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Consumption in Asia
The essays in this collection challenge conventional ideas about consumption and consumerism: they consider if the inundation of Western consumer goods have created identity confusions among the affluent in Asia, and if the expansion of consumer culture really does threaten the stability of politically anti-liberal states in Asia. This is the first book to analyse in detial consumerism in the region, and will be valuable reading for students and researchers in Asian studies, economics, politics and cultural studies.
Liberalism Disavowed
In Liberalism Disavowed, Chua Beng Huat examines the rejection of Western-style liberalism in Singapore and the way the People's Action Party has forged an independent non-Western ideology. This book explains the evolution of this communitarian ideology, with focus on three areas: public housing, multiracialism and state capitalism, each of which poses different challenges to liberal approaches. With the passing of the first Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew and the end of the Cold War, the party is facing greater challenges from an educated populace that demands greater voice. This has led to liberalization of the cultural sphere, greater responsiveness and shifts in political rhetoric, but all without disrupting the continuing hegemony of the PAP in government.
Political Legitimacy and Housing
Singapore's successful public housing programme is a source of political legitimacy for the ruling People's Action Party. Beng-Huat Chua accounts for the success of public housing in Singapore and draws out lessons for other nations. Housing in Singapore, he explains in this incisive analysis, is seen neither as a consumer good (as in the US) nor as a social right (as in the social democracies of Europe). The author goes on to look at the ways in which Singapore's planners have dealt with the problems of creating communities in a modern urban environment. He concludes that the success of the public housing programme has done much for Singapore.
Structure, Audience and Soft Power in East Asian Pop Culture
East Asian pop culture can be seen as an integrated cultural economy emerging from the rise of Japanese and Korean pop culture as an influential force in the distribution and reception networks of Chinese language pop culture embedded in the ethnic Chinese diaspora. Taking Singapore as a locus of pan-Asian Chineseness, Chua Beng Huat provides detailed analysis of the fragmented reception process of transcultural audiences and the processes of audiences’ formation and exercise of consumer power and engagement with national politics. In an era where exercise of military power is increasingly restrained, pop culture has become an important component of soft power diplomacy and transcultural c...
Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore
The economic success of Singapore has established the country as a model for other nations. Yet until now the ideas behind this accomplishment have not been critically examined. Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore fills this gap. The book outlines the policies the ruling party has adopted over the past three decades. It charts the government's move away from Western concepts towards the evolution of 'Asian democracy'. The author analyses this anti-liberal democracy and the government's motives for repackaging cultural heritage into a national ideology of Asian communitarianism. This book avoids the polarization that has tended to characterise texts on Asian governments. It neither concentrates on a history of authoritarian repression nor unequivocally praises the regime but critically examines its political success. As such it provides a new and balanced account to the student of Singapore politics.
East Asian Pop Culture
The contributors analyse the subject of Asian pop culture arranged under three headings: 'Television Industry in East Asia', 'Transnational-Crosscultural Receptions of TV Dramas' and 'Nationalistic reactions'.
Life Is Not Complete Without Shopping
One of the cliches that Singaporeans hold most dear is that their lives are a pursuit of the five c's: cash, cars, condominiums, credit cards, and club memberships. Over the last thirty years, Singaporeans have become accustomed to ever-increasing levels of consumption. Singapore's PAP government has 'delivered the goods', and this is recognized as a prime reason for its legitimacy. But what is the culture of this consumption? What does shopping say about Singapore society?
Elections as Popular Culture in Asia
Conventional political science depicts legitimate elections as rational affairs in which informed voters select candidates for office according to how their coherently presented aims, ideologies and policies appeal to the self-interest of the electorate. In reality elections, whether in first world democracies, or in the various governmental systems present in Asia, can more realistically be seen as cultural events in which candidates’ campaigns are shaped, consciously or unconsciously, to appeal to the cultural understanding and practices of the electorate. The election campaign period is one in which the masses are mobilized to participate in a range of cultural activities, from flying t...
Public Space
This collection of essays addresses the important issue of public space in terms of its design, use and management and value as a social, economic and cultural resource, with special reference to Singapore. Multi-disciplinary in perspective, it represents the first concerted attempt by academics and practitioners involved in the physical design and planning of Singapore to closely analyse a much neglected aspect of the Singapore's rapid industrialisation and provide suggestions for the country's future development. The book should interest ecologists, sociologists, botanists, geographers, urban planners, engineers, architects and other building professionals as well as the general public.
Communitarian Politics in Asia
With the collapse of European socialism in the late 1980s, ascendancy of the liberal capitalist democracy and individual self-interest became prevalent in the West. In contrast, many polities in Asia, both by tradition and choice, have explicitly adopted communitarianism as a national ideology, for example Confucianism in Korea, Hong Kong and Japan, Islam in Malaysia and the Panca Sila in Indonesia. Here, communitarianism arguably informs public policies and political practices and the concept of the 'social' in terms of responsibilities and collective welfare is preserved. Communitarian Politics in Asia examines instances in southeast and east Asian countries where communitarianism is both articulated as national ideology and embedded as the ethos of social life and assesses the relative merits of a set of practices in their respective local political context. The book not only augments existing international debate on liberalism and communitarianism but also provides empirical examples of communitarian political practices that will substantiate and/or refute conceptual points, such as redistributive justice and costs to individuals, in this ongoing debate.
