Tackling Singapore’s terrorism threat: Bringing the people back in


Academic Views

Eugene K B Tan, Associate Professor of Law at the Yong Pung How School of Law, Singapore Management University, considers Singapore’s response to the threat of terrorism following 9/11. This essay is based on an article published in the journal, Law and Policy (2009). Also in our 9-11 anniversary series:Muslim extremism after two decades of the ‘Global […]

2021-09-10

Let us have data for breakfast together


Academic Views

Shannon Ang, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Nanyang Technological University, is hungry for more data — here he suggests how we can better harness it for Singapore’s collective good. How likely is it that children of poor parents in Singapore are also poor when they grow up? Is it true that companies who hire primarily […]

2020-08-29

The Middle East: A useful foil for thinking about Singapore’s past and present


Academic Views

Koh Choon Hwee, Visiting Assistant Professor at NUS LKYSPP and a historian of the Ottoman Empire, highlights Singapore’s forgotten connections to the Middle East and shows how polarised narratives and misrepresentations about this region—some of which are deeply Islamophobic—are already present in Singapore, posing a threat to social justice and harmony. As recent explosions in […]

2020-08-25

A conversation with Debbie Fordyce, TWC2 President


Academic Views, Coronavirus

Philip Holden, formerly Professor at the National University of Singapore, interviewed Debbie Fordyce—President of NGO Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2)—to discuss the work of TWC2 and structural issues facing migrant workers. Philip: It’s a pleasure to interview Debbie Fordyce, president of TWC2. Some academics work directly on issues of migrant labour; many do not, and […]

2020-05-14

Who are we trading off? Considerations for Singapore’s post-pandemic social compact


Academic Views, Coronavirus

Chong Ja Ian, Harvard-Yenching Institute Visiting Scholar 2019-2020, argues that the pandemic reveals the need for Singapore to reconsider how it makes decisions about national directions and policy trade-offs. (Banner photo credit: Sumita Thiagarajan) Singapore’s state-affiliated mainstream media has lately been publishing pieces relating to inequality. Undoubtedly, this has to do with the disproportionate economic […]

2020-04-23

COVID-19’s implications for Singapore’s future economy


Academic Views, Coronavirus

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 […]

2020-04-13

Protecting the precarious: COVID-19 and migrant workers


Academic Views, Coronavirus

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 […]

2020-04-08