Democracy and Governance

On 30th November 2021, Barbados became a republic. Nearly 400 years after the first British ship arrived on the island, and exactly 55 years after independence from British colonial rule, Prime Minister Mia Mottley conducted a ceremony replacing Queen Elizabeth II with Dame Sandra Mason as the head of state. Bells chimed across the capital, […]

At present, Singapore is the only country to have taken steps to dissolve a local chapter of South Korea’s Shincheonji Church. Jonathan Chan uses this decision as a lens to probe the state’s approaches to religious management. He argues that Shincheonji failed to align with Singapore’s model of multi-religious toleration, in particular through its lack of transparency about its intentions and motivations. This was seen as potentially causing fissures within families and Christian denominations, prompting the government’s intervention in dissolving the chapter.

Ng Qi Siang argues that it was ultimately beneficial for Singapore to be omitted from the US-organized Summit for Democracy in December last year. By highlighting key characteristics of the summit, he shows how Singapore’s participation is likely to signal a weakened commitment to its foreign policy principles, which includes the city-state’s commitment to non-interference in the internal affairs of other states and the pursuit of good relations with all who wish to work with it. He then discusses great-power tensions between the US and China, and how Singapore’s non-participation in the summit aligns with its strategy to navigate a more polarised world order.

In the judicial construction of contracts, ambiguities are construed against the drafter based on the canon of “Ambiguitas contra stipulatorem est.” On July 25th, 2021, the Tunisian president Kais Saied imported this technique to constitutional law by dismissing the Prime Minister (PM) and suspending the parliament chaired by “Rachid AL Ghannouchi,” the head of Ennahda […]

This article compares the wartime Supreme Court’s complete deferral to the government’s justification for the detention of Japanese Americans to argue that the modern Supreme Court repeated a similar tragic mistake almost seventy-five years later in Trump v. Hawaii. Introduction Without question, the Japanese American internment experience is relevant to the post-9/11 war on terror […]

Passing the PRO Act offers one of the surest routes to build a cross-race coalition in the US.

Dilan Okcuoglu’s “Informal Control of the Turkish State: Lived Experiences from Kurdish Borderlands” is part of JMEPP’s upcoming Spring 2021 edition, Beyond Borders: Middle East in Empire, Diaspora, and Global Transitions. The full edition is expected to come out on April 30, 2021. “In 2009, we planted our wheat in front of Turkish soldiers; they […]

Sarah Anderson and Lionel Oh highlight existing gaps in Singapore’s current legislative and bureaucratic structures for managing data and digital technology. They argue that these concerns extend past any single product or incident; because of the importance of building public trust in the government’s use of digital technology, transparency, privacy, and other ethical considerations should be a fixture of technology policy. The authors also provide recommendations on how these data ethics concerns might be addressed through augmented workstreams which introduce procedures and safeguards for government technology.

In SPJ’s very first interview series, we speak with Melissa Low, a research fellow at the Energy Studies Institute (NUS). As momentum builds up for a more comprehensive climate policy in Singapore, Melissa shares with us her views on sustainability in Singapore. This article is the first of a two-part series and focuses on domestic issues including existing challenges and the rebranded Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment (MSE).

Democratic reform requires robust civic education first.

Kwan Jin Yao analyzes the perceived deficiencies in the government’s engagement with youth. In this piece, he provides an overview of the trends that have facilitated youth civic and political engagement in Singapore, and the ideological bases that underlie this government-ground divide. He ends off on a hopeful note — with concrete ways that this divide can be bridged.

When it comes to securing US elections against foreign interference, training humans may be the best investment.