Governing as gardening

Reflections on soft authoritarianism in Singapore

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4525263
AutoresKamaludeen Mohamed Nasir (0000-0002-9877-3225, Nanyang Technological University, autor de correspondencia), B Turner (0000-0001-6378-7144, The Graduate Center, CUNY), Bryan S Turner
Año2013
Volumen17
Número3-4
Páginas339-352
Fecha de publicación2013-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaCitizenship Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1362-1025 • E-ISSN: 1469-3593
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13621025.2012.707005
OpenAlexW2014076897
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas22
Referencias citadas28

The idea of ‘soft authoritarianism’, as a general description of many Asian societies, can be defined as a political system in which there are minimal components of democracy such as elections and political parties but, as a consequence of rapid modernisation, state control of the economy and an emphasis on export-driven growth, basic social and political rights are often compromised. Typically, these states govern in the name of constitutionalism but often use the law to suppress political activity on the part of citizens. These societies have often replaced the rule of law with neo-Confucian rule of virtue in which the duties of the citizen to the state are more important than the responsibilities of the state towards the citizen. In these authoritarian polities, the state constructs an educational system to discipline the electorate rather than to create an informed citizenry, simply because there is low trust between leaders and electorate. The duty of the passive citizen is merely to consent to the legitimacy of the regime; the duty of the state is to provide security by weeding out citizens who are troublesome. We argue that Singapore has, until the recent election in 2011, been the classic illustration of soft authoritarianism, but we conclude by asking whether Singapore is moving from governance based on a gardening metaphor of weeding out bad influences to a more mature and open democracy

Authoritarianism · Corporate governance · Democracy · Duty · Economics · Law and economics · Legitimacy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Rule of law · Sociology · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Asian Studies and History · Law · Socioeconomic Development in Asia