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Conceptualizing Chapter 3 |
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Understanding Governance
What is the purpose of the chapter?
How does Chapter 3 connect to other chapters?
- The healthcare system in Singapore as a case study to demonstrate governance in action.
- Singapore’s economic progress has made possible progress in our healthcare system and vice versa (contributions of system towards economy). Can explore the exporting of Singapore’s healthcare service.
- Comparisons with British case study to show different approaches and measures of success.
- Relevance of healthcare sector as case study
- Impact of success in meeting needs of people on legitimacy of government. Healthcare as one of the most visible indicators of effective governance, issue that touches lives of people directly.
- Amount of resources allocated, long term planning involved.
- Healthcare policies are related to many policies in many other areas: economic development, urban planning, labor manpower, population planning etc.
- To demonstrate how policies evolve over time to meet changing needs. What are the key changes? What is the significance of these changes for understanding the role of governance?
- Singapore’s healthcare system has been moving towards self-reliance: partly a result of increasing affluence, partly a result of belief in avoiding the trappings of a welfare-based system.
- Need to take into account growing realities in Singapore society: Differentiated healthcare (pay what you can afford) reflect increasing differences in socio-economic status
- Need to innovate: Community-based healthcare services can be seen as evidence of growing innovation in governance, and also an attempt to achieve a balance between self-reliant and welfare-based system.
- Balancing act: Need to balance need of conserving resources and need of managing societal expectations.
- Appreciation in context via comparison with Britain’s system. How is the comparison done and what is the impact of the comparison?
- Similarity in presentation lies in showing how have both systems evolved and met needs of people?
- Difference in how self-reliance is positioned against a ‘welfare’-based system. Importance of showing that difference is not that stark. Singapore’s system is not entirely based on self-reliance nor is Britain’s system entirely welfare-based.
- Pros and cons of ‘welfare system’ need to be shown: welfare systems can work in some societies.
- Long term causes and consequences of governmental decisions, e.g. the decision to adopt a welfare based system in Britain is partly the result of the country’s long history of exposure to political ideologies that supported such a system; and once adopted, such a decision is difficult to reverse.
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