ABSTRACT
Global talent flows are shaped by structural factors such as the recruitment patterns of firms and the migration policies of governments, as well as by the agency of talented individuals with complex preferences. The motive to migrate can be framed in ideological terms, for instance British-trained doctors who opposed the socialization of medicine after the Second World War, or in rational terms, where the National Health Service offered relatively poor economic prospects at the time. This introductory chapter focuses on the nature of brain drain and talent capture in middle-income Malaysia and high-income Singapore. The political salience of talent, mobility and ethnic hierarchy is found to be high, while policy options are constrained by particular national structures and political interests, and individual preferences are determined by complex factors that are not easily captured by any single theory or dataset. This chapter introduces a tripartite framework covering trends in international political economy, national structural forces and the configuration of individual choices in order to analyze brain drain and talent capture policy in Malaysia and Singapore. Talent capture and enrichment initiatives serve to construct and secure spaces of privilege and ethnic hierarchy within and between countries, as well as to reinforce the political power base of governments. As such, the differential preferences of emigres are understood in the context highly politicized and hierarchical notions of citizenship, identity, rights and entitlements.
