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Globalization and the Nation-State 1 Introduction GLOBALIZATION AND THE NATION-STATE The cities which in the late twentieth century we call world cities are beginning to lead their lives rather distinct from those of their territorial states again, and entities such as Singapore and Hong Kong may even suggest that city states can at least in some ways be viable social forms. (Hannerz 1996, p. 143). The more the government provides for Singaporeans, the higher their expectations of what the government should do. The more we educate Singaporeans, and the more economic opportunities we create for them, the more internationally mobile they will become. The more they gain from subsidised HDB [Housing Development Board] housing, the more money they have to buy cheaper houses in Australia. Will Singaporeans be rooted to Singapore? Will enough Singaporeans stay here, to ensure the country’s long-term survival? (Goh Chok Tong, Straits Times, 19 August 2002). The first of these quotes comes from a section in Hannerz’s book, Transnational Connections, where he examines the cultural role of world cities in the context of contemporary globalization. Hannerz suggests that Singapore and Hong Kong are representative of an emerging new form of cultural life and exemplify what he has termed cities of the global ecumene (see also Hannerz 1989).1 This is indeed a thoughtprovoking assertion. These two city-states offer many possibilities for thinking about places which are distinct from, and different to, the territorially and culturally bounded form of the nation-state. Now that Hong Kong is no longer a British colonial territory, it remains to be seen whether it will be allowed to evolve as an independent cultural entity under Chinese rule. Singapore, on the other hand, is a city-state which is both a nation and, as we shall see, a world city. While nations have clearly defined territorial boundaries, continuous histories and 00a Nation_Culture Intro 7/4/07, 12:56 PM 1 2 RESPONDING TO GLOBALIZATION common identities, world cities are very much of the contemporary global ecumene. Hannerz’s view that the city-state of Singapore can in some ways be a viable social form is based on his historical reflection on the role during the medieval age played by city-states like Venice, Florence and Amsterdam. What he means by viable social form is that these citystates can be conceived of as having had a global function, and in many ways as representing the “mosaic model of world culture”. As such, they were distinct from the social form of the nation-state, in the sense that there were no considered efforts made by the respective nation-states in which they were located to define their boundaries, produce their people or construct them as part of a national culture. Instead, these city-states thrived precisely because of their cultural organization as world cities which located them as distinct places with their own evolving history and identity. The city-state of Singapore is indeed a distinct place. A small island located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula with no hinterland, it has a multi-ethnic population consisting of a Chinese majority in a region surrounded by Muslim countries. Singapore is by far the most developed and modern country in Southeast Asia. Once a quiet fishing village, it started developing into a thriving metropolis over a century and a half ago under British rule. In the process, it attracted immigrants from East, South and Southeast Asia who came in search of economic opportunities and eventually settled on the island. As a territorial and administrative entity, Singapore is wholly a product of colonial modernity. The ruling elite, which inherited the apparatus of the colonial state following Singapore’s independence in 1965, began engineering its development into a modern nation-state. Nation-building, or the political process of constructing a “nation” and a sense of belonging via the state, is therefore a key feature of Singapore’s socio-cultural formation. After 37 years as an independent nation-state, the nature of the polity under the rule of the People’s Action Party (PAP) has largely remained unchanged. It remains characterized by a centralized power structure and a close, elitist policy-making apparatus (Chua 2000). At the same time, the citystate of Singapore has evolved dramatically; beginning as an exportoriented economy, becoming a newly industrialized economy and presently a “wannabe” world city. This brings us to the second quote at the head of this introduction. It comes from a National...

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