Grassroots volunteerism in Singapore: A survey of the literature

• Main Authors: WONG, George
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2019
• Subjects: Volunteerism; grassroots; political participation; Civic and Community Engagement; Political Science; Politics and Social Change
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/4116
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Local political participation is a ubiquitous element of any contemporary political life today and different regimes offer a diversity of expressions, forms of organisation and intensity of involvement. As a procedural democracy with a colonial legacy and under a dominant party regime for almost 60 years, the development of Singapore‘s local political participation offers narratives of political transition, consolidation and nation building which have been both praised and castigated by scholars, statesmen and citizens. One of the few consensuses in the existing debates surrounding Singapore‘s political legacies however lies in the immense significance of grassroots volunteerism to local politics and political participation. The narrative of grassroots volunteerism in Singapore is both inseparable and indispensable from the narrative of its nation building and political consolidation. In this book chapter, I explore how grassroots volunteerism has been studied in the context of Singapore's grassroots sector.