Capitalism,Inequality and Ideology in Singapore: New Challenges for the Ruling Party

Amidst popular concerns about rising inequalities and living costs, reduced social mobility and inadequate public infrastructure, Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) suffered significant declines in electoral support in the 2006 and 2011 general elections before regaining support at the 2015 polls. Importantly, these concerns reflect the intensification of contradictions inherent to Singapore’s model of capitalist development. This juncture in the city-state’s political economy has been conducive to greater scrutiny of core PAP ideological notions about the perils of “Western” social welfare and the moral and functional advantages of non-democratic institutions of political accountability and representation. The PAP has responded with creative new defences of its core ideologies in conjunction with social spending boosts, a strategy that will be further tested following the 2015 election.     

The Economics and Politics of Agricultural Trade Liberalization

Fred Sanderson, (Ed.), Agricultural Protectionism in the Industrialized World.
Theodore Cohn, The International Politics of Agricultural Trade.     

Australia’s China policy of strategic ambiguity: navigating between big fish

History, little understood, shows that for 55 years a policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ about the application of the Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty to Taiwan, a flashpoint in Asia, served Australia well. Return to it could lessen the risks of embroilment in any Sino-American war in East Asia, and enhance Australia’s middle-power options.