Chong Ja Ian, Harvard-Yenching Institute Visiting Scholar 2019-2020, considers the external political environment that Singapore will face in light of the pandemic. As Singapore grapples with increasing COVID-19 infections and their consequences, a post-pandemic world awaits. This environment will differ from the one we all left behind in 2019 and the shifts will not only be economic. […]
Howard Lee, PhD candidate at Murdoch University, argues that there is a need for the Singapore government to rethink its rules-based approach in order to suppress community spread of COVID-19. It is still early days yet in tackling COVID-19, but no less opportune a time to review the role of authoritarian governance in combating the […]
Donald Low, Professor of Practice in Public Policy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, argues that it would not be fair to blame the Singapore government for missteps that are apparent only in hindsight. The crisis in foreign worker dormitories, on the other hand, was predicted. The government’s failure to act quickly […]
Linda Lim, Professor Emerita at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, considers future directions for Singapore’s economy, including the need to reconsider existing approaches and reorient to a likely increasingly deglobalized world. My recent commentary in the Straits Times discussed how the world and national economies are likely to change as […]
Teo You Yenn is Associate Professor, Provost’s Chair, and Head of Sociology at Nanyang Technological University. This week marks the beginning of the shutdown of schools and childcare centres in Singapore. All over the island, in households with children, adults are no doubt struggling to maintain some semblance of normalcy in abnormal times. Fixed timetables; […]
Laavanya Kathiravelu, assistant professor at NTU, has been researching the lives of low-wage migrant workers for more than a decade and sits on the board of HOME (Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics). Here she examines how migrants’ needs during the COVID-19 pandemic have not been adequately addressed. Across the world, the coronavirus outbreak has made […]
Cherian George, professor of media studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, gave the keynote speech at The Substation’s “Space, Spaces and Spacing 2020” Conference on 21 March 2020. The Substation, an independent arts centre, turns 30 this year. George’s keynote launched his book, Air-Conditioned Nation Revisited, an anthology that marks 30 years of his writing […]
Chong Ja Ian, Harvard-Yenching Institute Visiting Scholar 2019-2020, discusses the risks—from both public health and other perspectives—of holding a General Election when COVID-19 remains at large. Without a doubt, Singapore is in an extraordinary situation. It faces an ongoing pandemic, as does much of the world. Beyond disease control, there will be the challenges of responding […]
Teo You Yenn, Associate Professor and Provost’s Chair in Sociology, Nanyang Technological University, and Ng Kok Hoe, Senior Research Fellow and Head, Case Study Unit, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, consider how poverty and inequality influence the impact of the coronavirus crisis, and suggest that structural changes are necessary as well as immediate […]
Chong Ja Ian, Harvard-Yenching Institute Visiting Scholar 2019-2020, discusses claims that authoritarian political systems are better able to handle the COVID-19 crisis than are more open ones. Currently making mainstream and social media rounds are claims that authoritarian systems or places with supposed “Confucian values” are better than more open political systems at handling public […]
