Abstract
The last 50 years of nation building has firmly established Singapore as a globally competitive and highly successful economy and city-state with one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. Singapore has achieved a prosperity undreamed of by its founders. How successfully Singapore can evolve into a fully developed nation, with a firm sense of national belonging, social cohesion, political legitimacy and participation—and not just a strong and successful developmental state—will depend on the extent to which the country is able to translate this success to broader social protection and democratic participation for her people, and the extent to which the country is able to forge a common national identity.
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Notes
- 1.
Singapore’s only union congress allowed by law.
- 2.
But less so after the publication of the 2012 White Paper ‘Salaries for a Capable and Committed Government’, where Ministerial salaries were reviewed, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s salary was, for example, lowered by 28 percent to S$2.2 million.
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Yeoh, L.K., Yeo, A.Z.J., Auyong, H. (2016). Singapore’s Social Contract Trilemma. In: Banpasirichote Wungaeo, C., Rehbein, B., Wun'gaeo, S. (eds) Globalization and Democracy in Southeast Asia. Frontiers of Globalization. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57654-5_4
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