Foreign investment,industrial restructuring and dependent development in Singapore

Singapore's industrial development and restructuring are very much dependent on foreign investment. Despite the apparent benefits of foreign investment and Singapore's success in export-oriented manufacturing, there are worrisome aspects arising from the large and growing dependency on such investment in the manufacturing sector as Singapore moves toward a developed country status. This article explores some of the consequences of such dependency. In terms of industrial pattern, foreign investment has created and maintained a dualistic industrial structure in manufacturing. Foreign firms and government industrial policies have suppressed and marginalized local entrepreneurship. Export-oriented industrialization has opened the employment doors for women in manufacturing. However, women are predominantly found in low pay, dead end jobs in the assembly line of Singapore's new industrial order. With the implementation of a new wave of industrial restructuring strategies, new capital and technological intensive foreign investments are welcomed and solicited. However, the local labour supply is unable to meet the increased demands. Foreign labour has been called in to fill the gaps. This inevitably distorts labour market outcomes and heightens the income inequality index.     

AFGHANISTAN AS A CULTURAL CROSSROADS: LESSONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF ELLA MAILLART,ANNEMARIE SCHWARZENBACH AND NANCY HATCH DUPREE

Much has been written about Afghanistan, a complex cultural space that different people see in different ways. But not all of their views are of equal value. Stereotypes do no-one any favours. Ella Maillart and Annemarie Schwatzenbach were two Swiss women writers who set off for Afghanistan in June 1939. Ella was a traveller who wrote, Annemarie a writer who travelled, but their books give a sense of the realities of Afghanistan, Nancy Dupree first visited more than twenty years later than the two Swiss, but stayed involved for decades in a variety of different ways. She accepted and coped with the fact that the country was changing and would change still further.     

Reflections on Chomsky and Revisionist Views of Pre-War Japan

Abstract

Noam Chomsky's article on Japan will evoke, as is customary with his writings, angry reaction from some quarters and silent patronizing disdain from others—namely, the specialists. Some will accuse him of ignoring the Chinese case; others, of failing to explain clearly what the pacifist alternative was. Yet, it would be tragic if the scholars in our field ignored the profoundly moral and complex interpretive problems raised by this essay about the responsibility for war. With the perspective of time, and of failure, we have gradually reached more rational interpretations of the origins of the First World War, and of the Cold War. It is obviously time we did the same for the Second World War. In this connection, I wish to add comments both on Japan and on U.S. foreign policy, which, while differing in emphasis from Professor Chomsky's article, are not meant as criticisms of it.     

Source material on Philippine revolutionary movements

Abstract

For the American Asian scholar, the research and writing of Philippine history is still in its virginal stages. Both in the United States and in the Philippines itself the study of that history has progressed little deeper than the officially-expressed record, in which the viewpoint of dominant interests has prevailed. Neglected in particular have been the revolutionary forces and movements that have played such a central part in the Philippines for the past century.     

Comparative anti-corruption policy: the american,soviet and russian cases

In light of significant conceptual and methodological difficulties that face comparative corruption research, we propose to treat comparative anti-corruption policy as worthy of study in its own right. By using measures of enforcement activity as evidence of anti-corruption, rather than flawed proxy measures of corruption, we endeavor to surmount some of obstacles to comparing radically different political systems. We compare anti-corruption activity in the US and the USSR and elaborate three theoretical perspectives-emphasizing political, institutional, and symbolic factors--and show how each might improve our understanding of anti-corruption policy in the two nations. By applying these three frameworks to the Russian republic, we assess anti-corruption policy in an unsettled, emerging political system and suggest that the dynamics that underlie Russia's anti-corruption policy will more closely resemble US policy than was the case in the USSR.     

The Campaign Disconnect: Media Coverage of the 2000 South Carolina Presidential Primary

Campaigns are an interactive process in which candidates, outside groups, the media, and voters communicate with each other to create an information environment that allows the various participants to construct meaning and form an understanding of the candidates and the campaign. Presidential primaries add a layer of complexity to this process as candidates and the press deal with both local and national audiences. In this article, we analyze the campaign communications in the 2000 Republican presidential primary in South Carolina—including candidate ads, mailings, and phone calls; local and national newspaper coverage; and network television coverage. We find that there was a disconnect as news media often focused on events and issues that diverged from the messages of the candidates' campaigns. In addition, we find substantial differences between local and national media coverage of the primary resulting from their distinct audiences and the reporters' own understanding of the local context that created significantly different information environments for voters in the state and those out of the state. We consider the implications of these findings for how voters and journalists understand the candidates as well as the challenges presidential candidates face in simultaneously campaigning locally and nationally.