Singapore in the Global System: Relationship, Structure and ChangeThis book tracks the phases of Singapore’s economic and political development, arguing that its success was always dependent upon the territories links with the surrounding region and the wider global system, and suggests that managing these links today will be the key to the country’s future. Singapore has followed a distinctive historical development trajectory. It was one of a number of cities which provided bases for the expansion of the British empire in the East. But the Pacific War provided local elites with their chance to secure independence. In Singapore the elite disciplined and mobilized their population and built successfully on their colonial inheritance. Today, the city-state prospers in the context of its regional and global networks, and sustaining and nurturing these are the keys to its future. But there are clouds on the elite’s horizons; domestically, the population is restive with inequality, migration and surplus-repression causing concern; and internationally, the strategy of constructing a business-hub economy is being widely copied and both Hong Kong and Shanghai are significant competitors. This book discusses these issues and argues that although success is likely to characterize Singapore’s future, the elite will have to address these significant domestic and international problems. |
From inside the book
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... remade; these changes have enfolded the island of Singapore; they have shaped the lives of the various denizens of that island; and they have made and remade the polities whose territories have embraced the island. After the British ...
... remade East Asia: the incomers were buoyed by the vigour of their commercial capitalist system; they manoeuvred against each other and against local country powers; spheres of influence were carved out of the patterns of relationships ...
... the archipelago and maintained links with the Indian sub-continent and China. It was a coherent region.35 The Europeans entered seeking trade. Their activities remade the region as a series of discrete colonial spheres.
Relationship, Structure and Change Peter Preston. remade the region as a series of discrete colonial spheres of influence. Indigenous patterns of livelihood were overlaid with newer activities serving the demands of the wider system ...
... remade; extant civilizations gave way to colonial empires, which thereafter dissolved away leaving the contemporary pattern of nation-states. The history reveals a multiplicity of routes to the modern world; a series of discrete ...
Contents
Impact and reply 40 | |
General crisis 58 | |
New trajectories 79 | |
Locating Singapore 100 | |
Trading cities 160 | |
Unfolding trajectories 197 | |
Notes 216 | |
Bibliography 263 | |
Index 275 | |
Other editions - View all
Singapore in the Global System: Relationship, Structure and Change Peter Preston Limited preview - 2007 |
Singapore in the Global System: Relationship, Structure and Change Peter Wallace Preston No preview available - 2007 |