The 2015 Singapore Swing: Depoliticised Polity and the Kiasi/Kiasu Voter

Abstract

The results of the 2015 Singapore general election (GE) saw the People’s Action Party (PAP) reverse the decline in support of the past few GEs. Many writers cited as some of the key reasons for PAP’s strong showing: a flight to safety, the superior PAP campaign, the personal popularity of Lee Hsien Loong, the 50 years of Singapore's Independence (SG50) feel-good factor, changes in government policies since 2011, direct government subsidies to the pioneer generation, the passing of Lee Kuan Yew, and the mainstream media’s attack on the credibility of the opposition. In this paper, the author offers an additional explanation, that is, the underlying causes of the PAP’s electoral success were the policies laid down after Singapore’s independence and some key cultural traits of this island nation. The policy of depoliticisation led to the creation of a social contract under which political liberties were voluntarily sacrificed in return for economic growth and prosperity. The author further argues that the cultural traits of kiasi and kiasu tipped the balance in favour of the PAP when voters decided that the outlook for the Southeast Asian region was negative and Singapore needed the PAP to steer the country during this period of uncertainty.     

Resisting the Fall: The Single Dominant Party,Policies and Elections in Malaysia

Before Malaysia’s 2013 general election, one of the few remaining dominant coalitions in the world was aware it would struggle to retain power. A fledgling opposition coalition had inspired public confidence of its capacity to competently rule while public discontent with the ruling party was rife due to the ubiquity of patronage that had prevented the responsible implementation of policies. However, regime change did not occur. How does the protracted rule of Malaysia’s Barisan Nasional coalition, and the hegemonic party in it, the United Malays National Organisation, relate to debates over authoritarian durability, during a period when dominant parties struggle to sustain power? Malaysian elections have been free enough that the opposition has been able to obtain and retain control of state governments, so why has Barisan Nasional not lost power? This article reviews the 2013 election examining three issues: the significance of coalition politics; how policies have shaped voting trends; and the growing monetisation of politics. These perspectives provide insights into the institutional structure of coalitions and their conduct of politics, including clientelistic practices, forms of mobilisation and governance and the outcomes of policies introduced to address socio-economic inequities and drive economic growth.     

Casino Interests,Fujian Tongxianghui and Electoral Politics in Macao

The study of hometown associations has been traditionally focused on their social and cultural activities, but little research has been conducted on their political and electoral participation. The direct elections held for the Legislative Assembly in September 2013 in the Macao Special Administrative Region were characterised by the emergence of a clear triangular relationship between casino interests, Fujianese tongxianghui (a hometown association or an interest group with members sharing the same locality ties) and electoral politics. The prominent victory of an electoral group led by the Fujianese tongxianghui and represented under the umbrella of the United Citizens Association of Macao (UCAM) was unprecedented in Macao’s political participation and historical development. As a community leader of the Fujian community, Chan Meng Kam formed the UCAM to perform multiple functions: protecting his casino interests, articulating the interests of the Fujianese and the society vis-à-vis the casino state, acting as an intermediary between the Macao government and ordinary citizens, especially in the northern district which is the power base of the UCAM, and serving as a united front machinery for a unique sub-ethnic interest group to win the hearts and minds of the people of Macao.     

Public affairs: an American perspective

This paper explores the development and broadening scope of public affairs practice within the United States of America and charts the factors that have influenced its current development. To understand the scope of how public affairs has developed in the United States, it is necessary to examine the historical evolution of the function in the USA and the early 20th century influence of the US government on defining and regulating its definition of public relations and public affairs, which resulted in the still‐in‐effect Gillett Amendment. Since then, public affairs has expanded into the private as well as the public sectors as corporations and organisations recognise the need to gain public trust for their ventures. In the US today, public affairs practitioners perform duties that range from issues management to environmental scanning to legislative affairs. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

论死刑的立法限制--基于国际标准的分析

限制直至废除死刑的国际标准,已在世界范围内得到普遍认同和推广.限于我国实情,当前不能废除死刑.但应立足国际人权公约标准,严格限制我国死刑立法.死刑实体立法限制表现为科学削减死刑罪名,限缩死刑适用对象.死刑程序立法限制表现为完善面临死刑者的诉讼权利、死刑执行方式与死刑减刑制度,并增设死刑赦免制度.     

Parliament,foreign policy and civil society in South Africa

Discussions of Ethiopia and its present situation generally focus on the political debate in Addis Ababa, as experienced by visitors and residents. But an analysis from the point of view of the actors must perforce include those groups and positions that have been excluded from this public discourse. In Ethiopia, this exclusion concerns primarily the peasants, who constitute about 80% of the population. Other groups would include the poorest sections of the urban population and the ethnic peoples of the South, as well as Muslims, women and outcast craftsmen. This analysis opens the way for new insights and a wider perspective on the political dynamics of Ethiopia, and puts the views of the silent actors in the centre. It concludes with a call for reform of local administration and enforcement of existing constitutional provisions for democratic governance. This would require new alliances both domestically and abroad.     

Legislators,organizations and ties: Understanding interest group recognition in the European Parliament

What explains Members of European Parliament's (MEPs’) decisions to recognize some interest groups as relevant policy actors? Addressing this question is fundamental for understanding the role of political elites in shaping patterns of interest representation and interest groups’ role in legislative decision making. Building on theories of legislative behaviour and informational theories of legislative lobbying, we argue that MEPs give recognition to those organizations that are instrumental for achieving key political goals: re-election, career-progression and policy influence. The pursuit of these goals generates different patterns of MEP recognition of interest groups. We contribute to the literature in three ways. Conceptually, we propose interest group recognition as a key concept for understanding interactions and links between legislative and non-legislative actors. We illustrate the high conceptual relevance of recognition for interest groups research while noting its conspicuous neglect in the literature. We address this gap and place the concept central stage in understanding legislators’ attention to and behaviour towards interest organizations. Theoretically, we build on a classic framework explaining legislators’ behaviour and refine it through the lenses of informational theories of legislative lobbying. We argue and show that legislators recognize organizations that enhance electoral prospects in their home Member States, and that legislator–group ideological proximity and an interest group's prominence in a specific policy field affect MEPs’ decisions to recognize some organizations as relevant actors. Our argument acknowledges the importance of the broader context in which MEPs operate and pays attention to how they react to and interact with it. Empirically, we propose an original and innovative research design to identify and measure recognition with the help of social media data. Our measurement strategy constitutes a significant improvement insofar that it reduces the challenges of measurement bias usually associated with self-reported data generated through interviews, surveys, or the textual analysis of newspaper articles and official documents. Our research design allows using fine-grained measures of key dependent and explanatory variables and offers the very first analysis of MEP interest group recognition that holds across decision-making events and policy areas. We test our argument on a new dataset with 4 million observations recording the recognition of more than 7,000 organizations by 80 per cent of MEPs serving in EP8. We find that MEPs are more likely to recognize organizations from their Member State, particularly under flexible- and open-list electoral institutions. MEPs are also more likely to recognize organizations that share their ideological affinities and are prominent actors in policy areas legislators specialize in.     

行政执法与刑事司法衔接机制的立法问题研究——以公安机关的经济犯罪侦查为中心

行政执法与刑事司法因属于不同法域,由于部门保护主义与行政执法遮蔽而使得以罚代刑成为常态。建立的衔接机制存在问题导致行政执法机关移送案件的数量呈下降趋势。有关此问题的立法应当在报案线索与案件移送、受理与处理以及证据的转化等方面作出修改,使“脱节”的环节得到衔接。     

从比较法的视角论动物福利法的立法模式

法律调整的是人与人之间关系。人与动物之间的关系,不是主体与主体之间的关系,而是主体与客体之间的关系。动物福利法的立法目的应是维护人类尊重生命、爱护生命的善良道德情操。在动物福利法的制定成为我国的必然的历史条件下,只有明确界定动物的法律地位,才能制定出一部符合时代特色和民族精神的动物福利法。     

黑社会性质组织犯罪认定若干问题浅析

“打黑除恶”专项斗争开展以来,各级执法部门惩治了一批涉黑案件,也有部分案件因取证、举证、认证各环节的认识差异导致久拖不决,或者轻罪重判、重罪轻罚,笔者对甘肃省境内的涉黑案件进行了跟踪调研,本文试从实践执法的角度对侦查机关如何合理取证、检法两家如何认证的问题作以粗浅探讨。