The contributors to this edited volume, covering a range of social issues ranging from family and aging to sexuality and culture and the arts, critically examine the relevance of social policy as it is understood in the West; and addresses the question of whether Singapore's response is unique.

Notwithstanding the lean years that followed 1986 and 1997, sustained economic growth since the late 1970s has propelled Singapore into the post-industrial age and reproduced the demographic and social structure of advanced western societies. The rapid shift to a knowledge-intensive economy requiring highly-skilled services has resulted in a 'two-speed' society consisting of a highly competitive but rewarding sector and a marginalized population that is increasingly at risk. Being avowedly anti-welfarist, the state for ideological reasons has resisted pressures to introduce a comprehensive welfare regime for its risk population, preferring to privilege its productive citizenry. Is Singapore a counter-factual to the convergence thesis, by preferring to put in place a social policy driven by the belief of its leaders that the more successful a society is the more it is able to care for those who fall behind?

In China, social development has fallen far behind economic development. This book looks at why this is the case, and poses the question of whether the conditions, structures and institutions that have locked China into unbalanced development are changing to pave the way for the next stage of development. Based on an empirical examination of ideological, structural and institutional transformations that have shaped China’s development experiences, the book analyses China’s reform and development in the social domain, including pension, healthcare, public housing, ethnic policy, and public expenditure on social programs. The book moves beyond descriptive analyses to understand the role of broader changes in shaping and redefining the pattern of development in China.

`The thesis presented here will not only change the way in which we understand contemporary Singaporean society and the relationship between the state and its citizens, but will also provoke a debate about the social costs of economic development in other parts of the world, and the future security of the island republic - increasingly a Chinese enclave in a Malay sea - in the twenty-first century.' - Peter Carey, Trinity College, Oxford This study examines the development of Singapore's complex system of social regulation in relation to the phases of its economic strategy and political transition. It focuses on the way social control works through public housing and welfare, education, parliamentary politics and the law. It draws out the implications of such comprehensive control for political conflict. Popular explanations for Singapore's success and its status as a model for other developing countries are brought into question.

Social policy reforms driven by profound social changes have been a popular and pressing topic worldwide in recent years in both policy and academic circles. In this book, prominent social policy scholars from Europe, North America, and Asia discuss the history of social policies, compare different social development models, and analyze the challenges facing these economies' social policy reforms. The book provides comprehensive and comparative perspectives and updated data on social development and social policy reforms in the world's major economies, and particularly, in mainland China.

This book examines the relationship between population policies and individual reproductive decisions in low-fertility contexts. Using the case study of Singapore, it demonstrates that the effectiveness of population policy is a function of competing notions of citizenship, and the gap between seemingly neutral policy incentives and the perceived and experienced disparate effects. Drawing on a substantial number of personal interviews and focus groups, the book analyzes the developmental welfare state’s overarching emphasis of citizen responsibility, and examines population policies that reinforce social inequalities and ignore cultural diversity. These factors combine to undermine elaborate state policy efforts in encouraging citizens’ biological reproduction. The book goes on to argue that in order to facilitate positive fertility decisions, the state needs to modify the “economic production at all cost” approach and pay much more attention to the importance of social rights. This suggests that the Singapore government might profitably approach the phenomenon of very low fertility with major initiatives similar to those of other advanced industrialized societies. This book offers a significant contribution to the literature on social policy, East Asian and Southeast Asian studies.

This book presents a global perspective on the political agency of arts in place. International and leading scholars and artists themselves present critical theory and practice of contemporary art as a politicised force. This book extends thinking on contemporary arts practices in the urban and political context of protest and social resilience and offers the prism of a ‘critical artscape’ in which to view the urgent interaction of arts and the urban politic.