Challenging the developmental state: Nature conservation in Singapore

Abstract

Nature conservation efforts are often reactive to encroaching development plans and systematic conservation planning that is integral with development is not only uncommon, but is often fraught with difficulties even where it is actually attempted. Such obstacles to conservation are especially apparent in developmental states where state legitimacy is largely derived from the state's ability to develop the country. Among other things, developmental states place a premium on physical and economic development. This paper critiques, through the standpoint of nature conservation, the inadequate conceptualisation of 'development' in the developmental state thesis. Specifically, this paper argues that the seemingly value-free (but ultimately economically based) underpinnings of development goals pushed by the developmental state needs to be tempered with a broader concern for the ethics of development. To that end, I draw on two case studies of nature conservation tussles in Singapore to show how alternative extra-economic visions of development have been articulated, notwithstanding the developmental state's monopoly on the discourse (and practice) of progress and development. The case studies, set in the heady economic growth of the early 1990s, will critique two related aspects of the developmental state: its 'amoral' economistic conception of development and its use of growth and materialism as legitimacy.Singapore is a small city-state with 660 sq km of land, which is about the size of the City of H. Neo

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“…Though energetic, Hong Kong's public sphere is absorbed by political controversies over its relationship with China, and environmental campaigns struggle for public attention. Singapore's political culture is more quiescent but no less indifferent to environmental concerns, which have long been subordinated to the technocratic demands of its developmental state (Neo 2007;Han 2017). Partly owing to the lack of openness in the decision making by governments and other large institutions in both polities, in terms of transparent processes and inclusive participation, the publics are not in the habit of listening when companies make sustainability disclosures.…”

Value chain upgrading: Evidence from the Singaporean aquaculture industry

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“…Underlying this process was the normative force captured by Campbell and Marshall's [47]: p. 163 postulation that "the legitimization of planning has… rested on the proposition that the state's intervention in land and property development is necessary to safeguard public interest". Neo [48] problematizes the definition of "public interest". For him, "'public' or 'collective' interest compels the minority to yield to the will of the majority in land-use development matters and the will of the majority is frequently driven by economic profit and ''efficiency" [48]: p. 189.…”

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