Michael D Barr
Biographic Data
| ID | 1267640 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael D Barr |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael D |
| FAMILY NAME | Barr |
| SIGNATURE | BARR M D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Flinders University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 107 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Reimagining Singapore’s history
A History of the People's Action Party
Reviewed by: A History of the People's Action Party: 1985–2021 by Shashi Jayakumar Michael D. Barr A History of the People's Action Party: 1985–2021. By Shashi Jayakumar. Singapore: NUS Press, 2021, 782 pp. ISBN: 978-981-325-128-1 Commissioned institutional histories are generally gentle in their interrogation of their subject matter, but they sometimes offer new and hitherto confidential data that compensate for analytical shyness. Shashi Jayaku…
Authoritarian Modernism in East Asia
For a decade or so the study of authoritarianism has been undergoing a major renaissance as the optimism of the old “modernisation theory” has continued its undignified retreat. The field has becom
Chua Beng Huat. Liberalism Disavowed
Singapore
Singapore gained independence in 1965, a city-state in a world of nation-states. Yet its long and complex history reaches much farther back. Blending modernity and tradition, ideologies and ethnicities, a peculiar set of factors make Singapore what it is today. In this thematic study of the island nation, Michael D. Barr proposes a new approach to understand this development. From the pre-colonial period through to the modern day, he traces the i…
The Limits of Authoritarian Governance in Singapore’s Developmental State
Living with myths in Singapore, edited by Loh Kah Seng, Thum Ping Tjin, & Jack Meng-Tat Chia; 1987
Education, culture and the Singapore developmental state
Education, culture and the Singapore developmental state: “world-soul” lost and regained?." Asian Studies Review, 40(3), pp. 469–470
The Lees of Singapore
It is no secret that a dynasty has emerged as the ruling force in Singapore. The Lee family (of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong) is referred to as ‘the first family’ as a matter of routine in private conversation, though not usually in public. Power has already passed from father to son and now there is a generation of high-flying grandsons in the wings. This article traces the establishment and conso…
Ordinary Singapore
For decades Singapore's ruling elite has sought to legitimate its rule by claiming to be a talented and competent elite that has made Singapore an exception among its neighbours – an exemplar of success and progress in a sea of mediocrity. In this article it is contended that this basis of legitimation has been irreversibly damaged. In essence, it is suggested that the governing People's Action Party has lost control of the national narrative, an…
The Ruling Elite of Singapore
Michael Barr explores the complex and covert networks of power at work in one of the world's most prosperous countries – the city-state of Singapore. He argues that the contemporary networks of power are a deliberate project initiated and managed by Lee Kuan Yew – former prime minister and Singapore's 'founding father' – designed to empower himself and his family. Barr identifies the crucial institutions of power - including the country's soverei…
The bonsai under the banyan tree
In 2011 Singapore held its parliamentary general election. The ballot was not rigged and no candidates suffered physical intimidation, but there was no doubt that the government would be returned with an overwhelming majority and no one pretends that the opposition was given a fair chance. The regime has built a rationale and an infrastructure that legitimizes and perpetuates itself, and makes it difficult for an opposition to do more than surviv…
Cultural Politics and Asian Values
Cultural Politics and Asian Values looks at the political, cultural and religious background of East and Southeast Asian societies and those of 'the West', with a view to seeing how they are affecting contemporary national and international politics: democratization, the international human rights discourse, NGOs and globalization.The book surveys the political history and pre-history of the 'Asian values' debate, taking it up to the era of Megaw…
Religious nationalism and nation-building in Asia
The Islamisation of Malaysia
The relationship between religious, ethnic and national identities in Malaysia has long been fraught with uncomfortable tensions-especially for the 50 percent of Malaysians who are outside the dominant Malay-Muslim communal grouping. Until the accession of Dr Mahathir to the prime ministership at the beginning of the 1980s, it was clear that ethnic identity trumped religious identity, even though being Muslim was already intrinsic to being accept…
Singapore
Being a tiny, easily managed polity run by Western-educated technocrats, Singapore is an ideal laboratory for those who believe that there is a "logical" answer to the problem of health-care funding in economically advanced societies. Certainly the ruling elite in this not-very-democratic country is convinced that Singapore is the epitome of a rational, technocratic state in which rule is based on supposedly impartial, objective criteria. The gov…
Assimilation as multiracialism
The myths of meritocracy and multiracialism ‘explain’ between them both the ‘fairness’ of the Singapore system and the subordinate role of the non-Chinese minority races. They also purport to assure the minorities that they enjoy full status as members of the nation-building project and that their cultural and religious mores are embraced and protected within its framework. Using the Malay minority as its case study, and arguing from archival, or…
Cultural Politics and Asian Values
Cultural Politics and Asian Values looks at the political, cultural and religious background of East and Southeast Asian societies and those of 'the West', with a view to seeing how they are affecting contemporary national and international politics: democratization, the international human rights discourse, NGOs and globalisation.The book surveys the political history and pre-history of the 'Asian values' debate, taking it up to the era of Megaw…
J.B. Jeyaretnam
J.B. Jeyaretnam was Singapore's most celebrated opposition leader when his career came to an abrupt end in 2001, but he is better known for the injustices he has suffered at the hands of the People's Action Party regime than for anything he has achieved or said. Bankrupted, imprisoned, deprived of his livelihood and expelled from Parliament twice, he has acquired the aura of martyrdom, yet little is known about his life, his ideas or his motivati…
Cultural Politics and Asian Values
Part 1: Cultural Politics 1. Death of a Debate? 2. A Broad History: From Meiji to 'East Asian Miracle' 3. Narrow Histories: Lee Kuan Yew and Dr Mahathir 4. Confronting China After the End of History 5. Fin de Siecle: 'Democratic Moment', Financial Crisis and Beyond Part 2: Values and Religions 6. Of Liberalism and Other Religions 7. The European Legacy: Christianity and Liberalism 8. Islam: of Shari'a and Adat Calophs and Rajas 9. Buddhism: The P…
Lee Kuan Yew
Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew2. Father of the Nation3. The Challenge of Progress: Hope, Fear and Praxis4. Elitism and the Search for Talent5. Cutlural Revolutions: From Malayanisation to 'Sinicisation'6. Culture, Race and Genes7. Beneath Ideology: The 'Essential' Lee Kuan Yew8. Fear and Fortune: Singapore under te Later Lee9. Faith, Conceit and Achievement: An Undestanding of Lee Kuan Yew Selected Bibliography and Other SourcesIndex
Lee Kuan Yew's Fabian Phase
Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's first Prime Minister and its current Senior Minister, was undoubtedly genuine in his belief in Fabian socialism in his university days, but there has been very little detailed attention paid to the later development and eventual abandonment of his socialist ideas, or his attitude to the welfare state. This article explores the conflicts and paradoxes in Lee's own accounts of his early socialism and argues that Lee never …
Trade Unions in an Elitist Society
In the Singapore model of industrial relations, the trade unions are said to be in a “special relationship” with the government. On the surface this special relationship looks suspiciously like the government exercises straightforward top‐down corporatist control. This paper argues that despite being basically correct, such an understanding is overly simplistic because it ignores modest, but nevertheless real elements of inclusion. The paper focu…
Lee Kuan Yew
Three women were brought to the Singapore General Hospital, each in the same condition and each needing a blood transfusion. The first, a Southeast Asian was given the transfusion but died a few hours later. The second, a South Asian was also given a transfusion but died a few days later. The third, an East Asian, was given a transfusion and survived. That is the X factor in development. Lee Kuan Yew at the University of Singapore, 27 December 19…
Lee Kuan Yew in Malaysia
(1997). Lee Kuan Yew in Malaysia: a reappraisal of Lee Kuan Yew's role in the separation of Singapore from Malaysia. Asian Studies Review: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 1-17
The Islamisation of Malaysia
The relationship between religious, ethnic and national identities in Malaysia has long been fraught with uncomfortable tensions-especially for the 50 percent of Malaysians who are outside the dominant Malay-Muslim communal grouping. Until the accession of Dr Mahathir to the prime ministership at the beginning of the 1980s, it was clear that ethnic identity trumped religious identity, even though being Muslim was already intrinsic to being accept…
Ordinary Singapore
For decades Singapore's ruling elite has sought to legitimate its rule by claiming to be a talented and competent elite that has made Singapore an exception among its neighbours – an exemplar of success and progress in a sea of mediocrity. In this article it is contended that this basis of legitimation has been irreversibly damaged. In essence, it is suggested that the governing People's Action Party has lost control of the national narrative, an…
Lee Kuan Yew
Three women were brought to the Singapore General Hospital, each in the same condition and each needing a blood transfusion. The first, a Southeast Asian was given the transfusion but died a few hours later. The second, a South Asian was also given a transfusion but died a few days later. The third, an East Asian, was given a transfusion and survived. That is the X factor in development. Lee Kuan Yew at the University of Singapore, 27 December 19…
Assimilation as multiracialism
The myths of meritocracy and multiracialism ‘explain’ between them both the ‘fairness’ of the Singapore system and the subordinate role of the non-Chinese minority races. They also purport to assure the minorities that they enjoy full status as members of the nation-building project and that their cultural and religious mores are embraced and protected within its framework. Using the Malay minority as its case study, and arguing from archival, or…
The bonsai under the banyan tree
In 2011 Singapore held its parliamentary general election. The ballot was not rigged and no candidates suffered physical intimidation, but there was no doubt that the government would be returned with an overwhelming majority and no one pretends that the opposition was given a fair chance. The regime has built a rationale and an infrastructure that legitimizes and perpetuates itself, and makes it difficult for an opposition to do more than surviv…
Singapore
Being a tiny, easily managed polity run by Western-educated technocrats, Singapore is an ideal laboratory for those who believe that there is a "logical" answer to the problem of health-care funding in economically advanced societies. Certainly the ruling elite in this not-very-democratic country is convinced that Singapore is the epitome of a rational, technocratic state in which rule is based on supposedly impartial, objective criteria. The gov…
Lee Kuan Yew in Malaysia
(1997). Lee Kuan Yew in Malaysia: a reappraisal of Lee Kuan Yew's role in the separation of Singapore from Malaysia. Asian Studies Review: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 1-17
Authoritarian Modernism in East Asia
For a decade or so the study of authoritarianism has been undergoing a major renaissance as the optimism of the old “modernisation theory” has continued its undignified retreat. The field has becom
Religious nationalism and nation-building in Asia
Lee Kuan Yew in Malaysia
(1997). Lee Kuan Yew in Malaysia: a reappraisal of Lee Kuan Yew's role in the separation of Singapore from Malaysia. Asian Studies Review: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 1-17
Lee Kuan Yew
Three women were brought to the Singapore General Hospital, each in the same condition and each needing a blood transfusion. The first, a Southeast Asian was given the transfusion but died a few hours later. The second, a South Asian was also given a transfusion but died a few days later. The third, an East Asian, was given a transfusion and survived. That is the X factor in development. Lee Kuan Yew at the University of Singapore, 27 December 19…
Lee Kuan Yew's Fabian Phase
Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's first Prime Minister and its current Senior Minister, was undoubtedly genuine in his belief in Fabian socialism in his university days, but there has been very little detailed attention paid to the later development and eventual abandonment of his socialist ideas, or his attitude to the welfare state. This article explores the conflicts and paradoxes in Lee's own accounts of his early socialism and argues that Lee never …
Trade Unions in an Elitist Society
In the Singapore model of industrial relations, the trade unions are said to be in a “special relationship” with the government. On the surface this special relationship looks suspiciously like the government exercises straightforward top‐down corporatist control. This paper argues that despite being basically correct, such an understanding is overly simplistic because it ignores modest, but nevertheless real elements of inclusion. The paper focu…
Cultural Politics and Asian Values
Part 1: Cultural Politics 1. Death of a Debate? 2. A Broad History: From Meiji to 'East Asian Miracle' 3. Narrow Histories: Lee Kuan Yew and Dr Mahathir 4. Confronting China After the End of History 5. Fin de Siecle: 'Democratic Moment', Financial Crisis and Beyond Part 2: Values and Religions 6. Of Liberalism and Other Religions 7. The European Legacy: Christianity and Liberalism 8. Islam: of Shari'a and Adat Calophs and Rajas 9. Buddhism: The P…
Lee Kuan Yew
Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew2. Father of the Nation3. The Challenge of Progress: Hope, Fear and Praxis4. Elitism and the Search for Talent5. Cutlural Revolutions: From Malayanisation to 'Sinicisation'6. Culture, Race and Genes7. Beneath Ideology: The 'Essential' Lee Kuan Yew8. Fear and Fortune: Singapore under te Later Lee9. Faith, Conceit and Achievement: An Undestanding of Lee Kuan Yew Selected Bibliography and Other SourcesIndex
Cultural Politics and Asian Values
Cultural Politics and Asian Values looks at the political, cultural and religious background of East and Southeast Asian societies and those of 'the West', with a view to seeing how they are affecting contemporary national and international politics: democratization, the international human rights discourse, NGOs and globalisation.The book surveys the political history and pre-history of the 'Asian values' debate, taking it up to the era of Megaw…
J.B. Jeyaretnam
J.B. Jeyaretnam was Singapore's most celebrated opposition leader when his career came to an abrupt end in 2001, but he is better known for the injustices he has suffered at the hands of the People's Action Party regime than for anything he has achieved or said. Bankrupted, imprisoned, deprived of his livelihood and expelled from Parliament twice, he has acquired the aura of martyrdom, yet little is known about his life, his ideas or his motivati…
Assimilation as multiracialism
The myths of meritocracy and multiracialism ‘explain’ between them both the ‘fairness’ of the Singapore system and the subordinate role of the non-Chinese minority races. They also purport to assure the minorities that they enjoy full status as members of the nation-building project and that their cultural and religious mores are embraced and protected within its framework. Using the Malay minority as its case study, and arguing from archival, or…
Singapore
Being a tiny, easily managed polity run by Western-educated technocrats, Singapore is an ideal laboratory for those who believe that there is a "logical" answer to the problem of health-care funding in economically advanced societies. Certainly the ruling elite in this not-very-democratic country is convinced that Singapore is the epitome of a rational, technocratic state in which rule is based on supposedly impartial, objective criteria. The gov…
Religious nationalism and nation-building in Asia
The Islamisation of Malaysia
The relationship between religious, ethnic and national identities in Malaysia has long been fraught with uncomfortable tensions-especially for the 50 percent of Malaysians who are outside the dominant Malay-Muslim communal grouping. Until the accession of Dr Mahathir to the prime ministership at the beginning of the 1980s, it was clear that ethnic identity trumped religious identity, even though being Muslim was already intrinsic to being accept…
Cultural Politics and Asian Values
Cultural Politics and Asian Values looks at the political, cultural and religious background of East and Southeast Asian societies and those of 'the West', with a view to seeing how they are affecting contemporary national and international politics: democratization, the international human rights discourse, NGOs and globalization.The book surveys the political history and pre-history of the 'Asian values' debate, taking it up to the era of Megaw…
The Ruling Elite of Singapore
Michael Barr explores the complex and covert networks of power at work in one of the world's most prosperous countries – the city-state of Singapore. He argues that the contemporary networks of power are a deliberate project initiated and managed by Lee Kuan Yew – former prime minister and Singapore's 'founding father' – designed to empower himself and his family. Barr identifies the crucial institutions of power - including the country's soverei…
The bonsai under the banyan tree
In 2011 Singapore held its parliamentary general election. The ballot was not rigged and no candidates suffered physical intimidation, but there was no doubt that the government would be returned with an overwhelming majority and no one pretends that the opposition was given a fair chance. The regime has built a rationale and an infrastructure that legitimizes and perpetuates itself, and makes it difficult for an opposition to do more than surviv…
Education, culture and the Singapore developmental state
Education, culture and the Singapore developmental state: “world-soul” lost and regained?." Asian Studies Review, 40(3), pp. 469–470
The Lees of Singapore
It is no secret that a dynasty has emerged as the ruling force in Singapore. The Lee family (of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong) is referred to as ‘the first family’ as a matter of routine in private conversation, though not usually in public. Power has already passed from father to son and now there is a generation of high-flying grandsons in the wings. This article traces the establishment and conso…
Ordinary Singapore
For decades Singapore's ruling elite has sought to legitimate its rule by claiming to be a talented and competent elite that has made Singapore an exception among its neighbours – an exemplar of success and progress in a sea of mediocrity. In this article it is contended that this basis of legitimation has been irreversibly damaged. In essence, it is suggested that the governing People's Action Party has lost control of the national narrative, an…
Living with myths in Singapore, edited by Loh Kah Seng, Thum Ping Tjin, & Jack Meng-Tat Chia; 1987
Chua Beng Huat. Liberalism Disavowed
Singapore
Singapore gained independence in 1965, a city-state in a world of nation-states. Yet its long and complex history reaches much farther back. Blending modernity and tradition, ideologies and ethnicities, a peculiar set of factors make Singapore what it is today. In this thematic study of the island nation, Michael D. Barr proposes a new approach to understand this development. From the pre-colonial period through to the modern day, he traces the i…
The Limits of Authoritarian Governance in Singapore’s Developmental State
Authoritarian Modernism in East Asia
For a decade or so the study of authoritarianism has been undergoing a major renaissance as the optimism of the old “modernisation theory” has continued its undignified retreat. The field has becom
A History of the People's Action Party
Reviewed by: A History of the People's Action Party: 1985–2021 by Shashi Jayakumar Michael D. Barr A History of the People's Action Party: 1985–2021. By Shashi Jayakumar. Singapore: NUS Press, 2021, 782 pp. ISBN: 978-981-325-128-1 Commissioned institutional histories are generally gentle in their interrogation of their subject matter, but they sometimes offer new and hitherto confidential data that compensate for analytical shyness. Shashi Jayaku…
Reimagining Singapore’s history
Political science (19 works) · Socioeconomic Development in Asia (18 works) · Law (17 works) · Asian Studies and History (16 works) · Politics (16 works) · Sociology (16 works) · History (9 works) · Political economy (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Democracy (6 works)