Singapore as a ‘Global City’: Governance in a Challenging International Environment

Ian Patrick Austin ()
Additional contact information
Ian Patrick Austin: Edith Cowan University

Chapter Chapter 9 in A New Paradigm for International Business, 2015, pp 171-192 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Singapore’s success as a ‘global city’ focused on the free trade of goods, services and human capital into, and out of, the island nation is barely questioned by international policy and business practitioners today. The reason for this is clear; Singapore continued to attract high-quality global enterprises based on the provision of high-quality governance, human capital, communication and technology, transportation, logistical and other key infrastructure. None of this came about by accident, being the result of decade-long planning centred on turning Singapore into a truly ‘global city’ attracting the best ‘talent’ (corporate and individual) from within strategic sectors (wealth management, biotechnology, advanced manufactures, research-focused tertiary education). However, recent economic events, most notably the global financial crisis (GFC), have revealed structural cracks in this ‘global city’ planning that has seen the long-ruling (1959–current) People’s Action Party (PAP) suffer two of its worst election results (2011 general election and 2013 by-election). Various political and policy opponents to the ruling elite have successfully highlighted that the ‘global city’ model has come at the cost of growing inequality and a real sense of displacement amongst citizens. In examining Singapore, nominally one of the truly great benefactors of globalisation, the author highlights that key factors in this processes, including free trade and human mobility, must always be constantly secured through the ascent of the polity if it is to be sustainable.

Keywords: Singapore; Globalisation; Governance; Banking and finance; Multinational enterprises; Politics; Equality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:prbchp:978-981-287-499-3_9

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9789812874993

DOI: 10.1007/978-981-287-499-3_9

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().