International and Area Studies Commons^™

Singapore Case Note: Enforceability Of Settlement Agreements, Nadja Alexander, Shou Yu Chong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Since the signing of the Singapore Convention on Mediation in August this year, there has been an increased interest on the enforceability of settlement agreements, particularly those arising from mediation. The case of Law Chau Loon v Alphire Group Pte Ltd [2019] SGHC 275 from the Singapore High Court provides us with some general legal principles to consider when a settlement agreement is drafted. Although mediation did not take place between the parties in dispute, the principles stated by the High Court here remain relevant to the drafting of binding mediated settlement agreements (MSAs). This case is essential reading for …

The Future Development Of Reits In China, Jia Sun

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) is a type of trust fund or corporation that pools the funds of a large number of investors by issuing a certificate of income and invest the raised funds in real estate projects that are managed by a specialized investment institution. The real estate investment risk is moderate, and the rent is stable, but the capital threshold is high, and it is difficult for small and medium investors to enter the market. The invention of REITs aims to solve this problem, through the collection of funds, so that small and medium investors can enter the …

Effects Of Visual Impairment On The Preparation, Response, And Recovery From The 2017 Hurricane Season In Puerto Rico, Kevin D. Mccormack

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The 2017 hurricane season in Puerto Rico brought rain and wind forces the likes of which had not been seen in 90 years on the island. Some say it will take at least ten years to recover from the damage caused to functional necessities such as roadways, assuming full recovery is possible. While the general populace in Puerto Rico struggled to recover, populations such as people with visual impairments experienced the struggle more acutely. Independent living, limited as it generally was before Hurricane Maria, was further compromised. There was a feeling of abandonment throughout the community of people with visual …

Stability Through Economic Growth In Afghanistan, Abdul Qadir Khan

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the Afghan public’s opinion to identify the overall direction of the country, whether the country, in terms of economic growth, is moving in a positive direction or not. How do economic factors affect the public’s views on the direction of the country? Based on that, this study finds that economic growth has an effect on the Afghan public’s opinion on the country’s direction.

Afghans are not enjoying stability in their country yet, after the majority of Afghans accepted U.S. military intervention in 2001 and the establishment of the new government to end instability. It was not an …

Tracking Political Events In Social Media: A Case Study Of Hong Kong Protests, Haodi Qi, Hanyu Jiang, Wende Bu, Chengzi Zhang, Kyong Jin Shim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this study, we analyze social conversations about Hong Kong Protests, a series of events that were widely seen and debated in social media in 2019. Our system collects data from Twitter and Reddit using their APIs. It performs sentiment analysis, and the analysis results show changes in public sentiment around major events. Social network analysis reveals influencers - users that are in the center of social conversations. Our interactive Tableau dashboard allows the user to easily monitor live social conversations about Hong Kong protests.

The Dao Of Politics: Li (Ritual/Rites) And Laws As Pragmatic Tools Of Government, Sor-Hoon Tan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

American philosopher John Dewey spent more than two years in China (191 During and after his visit, he wrote some fairly perceptive and insightful comme on China. These were published in periodicals such as the New Republic, As the China Review, and sometimes in newspapers such as the Baltimore Sun ever, there is hardly any discussion of Chinese philosophy in Dewey's publ works or even his papers and correspondence. Among his rare mentions of C philosophy was an article published in 1922, "As the Chinese Think," w cussed the teachings of Lao Zi and Confucius (M13:217-27).1 This was an att …

For Ye Have The Poor Always With You: Exploring China's Latest War On Poverty, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

John Donaldson’s section discusses Xi Jinping’s ambitious pledge to end poverty in China by 2020, toward which the CCP has deployed a locally adaptable set of policies that have mobilized actors in the public and private sectors and tied officials’ performance to success in poverty reduction. The Party understands that poverty—a manifestation of a severe inability to provide a good life for the people—represents a concerning indictment of the regime’s legitimacy overall. This paper fills in an analytic gap among Western sources regarding these programs, which have to date seen well over fifty billion dollars of poverty alleviation funding disbursed …

An Analysis Of Open Innovation Determinants: The Case Study Of Singapore Based Family Owned Enterprises, Annie Koh, Esther Kong, Giuseppe Timperio

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Family businesses play an important role in the growth of global economy, and while they are arguably perceived as a conservative form of organization with high risk aversion and reluctance to change, counterintuitive empirical evidence show that they are most effective in ideation and commercialization of innovation projects. In the current business environment of rapid change in work patterns, fast adoption of enabling technologies for seamless collaborations across industry and geography, along with intense competition and high uncertainty, enterprises have no choice but to maximize returns on innovation investments. Therefore, they are increasingly dependent on an ecosystem-based approach to innovation …

Optimal Control For Transboundary Pollution Under Ecological Compensation: A Stochastic Differential Game Approach, Ke Jiang, Ryan Knowles Merrill, Daming You, Pan Pan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

To account for previously ignored, yet widely observed uncertainty in nature's capability to replenish the natural environment in ways that should inform ideal design of ecological compensation (EC) regimes, this study constructs a stochastic differential game (SDG) model to analyze transboundary pollution control options between a compensating and compensated region. Equilibrium strategies in the stochastic, two player game inform optimal control theory and reveal a welfare distribution mechanism to form the basis of an improved cooperative game contract. A case-based numerical example serves to verify the theoretical results and supports three key insights. First, accounting for various random disturbance factors, …

American And Iraqi Prose Fiction Of The Iraq War: Traumas Of The Self, Traumas Of The Nation, Ghyath Manhel Alkinani

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

War is so omnipresent in our contemporary world that the story of war is too important to be left to fiction writers to frame and give meaning for. This dissertation provides an analysis of two dominant patterns in contemporary Iraqi and American prose fictional representations of the Iraq War: the individualistic trauma hero narrative and the nationalistic, collective narrative. I argue that the trauma hero myth that dominates American representations of the Iraq War psychologizes and de-politicizes war experience alienating the victim of trauma by decontextualizing their experience and negating the Other. On the other hand, the sweeping nationalistic narrative …

Happy Toilet: A Social Analytics Approach To The Study Of Public Toilet Cleanliness, Eugene W. J. Choy, Winston M. K. Ho, Xiaohang Li, Ragini Verma, Li Jin Sim, Kyong Jin Shim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This study presents a social analytics approach to the study of public toilet cleanliness in Singapore. From popular social media platforms, our system automatically gathers and analyzes relevant public posts that mention about toilet cleanliness in highly frequented locations across the Singapore island - from busy shopping malls to food 'hawker' centers.

Imaginary Conquests: Folktales, Film, And The Japanese Empire In Asia, Richard M Davis

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article highlights three family-targeted films made under the wartime Japanese empire: Yamamoto Kajir ō ’s musical comedy Songokū (1940) and Seo Mitsuyo’s animated Momotarō films, Sea Eagles (1943) and Divine Warriors of the Sea (1945). Significantly, these films are based on two fantastical premodern stories—the Chinese novel Journey to the West and the Japanese Momotarō legend, respectively—whose quest narratives map onto Japan’s contemporaneous military expansion into mainland China and the islands of the South Pacific. Despite the films’ seeming alignment with ultranationalist ideology, I argue that the geopolitical trajectories of their narratives are rendered ambiguous by their various reception …

“Daughter” As A Positionality And The Gendered Politics Of Taking Parents Into The Field, Menusha De Silva, Kanchan Gandhi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Research on gendered politics of the field has delved into the practices of accompaniment and its implications on research and knowledge production, particularly through the case of researchers’ children and partners. In comparison, the tendency to seek assistance from parents is neglected within the scholarship. Drawing on the PhD fieldwork experiences of two researchers in their “native” country, specifically a Sri Lankan researcher conducting fieldwork in Sri Lanka and a North Indian scholar researching in South India, the paper reveals parents’ contribution to the research process, in terms of enhancing researcher credibility, facilitating contact‐making and access, and providing emotional and …

Politics And Policy: Chinese Money And Its Impact On The Regulation Of Residential Property In The West, Edward Seng Wei Ti

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The narrative of Chinese real estate investors in some western jurisdictions reads like this: China has in recent decades, enjoyed burgeoning wealth creation across all strata in society. Chinese buyers are attracted to a ‘westernised’ education for their children, an agreeable and law-abiding civic society all whilst living in a clean and pleasant environment. Western real estate markets are seen as safe havens and bringing about portfolio diversification. This flood of Chinese wealth has impacted residential housing markets resulting in locals being outpriced. To combat unaffordability and housing shortages, governments have had no choice but to impose regulatory measures preventing …

Singapore In 2018: Between Uncharted Waters And Old Ghosts, George Wong, Jun Jie Woo

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

For the city state of Singapore, 2018 was a year of many firsts. It marked the midpoint of the 13th Parliament of Singapore within a manifestly post–Lee Kuan Yew era. The incumbent government of the People's Action Party (PAP) began the year with the pleasant surprise that economic growth in 2017 had reached 3.6 per cent. This exceeded the modest expectations of 1.5 to 3.5 per cent. But despite the positive start, 2018 was to be filled with headwinds for Singapore, both new and familiar. Top of the list was the revival of tensions with Malaysia, as well as a …

Inequality And The Social Compact In Singapore: Macro Trends Versus Lived Realities, Nathan Peng

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper provides an overview of Singapore’s inequality since 2000. Upon examining empirical indicators reflecting different aspects of inequality, there seems to be a divergence between largely stable macro-level trends and “felt” inequality experienced by citizens. While the empirical record reflects fairly stable income, wealth, consumption and intergenerational inequality, other data show how educational performance and sense of belonging are continuously tied to socio-economic position. Juxtaposing these insights against a qualitative analysis of Singapore’s meritocracy, the social and political ferment on the issue of inequality in 2018—with heightened discourses among both elites and the public—makes sense against a backdrop of …

Un Treaty On Mediation Signed In Singapore, Nadja Alexander, Shou Yu Chong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Singapore Convention on Mediation is a multilateral treaty which offers a legal framework facilitating the circulation of international mediated settlement agreements (iMSAs) across national borders. The Singapore Convention achieves this by elevating iMSAs to the status of a new type of legal instrument recognised in international law: neither a contract nor a consent arbitral award, iMSAs that fall within the scope of, and that satisfy the conditions within, the Singapore Convention enjoy a unique status. As outlined below, the new Convention establishes a system for the recognition and enforcement of commercial iMSAs. This report is a follow up to …

The Chinese (Taiwan) Yearbook Of International Law And Affairs: Contributing To The Grotian Moment In Asia, Ying-Jeou Ma, Chun-I Chen, Pasha L. Hsieh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The contribution examines critical developments of the Chinese (Taiwan) Yearbook of International Law and Affairs and its contribution to the ‘Grotian moment’ in Asia. The Yearbook is the first publication specialized in international law in Greater China, a Chinese-speaking region that includes Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. The founding of the Yearbook in 1981 was a response to the unique status of the Republic of China (ROC) rendered after its loss of representation in the United Nations under General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. Over the past 40 years, the Yearbook has become an intellectual depository of research …

Perfecting Singapore’S System Of Political Governance: Privileging Elites In The Quest For Good Governance, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This chapter argues that the office of the Elected President is best understood as an elite institution with eligibility restricted to a select group by a stringent set of criteria for hopefuls from the public and private sectors. The Singapore Constitution provides the Elected President with executive and legislative powers. Since independence in 1965, Singapore has sought to constitutionally engineer a political system that meets its unique needs and aspirations. Any theory of responsible government, undergirded by the separation of powers, will entail some measure of both conflict and cooperation, whether one or the other dominates. Given the particularistic neo-Confucian …

Eruption Of Protests Around The Globe In 2019 Could Be The New Norm, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Law Eugene Tan discussed the key lessons gleaned from protests around the globe in 2019 and what they say about governance today. He noted that while taking to the streets in protest is not new, this year’s unrest in at least 18 countries in different corners of the world is characterised by the breadth and intensity of the protests. Assoc Prof Tan opined that this year’s protests may well presage a new era of political and societal conflict and protests as a norm.