Arrested development: Democratisation in Singapore

Abstract

only member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEN) to be excluded. The exclusion is telling when even countries which the editors consider to be 'pseudodemocracies', like Indonesia, where 'the existence of formally democratic political institutions, such as multiparty electoral competition, masks the reality of authoritarian domination' (p xviii) are included. However, given its prominence among the Asian NIES, Singapore can hardly be ignored without comment. I will, therefore, suggest that Singapore is what Diamond et al. have in mind when they noted: 'A few authoritarian regimes that manifest commitment to collective goals and human rights might have redeeming qualities, particularly if they are stable and do not require excessive force to stay in power. But that does not make them democracies. Their supporters should be free to argue the positive aspects of their rule, without ignoring or denying the negative ones, but they should not attempt to claim that they are democracies' (p xxv). Of course, the PAP government claims no less. Conceptual and substantive difficulties in placing Singapore in the democratisation debate arise from (i) the tension between the presence of a popularly elected single-party dominant government and the tendency of this government to impose, through the due parliamentary processes, substantively highly antidemocratic laws and administrative regulations on society; and (ii) the ambivalence of an electorate which is increasingly willing to voice its dissatisfactions with unacceptable state interventions but without the desire to support the development of strong opposition parties, let alone a change of government. The result is a highly stable polity which many critics continue to characterise as an 'authoritarian regime'. This essay attempts to flesh-out the conceptual and