Ordinary Singapore: The Decline of Singapore Exceptionalism

For decades Singapore’s ruling elite has sought to legitimate its rule by claiming to be a talented and competent elite that has made Singapore an exception among its neighbours – an exemplar of success and progress in a sea of mediocrity. In this article it is contended that this basis of legitimation has been irreversibly damaged. In essence, it is suggested that the governing People’s Action Party has lost control of the national narrative, and its achievements are increasingly regarded as being “ordinary” by the electorate. The mystique of exceptionalism, which was the basis on which the government was widely presumed to be above the need for close scrutiny and accountability, has collapsed. This collapse has substantially levelled the political playing field, at least in terms of expectations and assumptions. The government can and probably will continue to win elections and rule through its control of the instruments of institutional power, but the genie of scepticism and accountability has been released from its bottle, and it is hard to see how it can be put back in. This fundamentally changes the condition of Singapore politics: the narrative of exceptionalism is dead and the Singapore elite finds itself struggling to cope in a new and critical political environment.     

Manipulating electoral laws in Singapore

The literature on electoral authoritarianism has drawn attention to the use of democratic electoral institutions for undemocratic gains. This paper adds to this body of work by showing how a sophisticated hegemonic party in Singapore manipulated its majoritarian electoral system to “manufacture” its legislative supermajority. By measuring the psychological and mechanical effects of the altered electoral system in Singapore, it shows how changes in the rules of the game boosted the incumbent's legislative dominance despite its declining vote shares in the late 1980s. It also offers new evidence to show how electoral manipulation create an uneven playing field with institutional constraints that penalize smaller parties and benefit the ruling, larger party.     

JUST: a measure of jury system trustworthiness

ABSTRACT

Three studies developed and tested a new measure of the perceived trustworthiness of the jury system, the 23-item Jury System Trustworthiness (JUST) scale, and assessed the scale’s convergent and discriminant validity. Study 1 assessed the scale’s factor structure and relation to other relevant constructs. In Studies 2 and 3, the JUST scale was administered to participants in two separate mock juror studies. The results of all three studies supported the hypothesized factor structure of the measure but showed that a simplified, 7-item measure was also effective. Overall, participants’ perceptions of juries were moderately positive, and the JUST scale was related to attitudes toward the police, authoritarianism, belief in a just world, juror bias, preference for a jury (vs. a bench) trial, and intention to respond to a jury summons. It also explained a unique portion of the variance in jury-specific beliefs and behavioral intentions, such as preference for a jury trial and response to a summons, beyond that accounted for by other legal attitudes. The JUST scale was not related to verdict decisions in either mock trial after controlling for authoritarianism. Several individual differences (e.g. age, race/ethnicity) were also related to attitudes toward the jury system.     

Competitive partners in development financing: China and Japan expanding overseas infrastructure investment

Abstract

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, with the world in search for new economic engines, China and Japan have explicitly given their answer through their expansion of overseas infrastructure investments. This study focuses on the flagship sector of high-speed railways (HSR) and examines what kinds of development financing China and Japan have adopted in making these investments. It asks the following questions: What similarities are there in the Chinese and Japanese approaches to investments in overseas infrastructure, and how do they differ from traditional Western development financing? Also, in what ways have China and Japan changed their approaches to overseas infrastructure projects during this process? It argues that in the process of expanding overseas infrastructure investments and competing for infrastructure projects, China and Japan have become ‘competitive partners’ in challenging the traditional norms of development financing represented by the Washington Consensus and the Development Assistance Committee (DAC). To be more specific, China and Japan have adopted each other’s practices of tied commercial financing, heavy government involvement, focusing on physical infrastructure and industrialization, and showing respect for host-country forms of governance. In particular, by joining China in the new game of exporting infrastructure and through its own ‘quality infrastructure investment’ initiative, Japan has broken out of the constraints of DAC norms as an aid donor and endorsed some fundamental Chinese approaches to development and development cooperation, which in their turn were inspired by earlier Japanese practices.     

以顾客为中心培育国有企业核心竞争能力的思考

核心竞争能力是支撑企业生存和发展的关键。随着入世步伐的加快 ,国有企业要在更加全面、激烈的市场竞争中获得持续的发展 ,就必须尽快有效地建立自己的核心竞争力。根据我国企业所处的内外部条件 ,以顾客为中心是培育国有企业核心竞争能力的必然选择。     

企业核心竞争力及其培育

核心竞争力是近几年流行的管理新理念 ,本文在论述企业核心竞争力基本内涵及其特点的基础上 ,论证了企业建立核心竞争力的必然性 ,并针对我国企业界创建核心竞争力意识缺乏和企业核心竞争力不强的现状 ,提出了企业经营战略、组织设计与管理、制度安排与企业结构等方面着手 ,并通过具体方法 ,建立和培育我国企业核心竞争力。     

油田企业党组织政治优势转化的实践与探索

油田企业坚持加强基层党组织建设,坚持发挥企业党组织的政治核心作用,坚持党管干部、党管人才的原则,充分发挥党支部的战斗堡垒作用,坚持融入中心做工作进入管理抓党建,这是油田企业实现政治优势转化的现实基础。随着对决策科学性的要求不断提高、党建思想文化工作的艰巨性增强等挑战,就需要在企业价值理念建设、企业战略规划及实施、企业党建工作创新、企业规章制度及行为规范和企业先进典型及形象塑造等方面入手,促进政治优势转化为竞争优势。     

The limits of autocracy promotion: The case of Russia in the ‘near abroad’

In recent years, observers have raised concerns about threats to democracy posed by external support for authoritarianism coming from regional powers such as Russia, China and Venezuela. This article assesses the efficacy of autocracy promotion through a close examination of Russian efforts to shape regime outcomes in the former Soviet Union. It finds that while Russian actions have periodically promoted instability and secessionist conflict, there is little evidence that such intervention has made post‐Soviet countries less democratic than they would have been otherwise. First, the Russian government has been inconsistent in its support for autocracy – supporting opposition and greater pluralism in countries where anti‐Russian governments are in power, and incumbent autocrats in cases where pro‐Russian politicians dominate. At the same time, the Russian government's narrow concentration on its own economic and geopolitical interests has significantly limited the country's influence, fostering a strong counter‐reaction in countries with strong anti‐Russian national identities. Finally, Russia's impact on democracy in the region has been restricted by the fact that post‐Soviet countries already have weak democratic prerequisites. This analysis suggests that, despite increasingly aggressive foreign policies by autocratic regional powers, autocracy promotion does not present a particularly serious threat to democracy in the world today.     

The limits of authoritarian solidarity: The Gulf monarchies and preserving authoritarian rule during the Arab Spring

Scholars have recently begun to examine how authoritarian rulers cooperate with each other in order to fend off popular challenges to their power. During the Arab Spring the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) supported fellow authoritarian regimes in some cases while backing opposition movements in others. Existing theoretical approaches fail to explain this variation. Advancing the study on authoritarian cooperation, this article develops a theoretical approach that sets out to explain how authoritarian regimes reach their decisions. Drawing on poliheuristic foreign policy analysis, it argues that perceptions of similarity serve as a filter for estimating threats to regime survival at home. If regimes perceive the situation in other countries as similar to their own, supporting other authoritarian regimes becomes the only acceptable strategy. In contrast, if perceptions of similarity are low, regimes also consider other options and evaluate their implications beyond the domestic political arena. Applying this framework to the example of the GCC states during the Arab Spring, the analysis reveals covariation between perceptions of similarity and threat among GCC regimes, on the one hand, and their strategies, on the other.     

东北老工业基地优势产业发展对策研究——以哈尔滨市为例

实现东北地区老工业基地全面振兴是一项长期艰巨的历史任务。优势产业的发展对东北地区经济发展战略的实施至关重要,可为经济发展提供强大支撑及牵动作用。文章通过对哈尔滨市优势产业发展现状、面临的主要问题以及发展机遇分析,提出了加快优势产业发展的对策建议。