Globalization in Singapore: Economic Liberalization and Cultural Protectionism
According to Babylon and Beyond, some of the greatest tasks placed upon the state is the revolutionary change in relations, in particular, state relation to external bodies. “ the growing power of non-state forces, the changing nature of economic governance, the reorganization of authority and power relations in world politics, the rise of global multilateral institutions and the de-territorialization of political economies.” (Wall 2005) Singapore is in fact, a complete model contradiction to this theory. Singapore, as a modern global city-state, despite its liberalised trade barriers is very autonomous in its style of governance. Singapore has frequently rejected the wishes and impositions of external political bodies and non-governmental organisations and in turn retained much of their politcal Confucian culture and regulations. By this I mean Singapore presents a widely represented democracy, though much of the power is centralized. In wave of multiple attacks from civil rights groups and other such non-governmental insitutions, Singapore has maintained policies of death-penalties, mandatory military and strict morale governance despite it being a trademark of an economically globalized city. This in turn is a paradox with its liberal economic rules and strict cultural regulations, contradicting many of the Malthusian theorists which insist nationalism and sovereignty dismantlement accompanies economic globalisation. According to Lechner & Boli, in The Globalization Reader, “Globalization redresses the balance of power in two ways, the most obvious is that it puts limits on governmental control.” They state that this is advantageous for commerce, as trade and businesses are able to move abroad or across boundaries with relatively little governmental reaction or intervention. Singapore breaks this mould. The paradox can be brought as evidence against my basic contention about the hollowness of state authority at the end of the century is that it is a western, if
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