When we think about Singapore, the present and its future the words “City-State and Nation- State” come up.
They are very different. City-State is a geographical concept. It describes a small urbanised territorial entity whereas, Nation-State denotes the cultural identity of a people who identify with the territory, the place. State is the place they own, control and administer.
There are peoples who see themselves as a Nation but who have had their territorial claims taken away like those large ‘red indian’ native tribes of America.
Singapore did “Nation Building” even while it did State Building. Its ongoing achievement is multiracialism and meritocracy in Nation Building. State building however sped well beyond.
The cumulative effects in the growth of power of the State through its control of media, maintenance of law and order, land acquition, urban planning, economic growth and social control all have achieved a materially highly developed State but has it also developed a strong Nation?
This is where the term Nation-State becomes an important word category in order to understand what is and what should be.
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