This dissertation explains why Taiwan and South Korea experienced democratic breakthrough in the late 1980s, when Singapore failed to do so. It explains this variation in democratic outcomes by specifying the causal mechanisms underpinning the internationaldomestic political interface of democratic development in these cases. New empirical evidence discovered in the course of this research has confirmed that transnational networks of nonstate and substate actors were an indisputable source of external pressures on the authoritarian governments of Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore during the late 1970s and early 80s. Foreign human rights activists, Christian missionaries and ecumenical workers, members of overseas diaspora communities, journalists, academics and students, along with legislators in key democratic countries allied to the target governments, were found to have raised the international profile of political repression by flagging them as reprehensible human rights abuses. Within the context of an international normative environment where human rights was increasingly considered a legitimate international concern, these transnational actors generated a negative international opinion of the target governments. Such grassroots pressures had the potential to raise the cost of political repression for these target governments with the effect of curbing

The Transnational Protection Regime and Democratic Breakthrough: A Comparative Study of Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore

In Singapore the state defines the parameters of ‘ethnic’ identity on the basis of the ideology of multiracialism, in which any particular ‘ethnic’ identity is subsumed under national identity and permitted expression in cultural and economic, but not political, terms. Multiracialism’s appeal for the state as well as for its citizens lies in its objective: social cohesion between and equality for the four officially recognized ‘racial’ groups. Nevertheless, from the viewpoint of the ‘Indian’ community, this thesis demonstrates how the multiple layers of meaning given to the doctrine and practice of multiracialism by various social actors and their interactions create tensions and contestations in reconciling ‘ethnic’ and national identity. Public expression of ‘ethnic’ politics is considered by the state as subversive towards the nation, although the state itself implements its ideology through a stringent regime of ‘racial’ management directed at every aspect of a Singaporean’s social, cultural, economic and political life. The thesis addresses important issues involving ‘racial’ and ‘ethnic’ identity, modes of ‘ethnic’ interaction and nation building in the multiethnic and globalised context of Singapore in general and in ‘Little India’ in particular. This area, though theoretically democratic in nature, is embedded in state-civil society power relations, with the state setting the agenda for ‘ethnic’ maintenance and identity. My research interviews demonstrate the dominating and hegemonic power of the state, its paternalistic governance, and its wide network of social control mechanisms organizing ‘ethnicity’ in Singapore. The historical decision, made firstly by the British colonial administration and thereafter perpetuated by the nation state, to make ‘race’ the basis of all social classification has had far-reaching consequences. With the postcolonial state wishing to be the sole authority over ‘ethnic’ practices and discourse, Singaporeans’ lives have been heavily conditioned by its impact, which I argue resembles to some extent the ‘divide and rule’ policy of the colonial regime. ‘Race’ as the structuring principle and accepted reality of Singapore society since colonial days is so entrenched that it has been essentialised and institutionalised by the state as well as by the people in contemporary Singapore. The terms ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ are used interchangeably and synonymously in daily usage, though “race” is preferred by political leaders, academics and the population at large. I will argue that with ‘race’ as the reference point ethnic communities that migrated from China,

From colonial segregation to postcolonial 'integration' - constructing ethnic difference through Singapore's Little India and the Singapore 'Indian'

Since it came to power over 40 years ago, Singapore's governing party is generally considered to have achieved not only remarkable economic growth, but also to have created a high degree of social and political stability in circumstances which seemed conducive to neither in the earlier stages of Singapore's development. These circumstances included an ethnically diverse population perceived as prone to violence and therefore a significant threat to the very survival of the nation. The article demonstrates that the government's approach to the management of ethnicity has resulted not only in the depoliticization of ethnicity, but the depoliticization of virtually all aspects of government. Thus Singapore does not have a ‘political culture’ so much as an ‘apolitical culture’ in which there is almost no legitimate space for political opposition. To accept this as a model for ethnic management is to endorse the notion that ethnic relations are not only inherently conflictual, but that they cannot be managed v...

Peter A. Busch

Papers

Legitimacy and ethnicity;: A case study of Singapore