From Cradle to Playpen: the management of Chineseness in developmental state Singapore

Abstract

The way Chineseness is managed by the state in ethnic Chinese majority nations is examined as a late-industrializing initiative. Using Singapore as the case study, identifications with Chineseness were studied for the key themes within late-industrializing discourse constructions. Chinese Singaporean respondents were asked for their interpretation of Chineseness in relation to their Western expatriate and Chinese mainlander colleagues. In some cases, Orientalist constructions emerged. This inquiry found the moderating factors of Orientalist discourse replications to be the respondent’s childhood socioeconomic background and linguistic primacy. The findings lent insights to the persistence of Orientalist constructions amongst individuals in late-industrializing societies. Insights as to how late-industrializing discourses constructions are moderated by factors distinctive from first-mover ones were sought. These insights enrich the theoretical framework of nation branding studies, a recent offshoot of nation studies with a marketing slant. Sociological considerations on the reproduction of late-industrializing predispositions were integrated through the concept of marcotted developmentalism. Marcotted developmentalism is advanced as the thesis’ conceptual framework. It explains the mediation of the late-industrializing landscape by two distinctive features. Firstly, ethnic management initiatives communicate the urgency of accelerated economic development amongst late-industrializing societies. Secondly, it emphasizes the presence of dual hegemony (i.e. Western dominance and Chinese ascendency) within the late-industrializing political economy.