Global-is-Asian #21

ISSUE #21 June – Sept 2014

Behavioural Economics in Policy

Risk Governance

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THE BIG IDEA

Hard Choices in Singapore’s New Normal

a reform of public enterprises in Asia. Here,

ccording to theoretical literature, the nature of the ownership of a firm – whether it is publicly or privately owned – should not impact its decision making or efficiency. In fact, empirical evidence shows that examples of efficient (or competitive) and inefficient (or uncompetitive) firms exist at both ends of the spectrum.

Moreover, traditional distinction between ‘public’ and ‘private’ firms has become too simplistic in as firms with more complex ownership structures have emerged.

The drivers of organisational efficiency for a firm thus do not primarily lie with ownership, but with other factors. According to Prof. Asher, these are: 1. The extent to which the firm operates in a competitive or contestable space. Market and/or regulatory discipline can ensure good information flow and the emergence of alternative ideas.

2. The organisational incentive structure must be outcome and result oriented and not be designed to avoid accountability.

Au Yong Haw Yee summarises the key ideas

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Reforming Public Enterprises Mukul Asher, Professorial Fellow at the LKY School, recently published an article in which he argued for

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DEAN'S PROVOCATIONS

Public Policy Paradoxes A

s Dean of the School, I also serve as its Chief Administrator. As a result, I am unable to teach a full course at the School. However, I try to make up for this by delivering the “Dean’s Lectures” each semester. This semester, I Kishore Mahbubani am starting a new tradition by delivering the first lecture on a topic I have not spoken about before: “Three public policy paradoxes”.

What are these paradoxes that mystify me? The first is that while the best public policy schools are in the West, the best public policies are in the East. After the 2007-2008 financial crisis, there is no doubt that the institutions and processes of governance are struggling in the West. Larry Summers says that the United States is caught in “secular stagnation”. Francis Fukuyama laments the lack of attention to governance in the West. In his article, “What is Governance”, Fukuyama states that “…everyone is interested in studying political institutions that limit or check power—democratic accountability and rule of law—but very few people pay attention to the institution that accumulates and uses power, the state.” In a recent illustration of weakening governance, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has said that one out of every nine US bridges is structurally deficient and 32% of roads are in poor or mediocre condition.

By contrast, in the period that America ignored its infrastructure, China has seen a spectacular improvement. From 2000 to 2010, China increased its roads from 1.76 million km to 4.0 million km, built over 10,000km of bullet train lines, and increased its power capacity from 100GW in 1989 to over 900GW in 2009. The big question is this: if the best public policy schools are in the West, why are their public policies trailing behind the East?

The second paradox is that while the best known “gurus” of leadership are in the West, the best leaders are in the East. Many Asian organisations, including those in Singapore, pay hundreds

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June – Sept 2014 ·

of thousands of dollars to Western leadership gurus to speak to them. Yet their theories have not resulted in the emergence of great Western leaders. With the possible exception of Angela Merkel, no Western leader enjoys great respect and admiration, even in their own societies.

By contrast, as I documented in two articles for Project Syndicate, Asia is truly fortunate that three of the most populous Asian states, China, India and Indonesia are blessed with strong, dynamic and reform-minded leaders. If Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi and Joko “Jokowi” Widodo succeed in implementing their reforms, these three Asian countries will be set on a long-term path of sustainable economic growth. The odds are that they will succeed.

When will the West begin to learn the art of leadership from the East?

The third paradox is that while Western universities have created the concept of “academic freedom” to allow academics to courageously speak truth to power, it has surprisingly resulted in a lack of courage. I was in New York City when the United States made plans to invade Iraq in early 2003. The late American Professor of International Law, Tom Franck warned that this war would be illegal. I expected him to receive a chorus of support from American academia. Instead, most academics felt intimidated and remained silent. One brave soul who opposed the Iraq war was Barack Obama. Sadly, few academics supported him. Similarly, Western academics have been remarkably silent in the face of revelations of torture in Guantanamo and the killing of civilians in Gaza. What explains this lack of courage? Why hasn’t academic freedom led to greater courage in the Western academic voice?

Sadly, I do not have the answers to all these difficult questions that arise out of these public policy paradoxes. When I deliver the lecture on this topic to the students of our School, I hope that some answers will emerge in the process of our discussions. I would be happy to share those insights in future issues of GIA. Kishore Mahbubani is Dean of the LKY School of Public Policy.

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THE BIG IDEA

Reforming Public Enterprises (continued from page 1) 3. The incentive structure for individuals must be aligned with the broader goals of the organisation.

4. The firm must not be resistant to technological change, especially if it operates in an area that experiences rapid technological change.

In his article (see Op-Eds on p. 4), Prof. Asher goes into detail about the indicators that can be used to assess the performance of public enterprises, as well as challenging ‘conventional wisdom’ in the public-vs-private debate.

HY: Some economists such as Ha-Joon Chang have also recently argued, as you do in this article, that who owns enterprises matter less in performance than the competitive pressures that they are subjected to. Why has there been a shift in thinking on this issue after decades of ‘conventional wisdom’ that private firms tend to outperform public ones?

MA: Rigorous research does not support the hypothesis that ownership (public or private) is the primary factor in effectiveness of firms, whether private or public. As an example, Singapore Airlines, and Huawei Technologies of China are both public sector companies which are globally competitive. There are many public sector companies which are inefficient, and there are private sector companies which are also inefficient.

The main factors are the extent to which competition exists, the organizational and individual incentives, and whether technology is adapted to changing circumstances.

Joseph Stiglitz and Bruce Greenwald in their 2014 book Creating A learning Society (Columbia University Press) argue that in several economically successful countries, abilities of their firms and government to learn and absorb newer ideas have been important contributors.

Perhaps one of the reasons for conventional thinking is that privatisation debate has been conducted at ideological rather than technocratic levels. Thus, the World Bank’s database on privatization is based on shift of ownership from public to private sectors.

In any case, the complexity of many organisation forms which exist today cannot be easily captured in terms public or private. So it is encouraging that the public policy debates on this issue are becoming more nuanced and contextual.

Singapore had intensified its privatization efforts in the 1990s. What are some of the lessons from Singapore’s experience, especially with its recent plans for partial renationalisation of the bus services?

MA: In Singapore, the main focus has not been change in ownership of enterprises from public to private, but on divesting, with control, selected public enterprises (such as SingTel, DBS and Singapore Airlines), and using a state owned Holding Company structure (through Temasek Holdings set up in 1974, for example) to obtain better performance from public enterprises. The control of these enterprises has remained with the government.

The current discussions about the bus service (and also mass rapid transit system) are not about ownership changes but about how to more effectively devise contracts, and redefine division of responsibilities among various parties which would permit better trade-offs between affordability, quality and quantity of service, and generating positive economic and societal value.

This one relates to India, which you used as an example in your article. Why is a discussion of public or private ownership of enterprises important at this stage of India’s economic development?

MA: Reform of public enterprises at both the Union government and at the State government level is important for India for two broad reasons. The first is that over the past several decades, substantial capital investment and human resources have flowed to public enterprises in India, but their contribution to GDP is substantially below what could be achieved. While the exact data are not available, the need to improve factor productivity, and in particular using capital deployed in public enterprises more productively, have become essential for raising India's growth rate, and addressing issues relating to high cost structure.

The second reason is that annual public sector investment is much larger (around 7.5% of GDP in recent years) than annual public sector saving (around 1.7% of GDP). Financing this gap has implications for fiscal management and for financial and capital markets. To the extent the gap is financed by household and corporate sector saving, it crowds out their savings and investment opportunities.

Au Yong Haw Yee is a case researcher at the Case Study Unit, LKYSPP. sppayhy@nus.edu.sg

· June – Sept 2014

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Op-Eds

Can India feed 1.7 billion people by 2050?

In food loss terms, India is the world’s champion. It wastes more food than China.

India is the world’s largest producer of milk and the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables after China. High wastage rates are often responsible for doubling of fruits and vegetables prices, and the cost of milk is 50% higher.

It is not only perishable food that is wasted but also staple grains such as wheat and rice.

It is estimated that each year around 21 mt of wheat, equivalent to the entire production of Australia, rots or is eaten by insects because of inappropriate storage and inadequate management practices of the government-run Food Corporation of India (FCI).

These high wastage rates are an important contributor to high food prices. For example, year-to-year rise in food price inflation between 2008-09 and 2013-14 has been consistently above 10%, except for 2010-11 when it was “only” 6.2%. Food price inflation is an important issue for the poor since food accounts for 31% of their average monthly household expenditure.

When 35 to 40% of food produced in the country is not consumed, limiting its wastage has to be a priority consideration for the Modi government.

Cecilia Tortajada, President and co-founder of the Third World Centre for Water Management; Asit K Biswas, Distinguished Visiting Professor, and co-founder of the Third World Centre for Water Management, in The

Business Standard, 14 August 2014.

How cities can benefit from urbanization Cities are the repository of the middle class around the world, and of course the middle class is increasing hugely, and of course demanding more goods and services …

90% or more of the urbanization that we are going to see in this decade and the next is going to come from outside the West, and overwhelmingly in Asia.

In the future, future fiscal policy matters 4

June – Sept 2014 ·

Essays and commentary by our Faculty in the world media. are going to become increasingly important at the level of cities, reflecting their econ clout.

Hard infrastructure (like) roads, ports – cities are going to be much more important there, (as well as in) soft infrastructure – education, skills, technology diffusion. Trade policy is going to be influenced much by what cities do to attract trade in terms of inports and exports, investments, and let’s not forget people, foreign talent.

Razeen Sally, Visiting Associate Professor, in the World

Economic Forum Blog, 14 August 2014.

Six megatrends that will shape the future of cities The World Economic Forum City Competitiveness Report identifies six global megatrends that are likely to determine how well cities do in the future (…) Urbanization, demographics and the emerging middle class; Rising inequality; Sustainability; Technological change; Clusters and global value chains; Governance. Rapid urbanization will be almost exclusively a non-Western affair: about 94% of those who move to cities in the next few decades will come from the developing world.

The emerging-market middle class will double its share of global consumption (from a third to two-thirds) by 2050. In stark contrast to dynamic economic, social and technological forces, the world of politics and governance seems static. The Westphalian system of nation states still predominates, almost five centuries on. But global governance remains weak. This creates a window of opportunity for provincial and city governments to rise and shine.

Led by urbanization, they condition the environment for cities around the world.

It is up to cities to take advantage of these megatrends, as well as to mitigate negative forces such as rising inequality, pressure on natural resources and the environment, and a diminution of trust in public authorities. The question now is how cities can adapt to these challenges and continue to prosper.

Razeen Sally, Visiting Associate Professor, in the World

Economic Forum Blog, 14 August 2014.

Asia’s reform trinity Asia is poised to enter a historical sweet spot, with three of its most populous countries – China, India, and Indonesia – led by strong, dynamic, reform-minded leaders. In fact, China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi, and Indonesia’s Joko “Jokowi” Widodo could end up ranked among their countries’ greatest modern leaders. Replicating (his) success at the national level will be no easy feat. Jokowi, who takes office in October, must implement policies that address rising inequality unsustainable fuel subsidies, entrenched corruption, inadequate infrastructure, and restrictive laborlaws – all while rebuilding trust in Indonesian institutions. if Jokowi is to form a national consensus on the institutions that Indonesia needs, he will have to reach across this political divide. To this end, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s cross-party “Pact for Mexico” could serve as a useful model.

Kishore Mahbubani, Dean, in Project Syndicate, 13 August 2014.

Big idea no. 7: Be bold As a former administrative service officer (or AO), I am told that there is a big incentive for officers to protect their “current estimated potential” (CEP) by avoiding big risks in their policy recommendations.

The CEP is an estimate of the highest level that an officer can reach in his or her career. Once they are assigned a high CEP, an “escalator” seems to automatically promote the officers to their CEP level as long as they don’t make mistakes. Since mistakes are punished and risks are not rewarded, it is natural for a culture of risk aversion to emerge.

To avoid the Kodak problem and prevent any trend towards risk aversion, we clearly need to change this incentive system. We should recognise and reward the people who are willing to take big risks. Fortunately, there is an easy way to

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do this. In the annual assessment form, we can ask each senior civil servant to spell out two or three “risky” ideas to improve Singapore that he or she has suggested for implementation. If the answer is zero, alarm bells should begin to ring. If the answer is two or three, the follow-up question should be: “What have you done to promote or implement this risky idea?”.

Kishore Mahbubani, Dean, in The Straits Times, 9 August 2014.

Singapore’s ruling party runs into trouble In many ways, Singapore is a victim of its own success. From the 1970s to 1990s, it developed from a manufacturing and trading hub to a global service and knowledge economy. In the process, a nascent, post-colonial misfit evolved into one of the world’s most well-governed states and dynamic economies. This rapid transformation, driven and engineered by the state, outpaced the ability of entrenched ideologies, policies and institutions to keep up.

At the same time, contradictions in the Singapore story are beginning to emerge.

For instance, the government's aspirations for Singapore to be an entrepreneurial and innovation-driven economy collide with the institutions, policies and practices that inhibit risk-taking, experimentation, collaboration, and egalitarian norms – all of which are critical for a creative economy…

The contest in Singapore is less about basic political rights and freedoms. But neither is it just over “bread and butter” issues. Rather, it is a post-modern debate over people's ability to determine what constitutes achievement and well-being.

While a narrow focus on GDP growth and material prosperity helped to raise living standards early on, it has proven to be an incomplete barometer of success for Singaporeans. For businesses, investors and policymakers in Singapore, the days of easy political consensus, stability, and insulation from short-term electoral demands are

over. Having sacrificed over a generation to attain prosperity, Singaporeans are now wrestling with what comes next.

Donald Low, Associate Dean (Executive Education and Research); Sudhir Vadaketh, in The Weekly Wonk, New

America, 31 July 2014.

NLB (National Library Board) and the erosion of our secular morality NLB’s decision was the argument that its decision was consistent with, and sanctioned by, “community norms”. This appeal to community norms is not, in and of itself, wrong. But it is grossly inadequate as a guide for public policy. Community norms are not the only yardstick by which to assess governmental decisions and actions. As argued above, fairness, non-discrimination and equal regard for all are far more important considerations. So even if some people’s life choices violated community norms, we do not deny them public services…

It ignores the possibility that there are contesting, even contradictory, norms at stake.

In this instance, NLB’s decision to remove the books on the grounds that it offended society’s pro-family sensibilities bump up against at least two other sets of norms. The first set of norms is that of tolerance and respect for diversity and differences.

I would also argue that the pro-family norms go against the grain of NLB’s own professional ethos and mission. Institutions are not just organisations providing a transactional service. For an organisation to also be an institution, it must have its own professional norms and values, a sense of mission, and integrity of purpose – all of which outlast any individual leader in the organisation. These institutional norms and values are permanent and timeless.

Donald Low, Associate Dean (Executive Education and Research), in The Straits Times, 19 July 2014.

Reforming public enterprises Change of control and ownership is not essential. (...) The traditional distinction between public and private sector

organisations has become too restrictive, as more complex organisations, not fully fitting in the either category, have emerged.

Thus, Life Corporation of India (LIC) is a public sector organisation which is not listed on the stock exchange. But it has engaged in partnerships, such as in LIC Nomura Mutual Fund with a Japanese company. This has added to the complexity of reforming public enterprises.

The above suggests that drivers of organizational efficiency do not primarily lie with ownership, but with other factors (...) The primary reason to be against a monopolistic structure is that it prevents information from emerging about what the alternative organizations can deliver.

The power of ideas, the main source of progress in better utilisation of society’s resources, and in a heterogeneous society, the necessity of experimentation to suit the local context, can only be obtained in a competitive/contestable environment.

As an example, providing choice to members of Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO), the largest nonbank financial institution in the country, to join the National Pension Scheme (NPS) would have the potential to improve incentives of both the organizations to become more service oriented. Similar choice can be provided to members of mandatory membership of the Employees’ State insurance corporation (ESIC).

Such examples can be multiplied in many sectors vitally affecting quality of living of average households, be in education, health, waste management, water, electricity, transport services, agricultural inputs, mining, defense sector, food procurement, storage and distribution, tourism and project management. The primary socioeconomic role of public enterprises and organizations is to operate in a way that checks the monopoly power of the alternative providers, not to stop entry of alternatives..

Mukul Asher, Professorial Fellow, in Pragati, 15 June 2014. This article is also featured in this issue's The Big

Idea (see p. 1). · June – Sept 2014

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Policy That Works: Behavioural Economics Symposium 2014

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s governments begin to realise the importance of policy strategies that are both light of touch and low in cost, the proper design of public policy has never been more important. In a symposium co-organised by the LKY School and the Civil Service College, thought-provoking presentations challenged many conventionally held views about policymaking.

Public policy can not only incorporate many lessons from behavioural economics, but can also serve as a solid foundation from which to apply insights from psychology to questions of economic policy, argued the speakers, Prof. Eldar Shafir, Princeton University; Prof. Cass Sunstein, Harvard Law School; and Dr. Rory Gallagher, Managing Director, Behavioural Insights Team UK. Donald Low, Associate Dean (Research and Executive Education) at the LKY School, who chaired the symposium, has documented the use of behavioural insights in the crafting of Singapore’s public policies with Behavioural Economics and Policy Design: Examples from Singapore.

Cognitive and Bandwidth Taxes

One common thread emerged—the need for the simplification of public policy. In 2010, the British government set up the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) to look at policy tweaks that take into account psychological quirks. Now semi-autonomous, the “Nudge Unit” (the nickname inspired by Prof. Sunstein and Richard Thaler’s 2008 book, Nudge) continues to advise on the application of randomised controlled trials and behavioural insights in public policy.

In July 2014, Education Minister Heng Swee Keat said, “Policies are by design complicated, making it impossible to understand every facet, but it is important for the government to step up on how it communicates them.” Analogous to such conundrums, Prof. Sunstein said that the ideal government policy is akin to “a tablet computer, where the user interface is simple and intuitive” while the technology behind it is complex and advanced. Prof. Shafir contextualised the importance of simplification, particularly for vulnerable groups.

Singapore's welfare provision is achieved through a “many helping hands” approach. This ensures that no single organisation or government body has to bear sole responsibility for the provision of welfare. Thus, having different agencies and organisations provide specific assistance, 6

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(L-R) Donald Low, Associate Dean (Research and Executive Education, LKYSPP, Prof. Eldar Shafir, Princeton University; Prof. Cass Sunstein, Harvard Law School; and Dr. Rory Gallagher, Managing Director, Behavioural Insights Team UK.

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Policy-makers should beware of imposing cognitive taxes on the poor… Filling out long forms, preparing for a lengthy interview, deciphering new rules, or responding to complex incentives all consume cognitive resources.

Policy-makers rarely recognise these cognitive taxes; yet, our results suggest that they should focus on reducing them. ” Prof Eldar Shafir

via stringent applications and background checks, ensures that welfare is only distributed to the genuinely needy.

However, the means of attainment is both onerous and intrusive.

Applicants for welfare assistance would be required to complete multiple forms - often providing the same information repeatedly - and subjecting themselves and their families to ‘means testing’. Research by Prof. Shafir and Dr. Rory, shows that the poor are often unable to avail themselves to these welfare services as their scarcity of wealth “captures” their minds—imposing a large bandwidth tax.

In 2013, the Ministry of Social and Family Development launched the Social Service Offices (SSOs). Located in HDB towns and designed as one-stop centres, the SSOs are tasked with providing the needy with access to more coordinated help. This is only the first step. It is important that a government, that has demonstrated in sincerity through the creation of multiple welfare programmes, continues to employ behavioural insights in the crafting and communication of policies.

Vignesh Louis Naidu is a case researcher at the Case Study Unit, LKYSPP. sppvln@nus.edu.sg

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The Future of Disaster Risk Governance

by Caroline Brassard, Anum Anis, and Lilia Saetova

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sia accounted for 65% of global disaster victims in 2012. Hydrological disasters such as floods, storm surge, and landslides accounted for 75% of those. The Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2013 (GAR13) estimated that the total annual loss from earthquakes and cyclone wind damage alone amounts to US$ 180 billion per year.

Although mortality risk has decreased, the low capacity to manage disaster risk has also led to lower levels of foreign direct investment in most countries, including Pakistan and Nepal. Economic losses from disasters grow exponentially, and the threat to urban centres in hazard-prone countries has yet to receive saliency at the international, regional and local levels.

Think about Risks, Not Disasters While some disasters are one-time events,

the phenomenon of risk is continuous in nature. To ensure effective disaster risk governance, governments have consider disaster risk as an issue that requires constant attention over adopting ad hoc measures.

Recent disasters in South East Asia such as Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013 highlighted the need for the governments to address capacities at the sub-national level, and to have a clear set of operating principles, rather than specific activities tailored for a certain disaster. Absence of such principles as well as the lack of coordination among key stakeholders tends to compound the damaging impacts of disasters and seriously hamper community resilience. A sectorwide approach to disaster risk management brings together donor organisations, civil society, NGOs and other stakeholders under

Residents of Tacloban city and the surrounding areas continue to focus on rebuilding their lives nine months after Typhoon Haiyan struck the coast on 8 November 2013, leaving more than 6000 dead and many more homeless.

According to the Annual Disaster Statistical Review 2012, the Philippines, China, the United States, India, and Indonesia are the most hit by natural disasters in the past decade.

Credit: Getty News Images

the government umbrella.

Such a common platform develops an inclusive disaster risk management policy that can assign roles, outline an action plan, common expenditure scheme and monitoring procedures. However, it is no easy feat. Within the existing Hyogo Framework, collaboration between state and non-state actors provides a strong foundation for governments to take on a greater role in managing disaster risks and ensuring disaster preparedness for efficient response at all government levels. Yet the Hyogo Framework is based on voluntary commitment, and is limited in its capacity to move certain actions forward.

Within the ASEAN region, a legally binding agreement was ratified in 2009 by 10 member states: the 2010-2015 ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER). An evaluation report in 2013 noted that many civil society organisations are increasingly involved in advocacy work around the DRR laws in various South East Asian countries, such as in Cambodia, Lao, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. This comes in stark contrast to other countries such as Myanmar. Yet there is clearly a need to complement such types of agreements with strong research which could produce evidence on future trends and also help our understanding of the complexities underlying risk at all levels.

2015: A Successor to the Kyoto Protocol 2015 promises to be a pivotal year for the United Nations (UN). The second phase of the Hyogo Framework will

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Planning for Flexibility and Resilience

by Maitreyee Mukherjee

Protests over the shortage of water in front of the Secretariat in New Delhi, India in 2013. Significant challenges remain in seeking major attention for water issues, including functional water institutions, population management and innovation in energyefficient water technologies. Image: Getty Images News

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here remains very limited preparedness to price water effectively to reflect its scarcity value, despite growing political awareness of the economic value of water.

At the Global Water Trends Workshop on 3 June 2014, Prof. Asit K. Biswas, Distinguished Visiting Professor at the LKY School, said, “The world is plagued not by water scarcity, but by poor water management. A major issue is the shortage of safe drinking water. Over three billion people worldwide still lack access to adequate clean water.”

Many speakers also cautioned that while water consciousness has increased, it has led to varied frameworks as well as diverging decisions. This creates confusing outcomes in terms of prioritising issues, providing solutions or in policymaking. For example, sanitation and sewerage coverage in cities have improved, but wastewater treatment or disposal facilities have not. Cities tend to simply dispose of raw sewage to nearby rivers, water-bodies or lands resulting in degraded eco-systems. Rather than solving the problem, we have simply swapped its form for another.

Another persistent urban phenomenon is the unaccounted loss from water supply systems during transaction and distribution, which could be as high as 50-60%. This not only reduces available water for human consumption but undermines the effectiveness of revenue collection for water utilities. Integrated Water Resource Management is under serious criticism because it means very different things to different people - no country has managed to operationalise it over the past 60 years. In large projects such as river basin management and aquifer management, 8

June – Sept 2014 ·

scale and proper information regarding the current situation or trend projection is often not considered, leading to obvious failures.

While greater corporate involvement is a positive sign and has been possible through increased public awareness and policy regulations, the present scenario has brought in high levels of risk for private sectors due to frequent changes in power and policies in democracies, discouraging higher private investment in water sector.

If water shortages are not addressed properly now, water conflicts within and among states, as well as among various sectors, may arise. This will elevate political complexity of water issues at national and international levels will be elevated.

Prof. Beneditto P. F. Braga, President of the World Water Council, said, “Hence increased political awareness is necessary to elevate competent water resource

planning and management.” This would help initiate effective demand management and financial assistance to improved water infrastructure for multi-purpose water resource development. Harnessing green water would also gain precedence.

There is no universal solution to an array of water problems. Instead, agencies and institutes should focus on case-specific analysis, understanding social, economic, political, and regional issues before prescribing solutions. A paradigm change is slowly evolving which sees water resource management from the lens of national development, regional growth, social wellbeing and poverty alleviation, which would aid efforts in increasing the resilience and flexibility of the delivery system.

Maitreyee Mukherjee is a Research Assistant at the Institute of Water Policy, LKYSPP.  sppmamu@nus.edu.sg

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Philippe Rohner, Senior Investment Manager at Pictet Asset Management, manages the Pictet Water Fund, launched in early 2000 with €3bn under management and invests in public equity of companies that are active in the water sector. Shivani Ratra, Research Associate at IWP, speaks with him on private sector investment in water assets.

SR: Why does the world have a water scarcity problem?

PR: Strictly speaking, water is not scarce. It is a renewable resource—the amount of water on the planet has not changed. However, there is increasingly shortage of fresh water supplies.

The issue we tend to over extract relative to the natural hydrological replenishment rate. We also neglect to treat our fresh water supplies that we have polluted.

Even regions that have heavy rainfall, such as in South East Asia, can become water stressed due to unsustainable water resource management practices. I am of the view that it is possible to manage water resources sustainably and to meet the world’s growing water needs. What is perhaps not well recognised by the public, and thus neglected by policymakers, is the negative impact that water scarcity has on the prospects of sustainable economic growth and thus the increasing need to bring supply and demand in balance to avoid an economic crisis.

SR: How do you compare private sector investment in water with

other infrastructure?

PR: If we assume a business-as-usual scenario, studies have estimated that globally, we will have to invest USD 1 trillion per year in water infrastructure alone. Despite water and sanitation networks being the most critical for urban and thus economic development relative to the power grid, road/rail, air- and/or communication networks, under-investment remains the greatest in nearly every region, with the notable exception of Singapore.

There are several aspects to this, such as the political sensitivities due to the emotional association with water, the relative higher capital intensity, etc. In my view, what is less well understood is that compared with other infrastructure sectors, water and sanitation infrastructure is a sub-sovereign matter rather than national. This is seen in how water infrastructure is financed and how water users are being subsidised. So there is a major disconnect, which in part explains the lack of private sector participation.

In a city-state such as Singapore, this issue is less prominent as the governance/ policy disconnect between national and municipalities does not exist. On the financing aspect, in the United States, municipalities are able to raise capital independent of the national government. They do this by issuing tax exempt bonds, which is not the case in nearly all countries where policy and more critically infrastructure funding is decided by national governments. This gives municipalities little margin to partner up with the private sector given their limited ability to raise funds through the public markets. In turn, companies seldom have the balance sheet capacity or the willingness to be the source of funding.

This creates a head wind for water related

The Global Water Trends Workshop on 3 June 2014 was chaired by Prof Asit K. Biswas, Distinguished Visiting Professor at the LKY School. Participants included (left to right) Dr. Cecilia Tortajada, President, Third World Centre for Water Management; Prof. Wu Xun, Associate Professor and Director, Institute of Water Policy; and Prof. Eduardo Araral, Assistant Professor from the LKY School.

Asit K. Biswas

public-private collaboration compared to other infrastructure investments.

SR: As an investor, what do you think needs to be addressed to avoid a potential water crisis?

PR: All that I have seen to date suggests that what is mostly holding back the private sector is current inertia within government institutions to re-invent themselves to face the water supply and demand imbalances we face going forward. We live in a world full of direct and indirect subsidies. Since people have a strong emotional connect with water, this only further complicates matters; in establishing water tariffs, we confuse willingness to pay with ability to pay. What do we subsidise, and how should we subsidise it? Should fixed charges be subsidised or variable, should capex be subsidised through taxes, and limit tariffs to the cost of opex? Either way, there is a need for greater transparency of subsidy and how subsidy is used. For example, my village of 6,000 people in Switzerland has a very transparent water and sanitation bill: tariffs linked to the area of land holdings, a connecting fee charge, funds for future investment as well as volumetric fees with rates depending on the extent of usage. As investors, we have a preference for economic regulators independent from government and tariff policies that reflect the full cost of the collection, treatment and delivery of water and sanitation services.

Shivani Ratra is a Research Associate at the Institute of Water Policy, LKYSPP.  sppshra@nus.edu.sg

Cecilia Tortajada

Wu Xun

Eduardo Araral

· June – Sept 2014

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BOOK REVIEW

Hard Choices in Singapore’s New Normal HARD CHOICES: CHALLENGING THE SINGAPORE CONSENSUS

By Donald Low and Sudhir Thomas

By Wang Gungwu Vadaketh.

256 pp, NUS Press, 2014.

by Jan Seifert

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n its way to being the key reflection on the state of Singapore, Hard Choices present an engaging collection of essays on Singapore’s main contemporary debates: inequality, population, housing, the welfare regime, meritocracy, and democratic governance. The accessible structure of the pointed essays by Donald Low, Associate Dean (Research and Executive Education) at the LKY School and Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh, and their collaborators is an apprehension of the policies, (mostly) successful in the past, that have failed to produce the desired outcomes in the Singapore circa 2014. Using economic, psychological, and behavioural insights, they show how Singapore’s ruling political party has moved into an ideological bunker instead of adjusting public policy to the “New Normal”.

Contemporary Challenges, Foundational Shifts

Unlike many analyses of national current affairs, Low and Vadaketh not only present a convincing problem description, but also offer viable and well-explained policy alternatives. The coherence is so striking that one might wonder if Low’s “Liberal Ideas in the New Normal” (the concluding essay) is not an offer summarising these specific policy alternatives into a broader story, and a basis for a credible opposition in 2016.

The three-part book contains fifteen essays: “The Limits of Singapore Exceptionalism”, challenging the foundational assumptions of government thinking; more explicit discussion of policy alternatives on issues such as housing, population, and inequality; finally, a broader political analysis of the state of democracy in Singapore.

Low, who also authored most of the articles in the book, begins the analysis with perhaps the biggest underlying challenge in Singaporean society today—inequality. To read why it is not necessarily a bad thing 10 June – Sept 2014 ·

is almost satirical. That a government has been able to openly build its economic platform on the idea that inequality is good probably reflects how it has gone largely unchallenged—and how a book like Hard Choices is necessary to broaden the debate in Singapore.

While the authors acknowledge the progress since 2011 in improving welfare systems, accelerating the provision of public housing and transport infrastructure, and curbing the inflow of immigrants, they also show that the underlying philosophy in government has not changed.

For anyone seeking methods towards real change, the third part of the book may be the most revealing; the debate moves from policy alternatives to the systematic issues of governance in Singapore.

Myths and Alternatives

Low challenges today’s perceived benefits of a meritocracy that creates a disconnection between a selected elite who perform the political decisions and the rest of the population. Vadaketh expands on the issue of representation when he illustrates how Singapore fails on a number of democratic values in Chapter 14. He points out how the ruling political party has over the past decades created a system that limited political competition. He makes a comparison to Malaysia, where other viewpoints have found their way into a powerful media alternative and also translated into substantially more opposition seats in 2013. Despite the strong gains by Singapore’s own oppositions (notably the Workers Party) at recent elections, it is interesting that Vadaketh can neither see an opposition win at the next general election nor a significant reshape within government.

Overall the book is an excellent discussion of the problems Singaporeans face today and with credible and well-argued alternatives.

The articles clearly profit from Low and Vadaketh’s long careers in the civil service and the Economist Group respectively, and their deep understanding of Singaporean politics from within and outside ‘the system’.

Although any collection of essays risks repetition, the book turns this into an asset offering different critical perspectives on the same issue.

Each essay forms its own coherence such that interested readers do not need to work through the whole book to appreciate the issues of their concern. But one possible weakness is that too often the authors use a similar economic framing that they critique in their policy alternatives. While this does not invalidate their arguments, it reveals how even among the country’s most eminent critical thinkers, there could be a lack of more compassionate political approach.

The book arguably covers most of the top concerns of Singaporeans.

Such a selection has meant omission of other worthy debates, such as race relations, labour and gay rights to environmental concerns and privacy protection, not least seen in the Little India riots, Pink Dot and the NLB controversy – which would make an equally interesting sequel.

Jan Seifert is a PhD Candidate at the LKY School.  jan.seifert@nus.edu.sg

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The Perils of Environmental Valuations

by Kelvin Lee Jian Ming

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aluation studies have become an increasingly popular tool to justify policies. In Singapore’s public housing, the process of estimating economic worth currently elicits prices from direct (stated) and indirect (revealed) preferences of interested parties. This could be by virtue of residence in or usage of a particular geographical area. However, this becomes contested when citizens and government cannot agree on the bases for valuation.

While routinely employed, there are limitations to environmental valuation, especially when climate change and land scarcity make front page headlines. Among more prominent cases, the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster exposed how valuations of environmental damage can be challenged in determining compensation.

In his book Environmental Economics: Concepts, Methods and Policies (2013), Prof. Jesuthason Thampapillai said, “There is an emerging tendency among decision-makers to merely seek a number for the value of environmental outcomes in order to portray the image of having demonstrated environmental awareness.” Based on his research, this article outlines considerations that could be useful to appraisers and concerned societal actors.

Susceptibility to Biases

The economics bases of environmental valuation has been silent on making itself explicit. Instead, disciplines such as consumer psychology, marketing, and ‘motivation research’ have moved in to occupy this void. While it can be argued that valuation studies are not designed to address such motivations, the latter do give rise to preferences. It is discomforting that valuation founded on sound economic assumptions would depend – even partially – on bases that could be non-rational or even irrational.

The vulnerability of valuation studies to biases is welldocumented. For example, strategic bias, when respondents report their willingness to pay to influence an outcome) and acquiesce bias (or ‘yea-saying’), when respondents elicit prices to appear following a perceived majority. A ‘framing effect’ can occur when prices elicited vary according to how the same situation is described to respondents. Other biases include: anchoring (influences on respondents to elicit prices based on unrelated information shown); embedding (similar to anchoring except that respondents value based on similar past cases). Perhaps more seriously, the ‘fair-share

heuristic’ and preference reversals; the former when respondents elicit prices which they believe should be ‘socially fair’ to all parties, while the latter concerns respondents presenting circular rankings of possible actions that is illogical.

Environmental valuation techniques also have ethical and philosophical contentions. Valuation based on usage and risk from non-usage can be ethically objectionable. Nature, some argue, cannot simply be reduced to ‘natural resources’ determined by economic activities benefitting from their exploitation. Other values based on other uses, existence or intrinsic non-use preservation should be taken into account. Furthermore, prices elicited can also change depending on the trust respondents have in the government to carry out environmental policies. These can also appear illogical when respondents opt for conflicting policy measures arising from their opposing roles as consumers and public citizens at the same time.

Susceptibility to Political Contestation

These reveal how susceptible valuation can be to political contestation. One particular issue is the distribution of the burden of environmental costs. The poor and dispossessed may not be able to pay their share even if their ‘allotted portion’ of environmental costs is relatively miniscule. Such valuation may also simply be grandstanding exercises to environmental groups in order to push through politically driven policies.

Elitism rears its head when particular privileged groups prioritise preferences over others, which can lead to counter valuations among opposing elites (e.g. business interests versus policymakers). The outcome remains that the rank-and-file shoulder more burden in terms of price hikes (as consumers), job layoffs or pay cuts to accommodate “environmental concerns”.

The grounds for environmental valuation as a policy tool are not yet firm, even if the case for it may be undisputed. The reticence of the economics discipline, biases, ethical and philosophical concerns, and risks of politicisation spotlight on the inherent weakness of environmental economic valuation as an objective exercise – if portrayed in this way at all. To combat these problems, environmental valuation must continue to evolve to address its nonrational underpinnings, if it is to continue to be of value not only to policymakers, but to all relevant stakeholders concerned.

Kelvin Lee Jian Ming is a Research Assistant at the LKY School. His research interests are in political economy, international relations, religion, and the environment.  u040421m@alumni.nus.edu.sg

· June – Sept 2014 11

12

Public Policy in Asia The Public Policy in Asia PhD Conference took place at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy on 26-27 May 2014, the first ever on Asian policy issues ever to be convened and run by a team of PhD students. Yvonne Guo discusses the issues raised from scholars across the social sciences

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nvisioned as an Asian ‘Minnowbrook’, the fabled New Public Administration conference under the patronage of Dwight Waldo, the Public Policy in Asia conference would explore how scholars of Asian policy could complement and challenge received ‘wisdom’ and entrenched perspectives.

Three Paradoxes of Public Policy Education

Although the West leads in theories of public policy education, Dean Kishore Mahbubani noted that in public policy implementation, examples of good leadership are provided in Asia. Highlighting the shortcomings of scholarship in the West, Dean Kishore Mahbubani said that the Iraq war, the Eurozone crisis, and the Crimean crisis illustrated that the West had failed in the implementation of good public policies. Yet Asia, and China in particular, do not follow Western theories of development.

Thirdly, he argued, despite the high levels of academic freedom in the West, Western academics failed to speak up or effectively change poor public policies, like the proliferation of guns in the United States, or the Israel-Palestine problem.

The Dean encouraged the participants to be more ambitious in their goals as they entered their academic career, “not tinker at the edges, but ask big questions on the future of public policy education”. He quoted Andrew Sheng, former chairman of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), “When I started work as a policymaker, I assumed that if I had any 12 June – Sept 2014 ·

problems, I would study what the West was doing, and find the answers over there. But today when gurus are making big mistakes, I cannot turn to Western capitals for the answers to my public policy problems.”

During the ensuing dialogue with the participants, the Dean highlighted the need for Asian scholars to push the boundaries in a Western-dominated world, for example by creating their own journals and formats.

Lamenting that “many Asians have been mentally colonised by the West”, he also emphasised the need for Asians to come up with their own theories, citing Amitav Acharya as an example. He also questioned the fundamental assumptions of universal social science that culture and distance did not matter, arguing that “we are moving towards a world where you have to answer each country and society on its own dimensions and how you can develop it”. He predicted that “area studies will come back; people will study countries within their own framework.”

State-Driven Policymaking Perceptions, Problems and Solutions

The environment, health, monetary and fiscal policy, and the protection of minority groups featured heavily in discussions through the conference.

State narratives of policy problems visà-vis public perception was also an issue.

Kristin Olofsson discussed how the mass media and non-profit organisations frame the air pollution issue in Delhi. She focused on policy actors and institutions, using discourse

analysis.

Similarly, Kris Hartley discussed the evidence-based debates related to fracking in shale gas extraction, emphasising the need for universal and national legislation for fracking within a multi-level governance framework.

Finally, Shyam Singh argued that the success or failure of a policy did not only depend on the ability of implementing agencies but also on the ability of the party in power to deliver its political messages. He attributed the electoral failure of the BSP party in India to its inability to communicate the policy efforts of the government to either Dalits or the upper caste, weakening the link between people and government.

Policy solutions to pressing policy problems were also discussed. For example, Michael Abrigo looked at the relationship between HIV/AIDS knowledge and safe sexual practices in the Philippines. Using a randomised control trial method, he found that sex education increased safe sexual behavior among women.

The Role of Minorities

Another popular topic was state policy towards minority groups in society.

Humairah bte Zainal argued that the Singapore government’s fear of the hijab was not supported by extensive research.

The hijab controversy in Singapore, she said, was due to the state’s non-inclusiveness of minorities despite paying lip service to predefined categoriesand using ‘race’ as a tool of governance.

In Nepal, Sanju Koirala explored the experiences of potential displacees before the implementation of a hydropower project.

He argued that limitedinformation, lack of participation, and the absence of concerned government authorities had worsened the lives ofpeople in surrounding areas even before implementation.

In India, mandated political representation has affected how the police report crime against minorities, such as

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The Public Policy in Asia PhD Conference took place at the LKY School on 26-27 May 2014. It was attended by 27 PhD students representing 22 universities and 15 nationalities.

scheduled castes or tribes, according to Divya Guru Rajan.

The Role of Innovation and Learning in Policy Design

Katrin Dribbisch discussed design thinking in the context of tackling wicked policyproblems in Singapore’s public service. Shenoted a gap between training and continuous practice in the integration of design thinking in the organisation studied, and argued that its current operational focus would allow only incremental changes.

Mehmet Demircioglu studied the potential enablers of innovation, looking at what drives individuals to innovate. His findings suggested that providing employees incentives was the most effective tool that governments could use to encourage innovation.

Li Ni studied why local governments were engaging in innovation with no obvious economic gain. She argued that this could be due to innovation being seen as a way to promote economic growth or political achievement. This echos Vera Zuo’s findings that local leaders’ choices in affordable housing provision and urban-rural integration were driven primarily by economic rather than social considerations.

The Return of Civil Society

Reflecting the ‘governance turn’ in public

administration, a number of participants studied the increasing role of civil society and the public in providing solutions to policy problems. Ek-Hong Sia discussed the role of three NGOs in Taiwan (Presbyterian Church, Tzu Chi, and the Red Cross) in the reconstruction period after Typhoon Morakot in 2009. He found that there would be a win-win outcome when strong NGOs cooperated with the community rather than when they dominated. Similarly, Aditya Perdana explored the relationships between civil society organisations (CSOs) and parties in Indonesia in order to understand how women’s groups deliver women and gender issues in the law-making process. Belinda Thompson studied ‘invisible healthcare providers’: non-profit, non-governmental hospitals and large clinics in developing countries. She recommended that these non-profit, non-government organisations needed to be tapped. Finally, Weng Shihong identified four modes of government response to internet political participation in Chinese decision-making.

Journal Publication Strategies

Prof. Alasdair Roberts, co-chief editor of the journal Governance, shared his thoughts on the business model of academic publishing.

He advised students that in the social sciences, a small number of articles accounted for large number of citations, with most

articles never getting cited in the five years following their publication. Moreover, the ranking scheme tended to privilege certain kinds of research and countries.

He advised the participants that the two main reasons why articles were rejected were as follows: first, the article not fitting the mission of the journal; and secondly, the failure of the author to state directly what the major claim of the article is. He encouraged students to state their main point three times: in the title, the abstract, and in the introduction. In short, they should be able tos impress their reader within five minutes. In addition to a powerful idea, articles needed a well-structured quantitative or qualitative empirical component.

Finally, Prof. Roberts advised doctoral students to see themselves as operators of a small business, with R&D, production, and marketing functions. He shared some additional tips on how to get published, including putting working papers on SSRN, offering to write book reviews, targeting special issues, and studying real-world problems of governance.

The author would like to thank her team of rapporteurs — Richa Shivakoti, Kris Hartley, Sreeja Nair, Lim Chia-Tsun and Ritu Jain — for their contributions to this article Yvonne Guo is a PhD candidate at the LKY School.  yvonneguo@gmail.com

· June – Sept 2014 13

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(continued from page 7) be negotiated in the 3rd World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in Sendai, Japan (14-18 March 2015). In Paris, France, the 21st Climate Change Conference (COP) will anticipate a global agreement as a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

Thirdly, the post-2015 Development Agenda will be finalised with a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) building on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

There is a functional relationship between the instruments for DRR, SDGs and climate change. However, differences exists. For example, while the Hyogo Framework is a voluntary commitment with considerably shorter term goals, convention on a climate change agreement is legally binding upon states and requires long term commitment from the governments. Recent discussions on the climate change agenda have tended to push back the debate on hazard mitigation, losing the focus on social risk and vulnerabilities.

It is essential for these processes to come together at the level of governance. Specifically, the second phase of Hyogo Framework must go beyond DRR to offer a way with the complexities underlying diverse types of risk and inter-connectedness across countries. Experience over the past ten years has shown that having an inclusive agenda has not always been a priority, and requires building upon the existing features of risk and resilience present within the SGD framework. While the instruments of Hyogo Framework 2 might not be fully integrated under the broad post 2015 framework, the negotiation process push the international salience of the DRR agenda further.

Despite the challenges ahead, the Third World Conference in 2015 on DRR (coordinated by the UNISDR) provides a rare opportunity to attract a broad spectrum of stakeholders, build synergies and collectively put forth a strong and clear agenda for member states to address the growing complexity of disaster risk governance.

Caroline Brassard is Adjunct Assistant Professor at the LKY School  sppbc@nus.edu.sg; Anum Anis is MPP graduate,  a0109586@nus.edu.sg and Lilia Saetova is MPP candidate , also from the LKY School.  a0109586@nus.edu.sg

On 10-11 April 2014, the LKY School hosted an expert meeting in preparation for the 2015 Global Assessment Report (GAR15) on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), a bi-yearly publication by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR). Part of a five-meeting series “The Future of Disaster Risk Management” is also taking place in San Jose, Costa Rica; Bangalore, India; Accra, Ghana.

14 June – Sept 2014 ·

Global-is-Asian will launch a digital format end-2014. Globalis-Asian online will give you a regular, in-depth look at specific research and topics at the LKY School of Public Policy. The thematic online publication will spotlight the latest news by Faculty, distinguished speakers convening at the School, as well as Executive Education in public policy—it's all in one place, ready to watch, read and share. Past issues of Global-is-Asian will also be available at this website.

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Policy Through a Comparative Lens: Cambridge Studies in Comparative Public Policy

by Melanie Chua

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new series established by Cambridge University Press will promote and disseminate comparative research in public policy. The series will be edited by M. Ramesh, Professor, Wu Xun and Michael Howlett from the LKY School. Understanding policy through a comparative lens yields much about not only what actually constitutes policy and policy making in the 21st century, but where the strengths and weaknesses in contemporary public policy are. Allowing better comprehension of the complex processes that incorporate policy makers, politicians, citizens and private actors in the modern world, it makes for a more sophisticated understanding of what current problems are and what alternative solutions to them might be considered.

Comparative studies – based on either quantitative empirical or case analysis – afford the opportunity for teasing out the nuances of the policy subject under study and help to draw appropriate conclusions about the robustness of case study, as well as small and large research. Such analyses are recognised by policy analysis in governments, multilateral banks, and universities as being at the heart of tackling many of the world’s most significant problems in areas such as climate change, economic development, education, energy, healthcare and water.

Critical Genealogies of Policy Discourse

Asian countries such as China, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India and Singapore have been leading changes in the practices of policy design and innovations in many sectors. Public policy scholarship in this area is growing to meet North American, European and Australasian quality standards and output quantity.

The series is particularly timely given the rise of Asia which offers an unprecedented opportunity to advance the field of comparative public policy by including studies and cases from this region which

have hitherto taken a back seat to studies of North American and European cases.

As Jamie Peck and Adam Tickell (2010) argue, policies are on the move, and new forms of policy-making and mobility are drawing attention from across the critical social sciences, including analyses of migrating neoliberal governmentalities; explorations of emergent of (internationalising) expertise; and investigations of transnational forms of statecraft and regulatory restructuring.

These and other interventions have also been extending the methodological registers of policy analysis. No longer confined to internalist and/or positivist evaluations of state(d) aims and objectives, these now embrace critical genealogies of policy discourse; the tracking of policy networks, norms and actors; (global) ethnographies of state, parastate, nonstate policymaking processes; and various forms of transnational, cross-scalar and relational comparativism.

The series meets a growing need for quality publications in public policy studies written from a comparative cross-national or cross-sectoral perspective. Monographs and edited volumes in the series will compare policies in one or more policy sectors across institutional settings in order to further understanding of how and why policies diverge and converge over time. They will also compare the development and application of public policy theory across institutional and cultural settings and examine how policy ideas, institutions and practices shape policies and their outcomes.

The series will feature books authored by scholars from many disciplinary orientations including economics, planning, geography, political science, public administration and management, transportation, communication and organisation studies, sociology and anthropology, and resource management.

Melanie Chua is editor and case researcher at the Case Study Unit, LKY School.  melaniechua@nus.edu.sg

The series welcomes proposals for new books from established scholars and first-time authors alike. The application deadline is 31 December 2014. For more information, please see Research and Faculty Updates on the LKYSPP website http://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/news/ cambridge-studies-in-comparative-public-policy/

M Ramesh

Wu Xun

Michael Howlett

· June – Sept 2014 15

16

EXECUTIVE EDUCATION

Closing the Digital Divide in the Philippines

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ow could TV White Space (TVWS) technologies can be harnessed to enhance connectivity in the Philippines?

The LKYSPP and the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) Policy Center conducted a public forum on 9 June 2014 to discuss potential benefits of TVWS technologies, as well as needed policy changes to enable its widespread deployment. Dubbed “Enhancing Connectivity and Economic Development in the Philippines: Opportunities from TV White Spaces”, Microsoft, the main sponsor for this event, also supports LKY School’s research project on secondary cities’ competitiveness in ASEAN. TV white spaces are unused television channels which can be accessed by other devices for a variety of communication applications. Internet connections in the Philipines, especially from outside the capital of Metro Manila are characterised by slow speed and high subscription costs. With one of the lowest levels of broadband connectivity in Southeast Asia, TVWS technologies offers the promise of reducing the digital divide and improving communication in remote areas. This offers improvements in access to information, disaster relief management, environmental preservation, and transparency and accountability in governance systems.

In a 2003 trial in Bohol, Philippines, TVWS technologies were used for fisherfolk registration and biodiversity preservation. Fisherfolk can access the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources’ (BFAR) Fisherfolk Registration System (FRS) to allow municipalities immediately

Eduardo Araral (left), Assistant Professor and Dr. Astrid S. Tuminez (middle), Adjunct Professor at the LKY School

distribute critical IDs, certificates, and fishing licenses to fisherfolks in the community. This ensures that only licensed fishermen can conduct fishing activities in the aquatic areas, avoiding illegal fishing activities which tend to be destructive to the vast decreasing marine resources. Fast and accessible information from these technologies have contributed to the relief and rehabilitation efforts following the devastation brought about by the Bohol Earthquake and Typhoon Haiyan in the Visayas Region in 2013.

The pilot project was led by the Philippine government in collaboration with Microsoft and the US Agency for International Development. However, wider implementation is challenged by outdated Philippine spectrum and ICTrelated regulations.

Representatives from the media, industry, academe and civil society groups also participated in the policy forum.

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Commissioner Gamaliel Cordoba of the Philippines’ National Telecommunications Commission, Executive Director Louis Casambre of the Information and Communications Technology Office and Mr. Jeffrey Yan, Microsoft’s Director of Technology Policy (Asia Pacific) provided key speeches and presentations.

A diverse panel of discussants from these sectors also shared their experiences based on the pilot projects in TV White Spaces in the Philippines. Undersecretary Lesley Cordero, the Philippine’s Presidential Assistant for Rehabilitation and Recovery, highlighted TVWS and similar technologies would allow for a more efficient and effective rehabilitation of affected communities, and thereby improving quality delivery of government services, especially as the Philipines faces various natural catastrophes.

McRhon S. Banderlipe I is Senior Executive at Executive Education.  sppbmris@nus.edu.sg

at http://lkyspp.sg/subscribe-to-GIA