, Alejandro Cerón, Vivien Runnels, Jeremy Snyder

Anthropology: Faculty Scholarship

Background: Regulation of the medical tourism and public health sectors overlap in many instances, raising questions of how patient safety, economic growth, and health equity can be protected. The case of Guatemala is used to explore how the regulatory challenges posed by medical tourism should be dealt with in countries seeking to grow this sector.

Methods: We conducted a qualitative case study of the medical tourism sector in Guatemala, through reviews and analyses of policy documents and media reports, key informant interviews (n = 50), and facility site-visits.

Results: Key informants were critical of the absence of effective public regulation …

The Politics Of Race And The Florida Gubernatorial Election Of November 2018, Laird W. Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report studies the voter registration rates in face of the new Florida Gubernatorial elections in November 2018.

Methods:Using the latest voter registration data by race and party in Florida of July 30, 2018, this report provides an accurate statistical profile of the actual registered electorate. It also utilizes the U.S. Census Bureau’s data on the presidential election of 2016 and the November 2014 mid-term election, to indicate voter participation and voting rates by race and age.

Results: While nearly 64% of eligible non-Hispanic white voters went to the polls and supported the Republican candidate for president in 2016 …

Is A Bamboo Ceiling Stifling The Rise Of Potential Leaders?, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Asian women face the double-jeopardy of gender and culture in Western workplaces

Customer Satisfaction Index Of Singapore 2018: Q2 Results, Institute Of Service Excellence, Smu

Research Collection Institute of Service Excellence (2007-2024)

The Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore (CSISG) computes customer satisfaction scores at the national, sector, sub-sector, and company levels. The CSISG serves as a quantitative benchmark of the quality of goods and services produced by the Singapore economy over time and across countries. This is the CSISG’s 12th year of measurement.

Amjambo Africa! (September 2018), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In This Issue... Eid Al-Adha .......................... Page 2

Results Conference ................Page 2

Host Community....................Page 3

World Refugee Day................Page 8

National Night Out ................Page 9

November Elections.............Page 13

Arabic Summer School ........Page 15

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Decriminalization Of Prostitution Policy: Amnesty International Punishes A Dissenting Member, Marcia R. Lieberman

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

In 2016, Marcia Lieberman, a local group coordinator for Amnesty International, USA, was expelled by the board of directors for speaking out publicly against the new Policy on the Decriminalization of Sex Work. Amnesty used a little-known rule that prohibits a member from publicly opposing a position that Amnesty has taken. Lieberman writes about her experience and her view that Amnesty violated its fundamental principle of protecting free speech to silence her dissent.

Academic “Centres,” Epistemic Differences And Brain Circulation, Yasmin Y. Ortiga, Meng‐Hsuan Chou, Gunjan Sondhi, Jue Wang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article investigates the factors that shape how migrant academics engage with fellow scholars within their countries of origin. We focus specifically on the mobility of Asian‐born faculty between Singapore, a fast‐developing education hub in Southeast Asia, and their “home” countries within the region. Based on qualitative interviews with 45 migrant academics, this article argues that while education hubs like Singapore increase the possibility of brain circulation within Asia, epistemic differences between migrant academics and home country counterparts make it difficult to establish long‐term collaboration for research. Singapore institutions also look to the West in determining how research work is …

It Is Not About The Drugs: A Comparative And Contextual Analysis Of Singapore And European Approach To Drug Issues, Rathna N. Korman

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article aims to establish that Singapore’s drug policy and approach though not in tandem, is consistent with the elements espoused in the harm reduction approach advocated by the Global Commission on drug policies. The Commission takes the position that drug control nationally has to be aligned with the sustainable development goals agenda approved by the member states in 2015. It has recommended abolishing death penalty for all drug related offences, decriminalizing drug possession and cultivation for personal consumption, implementing non-penal sanctions for all low level drug offenders, and exploring non-penal regulatory models following decriminalization. There is a paradigm shift …

Review Of Ang Cheng Guan, Southeast Asia’S Cold War: An Interpretative History, Wen-Qing (Wei Wenqing) Ngoei

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Ang Cheng Guan’s Southeast Asia’s Cold War: An Interpretive History makes a welcome scholarly contribution to the field. As he rightly points out in the introduction to his book, the “voluminous” literature concerned with the Cold War in Southeast Asia has too long centered on the United States, European decolonisation, and/or the Sino-Soviet competition for Hanoi’s loyalty.

What Does A Highly Liveable Singapore Mean?, David Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Collaborative Governance For The Sustainable Development Goals, Ann Florini, Markus Pauli

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The advent of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals has refocused global attention on the roles of business and other nonstate actors in achieving global goals. Often, business involvement takes the form of collaborations with the more traditional actors-governments and non-governmental organizations. Although such partnerships for development have been seen before, the scale and expectations are new. This paper explores how and why these cross-sector collaborations are evolving, and what steps can or should be taken to ensure that partnerships create public and private value. The arguments are illustrated with reference to cases of market-driven partnerships for agriculture in Southeast Asia …

Making A Case For Citizen Value: Do Fluid Intelligence And Adaptive Governance Promote Stability In The Middle East?, Natascha Bolden

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are changing the way people learn, do business, build relationships, and manage their lives. ICT allow easy and continuous access to open source intelligence (OSINT) that acts as force multipliers, enabling civilians to find new and more effective ways to participate in civil society and address disempowering strategies implemented by governments around the world to maintain stability. ICT and OSINT cultivate fluid intelligence and adaptive governance and can act as a catalyst to cultivate these capacities to transform conflict. The research question sought to determine whether fluid intelligence (cognitive ability to adapt and innovate) and …

"When We Demand Our Share Of This World”: Struggles For Space, New Possibilities Of Planning, And Municipalist Politics In Mumbai, Malav J. Kanuga

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation presents an urban history of Bombay/Mumbai from the perspective of a politics of plurality, arguing that while the city has emerged from governmental control and planning, its development has also been shaped by myriad popular productive forces of urban society. The dissertation traces the uneven development of the city through significant planning policies, popular movements, and lived experiences of various struggles against regimes of developmentalism—the governing ideologies of development, techniques, policies, and rules of law through which the city has been planned and governed. These ideologies and practices have shifted over time, but since the earliest days of …

Warrants And Their Underlying Stocks: Microstructure Evidence From An Emerging Market, Charlie Charoenwong, David K. Ding, Nuttawat Visaltanachoti

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The Stock Exchange of Thailand provides an ideal platform for comparing the trading characteristics of warrants and their underlying stocks since both of them trade in the same market under identical trading rules. If their patterns diverge significantly, it may be possible for an astute trader to devise profitable arbitrage strategies during the life of the warrants. We find that both their patterns are downward-sloping for spreads, U-shaped for flow toxicity, volatility, depth concentration, and trading volume; and upward-sloping for depth and market order flow ratio. This implies that trading under identical market structures leads to similar trading characteristics. We …

Event-Based Allocation Of Airline Check-In Counters: A Simple Dynamic Optimization Method Supported By Empirical Data, Mahmut Parlar, Brian Rodrigues, Sharafali Moosa

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper studies the real-life problem of dynamically optimizing the number of airport check-in counters to allocate for a single flight. The main feature of our work is the use of empirical data collected at the Singapore Changi Airport, which drives the dynamic optimization model of a parallel queues system. We propose an event-based dynamic programming model that simplifies considerably the optimization analysis even for large-scale problems with 700+ booked passengers. We investigate the following research questions: (a) For a particular flight, what is the optimal number of counters the system should open with and what is the corresponding optimal …

Teaching Basic Programming To Pre-University Students Through Blended Learning Pedagogy: A Descriptive Study, Vandana Ramachandra Rao, Ngee Mok Heng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Students enrolling for undergraduate programmes in Singapore would have either finished their polytechnic diploma or completed Junior College (JC) studies. Most pre-university students coming through the JC pathway are not exposed to programming as computing is offered as a subject in a very few JCs. The authors of this paper conducted four runs of an introductory programing course between 2016 and 2017 for a research project funded by the Ministry of Education, Singapore. The project named “Let’s Code!” was intended to introduce fundamental programming concepts to students and guide them to consider taking a computer-science related degree for their university …

Strengthening The Legal Practice The Heart Way, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Law Eugene Tan opined that even as the legal profession strives to remain relevant, it must resolve to be steadfast and true to its calling. The report of the Committee for the Professional Training Lawyers recently released urged all those seeking to read law and to practise law “[to] be frank in asking themselves why they are attracted to the profession”. Associate Prof Tan noted that with the Government accepting in principle the committee’s recommendations, the pathway to be a full-fledged lawyer is going to be more demanding and longer.

Building An Informed Citizenry In The Battle Against Disinformation, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Law Eugene Tan opined that the report of the Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods affirms a veritable truth: that the best antidote against weaponised falsehoods is an informed citizenry. However, he noted that this recommendation to nurture well-informed citizens is also likely to be the most challenging to realise the desired outcomes. An informed public will take a substantial period of time to evolve. He also cautioned the need for judicial oversight over severe powers that might abuse freedom of speech and expression and recognise that a government of the day may …

Board Independence As A Panacea To Tunnelling? An Empirical Study Of Related Party Transactions In Hong Kong And Singapore, Christopher C. H. Chen, Wai Yee Wan, Wei Zhang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In this article, we examine a general question: is the legal transplantation of corporate governance rule effective in curtailing agency costs? Entering into the 21st century, we have seen reforms of corporate governance standards in the Far East since the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, including in Hong Kong and Singapore. These reforms built on the Anglo-American model of corporate governance in the UK and US supported by broad academic literature of connecting better corporate governance with firm value and identifying the association of tunneling or wrongdoings with poor corporate governance practices. The idea is also to provide more checks-and-balances …

Asean Financial Integration And The Belt And Road Initiative: Legal Challenges And Opportunities For China In Southeast Asia, Christopher C. H. Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This chapter explores the legal challenges to Chinese financial institutions in Southeast Asia against the backdrop of China’s grand ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI) and the establishment of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Community. Banking and finance play important roles in promoting trade, investment and infrastructure projects. The development of ASEAN, an immense economic bloc located immediately south of China, will have an enormous effect on the BRI strategy. This chapter outlines the current development of financial integration within ASEAN with respect to the bloc’s banking and insurance sectors. It also considers the legal obstacles and potential …

Jailangkung: Indonesian Spirit-Basket Divination, Margaret Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Chinese spirit-basket divination, which dates to the fifth century, would have been lost to the world had it not been reincarnated as Indonesian jailangkung. The term is the homophonic rendition of the Chinese cai lan gong [菜篮公, vegetable basket deity] and unambiguously links the Indonesian practice with the Chinese. Contemporary Chinese divinatory methods have replaced the clumsy basket planchette with the handier tri-forked branch or a pen held in the medium’s hand, but a spirit-basket still features in jailangkung and remains the key element in involutions of the prototype. For example, Nini Thowong’s spirit-possessed doll, is essentially an anthropomorphic effigy …

Boosting The Life-Changing Power Of Universities, Arnoud Cyriel Leo De Meyer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

For decades, if not centuries, societies all over the world have assumed that universities have a positive socio-economic impact on them.

Asian Relevance, Global Impact: Asian Management Research Entering A New Era, Daphne W. Yiu, Long W. Lam, Ajai Gaur, Seung-Hyun Lee, Chi-Sum Wong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In 1998, the Asia Pacific Journal of Management (APJM) was formally affiliated with Asia Academy of Management (AAOM), the official affiliate of the Academy of Management, with the mission to “encourage contextualized management research with Asian relevance towards contribution to global scholarship” (Lau, 2007: 401). According to Peng (2007), APJM has become a highly reputable and the most prestigious journal in Asian management research. To date, APJM has published over 1,000 articles with a five-year average journal Impact Factor of 2.647 (as of 2018).

Constructing Underachievement: The Discursive Life Of Singapore In Us Federal Education Policy, Roberto Santiago De Roock, Darlene Machell Espena

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper offers insights into the referencing of Singapore within the US Obama Administration educational discourse, underscoring the political-material-discursive nexus of international educational benchmarking. Using critical discourse analysis, we find that an objectified Singapore functions as a rhetorical tool of US policymaker agendas, with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and other international assessments as basis for truth statements. US policy discourses on Singapore’s education system perpetuate, rather than interrogate, PISA’s questionable underlying “truths” around socio-economic development, equity, and excellence, and thus on student achievement and underachievement. Singapore’s status as an “Asian …

Malaya's Greatest Menace? Slow-Onset Disaster And The Muddy Politics Of British Malaya, C. 1900–50, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In 1948, a chilling statement from British Malaya’s Director of Agriculture, F. Burnett, made headline news. According to Burnett, unchecked soil erosion across hillside Malaya would soon render the country’s precious agricultural land infertile. Erosion had worsened considerably after the 1880s due to widespread, indiscriminate agricultural and industrial clearing. By the 1920s, it had become a sizeable socioeconomic and environmental issue, thought also to contribute to the scale and intensity of flooding and the likelihood of dangerous landslips. The British Government raised a series of empire-wide inquiries across the first half of the twentieth century, tied to an emerging global …

Constructing The Global Education Hub: The Unlikely Case Of Manila, Yasmin Y. Ortiga

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper investigates the creation of an unlikely education hub in Manila, Philippines, where local institutions have seen a growing number of international students from Korea, India, and the Middle East. These students seek qualifications in professions where Filipino migrants are highly represented, either to gain an advantage within their home countries or as a steppingstone towards jobs elsewhere. Drawing from current debates on ‘global cities’, this paper discusses how different actors promote Manila as an ideal destination for students by using the country’s unique position within the global market for migrant labor and its American colonial history. Here, Filipino …

Laozi In Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy, Alan Kam Leung Chan

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Confucianism, Daoism (Taoism), and Buddhism generally name the three main currents of Chinese thought, although it should be obvious that like any “ism,” they are abstractions—what they name are not monolithic but multifaceted traditions with fuzzy boundaries. In the case of “Daoism,” it designates both a philosophical tradition and an organized religion, which in modern Chinese are identified separately as daojia and daojiao, respectively. With their own rich histories and internal differences, the two are deeply intertwined. Laozi (or Lao-tzu, in the “Wade-Giles” system of transliteration favored by earlier generations of Western scholars) figures centrally in both.

Corporate Urbanization: Between The Future And Survival In Lebanon, Deen S. Sharp

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

If you look today at the skyline of downtowns throughout the Middle East and beyond, the joint-stock corporation has transformed the urban landscape. The corporation makes itself present through the proliferation of its urban mega-projects, including skyscrapers, downtown developments and gated communities; retail malls and artificial islands; airports and ports; and highways. Built into these corporate urban structures are edifices of politics, ideology and certain forms of socio-spatial and temporal organization. The corporation, however, has largely escaped critical scholarly analysis in Geography and/or Urban and Middle East Studies. In this thesis, I argue that the corporation is far more than …

“Are They Supposed To Be Heugin?": Negotiating Race, Nation, And Representation In Korean Musical Theatre, Ji Hyon Yuh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines contemporary Korean musical theatre as a form of popular culture that has served an important role in reflecting and establishing personal and national identity in Korea, especially as it intersects with the global and local manifestations of race and racial ideologies. I argue that musical theatre has served an important political and economic role, since its beginning as a cultural weapon in the height of the Cold War to more contemporary examples in which Korean musicals serve as a tool to brand Korea as an advanced nation in the world. To make a case for this relationship …