No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
No. 47 (2002): Singapurs Strategie zur Integration seiner multi-ethnischen Bevölkerung: Was sich begegnet gleicht sich an
Abstract
Der öffentliche Wohnungsbau gilt im Hinblick auf die Integration der multi-ethnischen Bevölkerung des Stadtstaates Singapur als eine der 'Säulen der Nation'. Über ein ausgeklügeltes System der Alterssicherung macht er fast 90 Prozent der Einwohner zu Quasi-Eigentümern. Diesen Anreiz setzt Singapur gezielt für die Realisierung seines weltweit wohl einmaligen Modells der staatlich gelenkten residentiellen Integration ein. Über das Leitbild des Nation Building und das Mittel des Social Engineering steuert der Developmental State den Integrationsprozess seiner ethnisch und sozioökonomisch gemischten Bevölkerung. Das seit Januar 2001 laufende Projekt der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft 'Öffentlicher Wohnungsbau und Stadtentwicklung in Singapur' am Lehrstuhl für Kulturgeographie, Fakultät für Gesellschaftswissenschaften der Universität Duisburg (Prof. Dr. Winfried Flüchter, Institut für Geographie und Institut für Ostasienwissenschaften) zielt auf eine Analyse des residentiellen Integrationsmodells im Hinblick auf neue Aspekte für die Sozialökologie - im Rahmen qualitativer Sozialforschung unter besonderer Beachtung der mikroräumlichen Dimension. Der folgende Beitrag bietet einen Ausschnitt der Ergebnisse der ersten, quantitativen Projektphase: eine Bestandsaufnahme des residentiellen Integrationsmodells auf unterschiedlichen kleinräumigen Maßstabsebenen, Grundlage für die noch bevorstehenden empirisch-qualitativen Recherchen.
Singapore is a small city-state situated in the centre of Southeast Asia, and home to five million residents and non-residents. In 2000, a quarter of the Singapore population was considered non-native born. This ratio, by 2010, had increased to one-third of the total population. One million people were added to the population during this period, with the bulk of the influx coming in as permanent residents and short-term foreign workers. The core of local-born Singaporeans has shrunk considerably from 75% to 66% over the same period. This group is set to become the minority group in their homeland, should the trend persist. The rapid growth in population was primarily fuelled by the country's liberal economic policies, and in reaction to the socio-demographic imperatives faced by the city-state. At the same time, the open-door policy was introduced to uplift the nation's economic competitiveness and make up for the country's anaemic fertility rate as the pace of ageing accelerates in the coming decades. Not surprisingly, the tectonic shift in the demographic landscape has unnerved the local community. Some Singaporeans are uncomfortable over the relentless influx of immigrants and foreign labour. The resentment that underscores the discontent ranges from resource competition (e.g., jobs, education scholarships) to intrinsic socio-cultural contestations (e.g., space, identity, cohesion), and a perceived political divide (e.g., government bias in favour of immigrants over local-born). The policymakers are cognisant of these emerging fractures and many policies have been put in place to address the imbalance. These include steps to recalibrate the intake of foreign labour and long-term residents, ramp up the provision of social infrastructure, impose a residential quota on permanent residents, increase grassroots engagement, and sharpen policy entitlement for the different residential groups. What will the future hold for Singapore's ethno-cultural terrain? What are the barriers to harmonious co-existence? And what is the trade-off in terms of economic growth and standard of living? This paper aims to examine these issues and identify the impending challenges in the decades to come.
Die Rolle von Wahrnehmung für institutionentheoretisch-basierte Ansätze in den Japanstudien wird in drei Beiträgen beleuchtet. Walter Ötsch diskutiert die komplexen Prozesse der Wahrnehmung von Realität. Er betont die Bedeutung kognitiver Muster in Raum und Zeit (Kultur) für ein mentales framing. Katja Triplett und Michael Pye untersuchen die Rolle von 'Rationalität' in religiösen Transaktionen in Japan. Auf der Basis mehrerer Fallstudien argumentieren sie, dass solche Aktivitäten häufig als zweckrational in einem engen ökonomischen Sinn verstanden werden können. Dirk Nabers betrachtet die Entwicklung internationaler Beziehungen und stellt einen Forschungsrahmen vor, kognitive und diskursive Phänomene genauer zu beachten. -- The relevance of cognition for institution-based models in Japanese studies is discussed in three papers. Walter Ötsch discusses the complex processes how we perceive reality. He stresses the importance of cognitive paradigms in time and space (culture) for mental framing. Katja Triplett and Michael Pye analyse the role of 'rationality' in religious transactions in Japan. Looking at several case studies, they argue that activities can often be understood as goal-driven in a narrow economic sense. Dirk Nabers looks at the evolution of international relations and presents a research agenda to pay attention to cognitive and discursive phenomena.
Der Artikel beschreibt die Erfahrungen des chinesischen Politikwissenschaftlers Li Fan im Zusammenhang mit der ersten direkten Wahl, die in der Gemeinde Buyun in der VR China abgehalten wurde. Li Fan dokumentiert die Abläufe und beurteilt die Bedeutung dieser Wahlen, die weltweit stark beachtet worden sind. Eine vorangestellte kurze Einleitung von C. Göbel und A. Senz ordnet die Wahlen in den Kontext politischer Reformprozesse im heutigen China ein. --
This discussion paper examines the institutionalization process of a non-regular employment form especially focusing on the establishment of the temporary dispatching work (haken) system. The institutionalization process of the haken system can be divided into three periods: delegalisation (1947-86), legalisation (1986-99), and diffusion (1999-). Declining labor strength, the emergence of deregulation bodies, and the changing attitude of the Ministry of Labor (MHLW) characterize the legal developments. Together with the liberalization of private job placement and the expansion of fixed-term contract work, temporary work became an important sources of flexible and skilled labor, and expanded more rapidly than other employment forms in the late 90s. In this development, temporary help firms started to reframe their business as 'personnel services,' and have positioned themselves to replace the traditional firm-internal supply of mobile employees such as shukkô and tenseki with external dispatched employees of temporary help firms.
A review of the development of Singapore reveals that as a result of a host of interacting factors, there has appeared an intricate pattern of islands of people within the island-state, which are constantly realigning themselves. At a basic level, three major islands, the Chinese, the Malays, and the Indians, were formed based on ethnicity with further islands formed within each based on the regional language spoken. Education further made the pattern of islands even more intricate. In the early days of Singapore, education was offered in the regional languages, which reinforced the ethnolinguistic islands. In addition to the regional language, the British colonial government introduced English-medium education, which resulted in the creation of a new, socially powerful island comprising those who had had English-medium education. With time, two major islands stood out in clear opposition, the English-educated forming the privileged group, and the Chinese-educated forming the disadvantaged group, resulting in political unrest. The Singapore government adopted the policy of unitary language-medium of education (English) to resolve this. However, with English becoming more popularly used, rather than being restricted to the privileged few, the language as used by the mass took on a local flavoring, leading interestingly to yet further islands in Singapore today. Those who can code-switch between the "uneducated" variety of English in Singapore (Singlish) and the educated or internationally accepted variety inhabit one island, while those whose repertoire is limited to only the uneducated variety inhabit yet another island.