Citizen Participation and Policy Making in Singapore: Conditions and Predicaments

Leong, Ho Khai

doi:10.1525/as.2000.40.3.01p0079e

Cited by 14 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…While MRT station names are supposed to reflect the geography of the area they serve, an analysis of the languages behind the station names also reveals that they not only indicate Singapore’s linguistic diversity, but more crucially, project the state’s approaches to language policies and governance onto the urban landscape. MRT station names can be argued to represent a ‘theory of the world’ (Azaryahu, 1992: 351) that is aligned with Singapore’s language policies and more generally, her top-down approach to policymaking (Ho, 2000).…”

Section: A Critical Toponymic Perspective On Singaporean Mrt Namesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Naming public transport and historicising experiences: Critical toponymies and everyday multilingualism in Singapore’s mass rapid transit system

Lim¹,

Cacciafoco

2022

Urban Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Public transport plays an integral role in urban centres by promoting economic development, mitigating environmental degradation and fostering social cohesion. It also enables users to experience the socio-cultural and linguistic diversity of a locality. Public transport is important to the cosmopolitan city-state of Singapore: its public transport system, which is ranked among the best in the world, is used by over 7.54 million passengers daily. Nevertheless, not much is known about how the linguistic landscapes, soundscapes and place names are tied to public transport use and encounters. This study analyses Singapore’s Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) station names, effectively toponyms (place names) in their own right. Specifically, it focuses on the East West and North South Lines, two of Singapore’s oldest MRT lines. Besides tracing the (initially) tumultuous history of the MRT system, the paper studies the languages used in the MRT stations of both lines. It argues that place names, taken together with the sights and sounds of the MRT, are part of everyday multilingualism, or the linguistic dynamism when different linguistic groups occupy public spaces. This paper also explores some of the linguistic, socio-political and policy making considerations behind the MRT stations through a critical toponymic perspective. From the viewpoint of the special issue’s interests, the paper contributes to understanding the historicisation of Singapore’s rail system and its contesting political and economic choices when developing the MRT.

show abstract

Section: A Critical Toponymic Perspective On Singaporean Mrt Namesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Naming public transport and historicising experiences: Critical toponymies and everyday multilingualism in Singapore’s mass rapid transit system

Lim¹,

Cacciafoco

2022

Urban Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Parallel to these developments, the nonstate-led coalition gradually grew with the addition of other civil society organizations, citizen groups, public intellectuals, and nongovernment/nonaffiliated Nominated Members of Parliament. Academics from this coalition continued to evaluate the dominant group's approach to participation, critiquing the latter's privileging of “elite” individuals and rational, knowledgeable, and consensus-seeking “super-citizens,” over the working and middle classes (Ho 2000; Soh & Yuen 2006). Beyond state-led public consultation processes for the Concept Plan and Master Plan, civil society actors were also demanding greater citizen involvement in other plans that had been unilaterally approved by the URA.…”

Section: The Planning and Participatory Practices Of The Ura And Coun...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The PAP government then began public-sector reforms toward a more consultative style of governance, introducing participatory processes in urban planning as part of these reforms (Cho & Križnik 2017; Soh & Yuen 2006; Yuen 2009). At the same time, some scholars have observed that the opening of spaces for citizen involvement has often taken place within specific conditions that have allowed the PAP to retain control of the overall political narrative (Haque 2004; Ho 2000; Shatkin 2014).…”

Section: Introduction: the Social Construction Of “Participation”mentioning

confidence: 99%

Producing and Contesting Meanings of Participation in Planning: The Case of Singapore (1985–2020)

Lim

Paidakaki

Verschure

et al. 2022

Urban Affairs Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper examines how the concept of participation in planning has been constructed by state and nonstate actors in the politico-institutional context of Singapore. Our objective is to gain a deeper understanding of the political dynamics shaping ideas about participation, and the impact of these contested constructions on the perpetuation of the ruling party's political control. Drawing on strategic-relational institutionalist planning and cultural political economy theories, we analyze 312 documents including government and civil society periodicals, parliamentary debates, and academic publications, focusing on the planning and participatory practices of Singapore's national planning agency from the mid-1980s to 2020. The findings reveal that state-led coalitions continuously reframed participation as an instrument of economic growth, nation-building, and activism-management, while nonstate-led coalitions emerged to transform state-civil society relations through promoting and materializing alternative meanings of participation. These dynamics demonstrate the potentialities and limitations of democratizing urban planning and governance in Singapore's hybrid regime.

show abstract

“…In The Straits Times, one can fi nd quite frank criticisms, and there are other opportunities for policy input (see Leong, 2000). While Mutalib (2000) strongly (and rightly) suggests that Singapore should move toward more liberal democracy, he reports on the willingness of the government in l998 to revise its economic policies, taking unusual steps to swing public opinion in favor of radical reform.…”

Section: Conclusion: the Question Of Democracymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Evolution of Political Power in Political Development

Werlin

2008

Journal of Developing Societies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To understand political science, we must understand political power. Our misunderstanding of political power is especially problematic for those concerned with comparative politics. Political Elasticity (PE) theory, including the concepts of 'quality of power' and 'political software', is used to examine and clarify such dichotomies as: (i) transitive and intransitive power; (ii) hard and soft forms of power; and (iii) power as a resource and power as a relationship. What PE theory attempts to prove (by presenting many examples and using comparative case studies) is that political power tends to be more elastic (with rubber band and balloon characteristics) in more developed countries than in less developed countries. As the conclusion, the relationship of democracy to the evolution of political power is examined, including questions having to do with corruption, authoritarian rule and bureaucratization. The PE theory is also defended against criticisms that it is 'untestable' and 'tautological'.

show abstract

Citizen Participation and Policy Making in Singapore: Conditions and Predicaments

Cited by 14 publications

References 0 publications

Naming public transport and historicising experiences: Critical toponymies and everyday multilingualism in Singapore’s mass rapid transit system

Naming public transport and historicising experiences: Critical toponymies and everyday multilingualism in Singapore’s mass rapid transit system

Producing and Contesting Meanings of Participation in Planning: The Case of Singapore (1985–2020)

The Evolution of Political Power in Political Development

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About