Authoritarianism Or Elite Democracy: Political Development In Singapore

Singapore’s integrity and economic development process are of great attentionand the developing reasons are deeply in controversy. Singapore becameindependence in1965and then achieved modernization after thirty years. She finallybecomes the most advanced and industrialized country in Southeast Asia. Politiciansand academics tend to talk about the reasons that hidden deeply in economicdevelopment and the unique developing mode. In the research process, some scholarshave concluded that Singapore is an authoritarian country and its developing model,ideas and developing speed are influenced by authoritarianism. The reasons they giveare that Singapore owns one-party system, Lee Kuan Yew’s personal huge role, anddeep-rooted Confucian traditional culture. They believe that since Singapore’s modeldoes not conform to the standards of western democracy, and of course it should beclassified to authoritarianism. At the same time, there is a different voice, whichmeans that Singapore belongs to a democratic country. This kind of democracy isdifferent from the west. Singapore has a long-term ruling party, but not a one-partystate. She is affected by Lee Kuan Yew huge personal role. He is not an arbitraryleader but the representative of the elite. Singapore’s economic development, theformation of multiple dynamic governance and the increase in the number ofmiddle-income groups make people participate in political activities. At the same time,the traditional Confucian culture, exp. the communitarianism, also ensures thatfreedom is not unlimited in Singapore. Singapore’s competition is not unlimited, but a"limited competition","limited democracy" or you can call it a "manageddemocracy".This paper applies the methodology of historical institutionalism in Singapore’spolitical development model, and introduces four variables, namely the externalpressure, internal conflict, ideas guiding and elite’s role. I think any country’s politicaldevelopment model or the choice of path in essence is the process of the formationand change of a system. The key factors of its development towards authoritariandemocracy are the pressures coming from the external environment, internal conflicts,and new concept introduced and elite. The development of Singapore has its ownparticularity, which is neither a traditional authoritarian country nor a democraticcountry in line with the path of western democracies. Singapore’s politicaldevelopment model integrates closely with its geographical location, historical tradition and national culture. It was influenced under the pressure of the Britishcolonial rule and the urge to be forced out of the federation of Malaysia, the innerpower in transformation of economic development, the concept of rule of law fromwest, the east benevolence tradition and the elite such as People’s Action Party. I thinkthat Singapore is not an authoritarian country but an elite democratic one. Firstly, inacademics, it usually put absolutely totalitarianism, totalitarian and authoritarian inthe circle of undemocratic countries and put direct democracy and representativedemocracy and limited democracy in democratic nations while dividing thedemocracy and un-democracy. This is also a widespread way of dividing in politics.While Singapore owns limited democracy, the operation of the power from top tobottom and from the bottom up, in addition the people have other ways toparticipating in politics besides the party channel, so Singapore can’t be divided intothe authoritarian country. Secondly, in Singapore, the relationship between the eliteand the public is open and dynamic. There are elite internal flow, the external flow ofelite, which means flow between the elite and the public. People could become elitethrough reasonable ways. Thirdly, in Singapore, the relationship between elite andmass is a kind of interests. The elites represent the interests of the public to makedecisions so the interests of the public can be timely and effectively feedback andresponse. And in authoritarian countries, the relationship between elite and the publicis often a interest instead of the other. The elites completely take the place of thepublic interest and their appeal. Above all, we cannot exam Singapore’s politicaldevelopment according to the standards of western democracy. A reasonablejudgment should consider the unique development history of Singapore, the advanced-backward binary development environment and strong country-strong domestic dualstructure of social reality. By comprehensive analysis Singapore belongs to the elitedemocracy. The "limited democracy" and "managed democracy" in essence bothbelong to elite democracy, namely by a democratic way people pick out the best eliteto rule.This paper first compares the authoritarianism and elite democracy. There are a lotof similarities between each other, but also have the obvious differences, such as theessential difference between democracy and un-democracy, the difference betweenthe elite mobility and closed elite, the difference between the elite and public interestsin representatives and replace. The biggest difference lies in whether the authoritativeelites are under a democratic system’s restriction, supervision and protection. Then the paper takes a typical authoritarian country, South Korea (1960-1979) as anexample to point out the inevitability of transformation from democratic politicalauthoritarianism to elite. Secondly, by using the methodology of historicalinstitutionalism, the paper examines the Singapore’s four factors in the process ofpolitical development. Under the interaction of these four variables, Singapore hasformed a democratic political structure, which suits its own reality. Then, in theperspective of historical institutionalism, this paper investigates the Singapore’sdemocratic political structure, mainly the system, and the rule of law, politicalbehavior body, beliefs and values. Among them, the system mainly examines theSingapore congress and the party system, the legal system mainly focuses on theformation of the Singapore legal system, the political behavior body mainly includespolitical parties and other social organizations, and the beliefs and values refer to theelite education. Finally, the paper evaluates Singapore’s elite democracy and thenmakes some predictions. I think that Singapore’s elite democracy is sustainable,because it has already formed a good system, formed appropriate cultural soil andcultivated the new generation of leaders and citizens of more and more rational. At thesame time, in the post-Lee Kuan yew era, namely the Goh Chok Tong and Lee HsienLoong, Singapore’s elite democracy will not be fundamentally changed according tothe path dependence theory of historical institutionalism. Singapore’s elite democracyhas its own particularity, but it could also show the world her success that democracyis not only a pattern and the standard of western democracy is not a universal standard.Singapore’s elite democracy affected by the Confucian culture could both fully reflectand represent the interests of the overwhelming majority of people and form a perfectrestriction and error correction mechanism. Singapore’s elite democracy deservesfurther attention.Through the analysis on the theory and the mode of Singapore’s politicaldevelopment, including its political structure and the causes, I can conclude that thepolitical development of Singapore is elite democracy, rather than authoritarian. Theconclusion of this thesis is intended to explore a different model of democracy fromwestern standard. It means that democracy should base on the realization of thewishes of the majority, and that when it doesn’t meet the majority’s will, we canresort to an error correction mechanism to safeguard the interests of the majority. Thisis the essence of democracy.