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13. Remaking Singapore, 1990–2004: From Disciplinarian Development to Bureaucratic Proxy Democracy
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345 13 RemakingSingapore,1990–2004: FromDisciplinarianDevelopmentto BureaucraticProxyDemocracy KarlHack C H A P T E R 1990 and 2004: these two dates precisely demarcate Goh Chok Tong’s timeasPrimeMinisterofSingapore—fromLeeKuanYew’sretirement to become Senior Minister in 1990 to Lee’s son, Lee Hsien Loong, becomingPrimeMinisteron12August2004.Butthesedatesdemarcate somethingmoreimportantthanthemerepassingoftimeandpersonalities. Within this period, Singapore’s politics, economy and education underwent important changes. Taken as a whole, these constituted a transit from“disciplinarian development” towards a new, if not entirely original form: that of bureaucratic proxy democracy.This latter is neither merely authoritarian in its approach to the general population, nor genuinely “democratic”. Instead, it aims to provide a “proxy” for democracy, the purpose of which is not merely to maintain power, but by deepening andbroadeninginputsfromindividuals,groupsandcivilsocietyintothe planning process — to optimise the planning, and the realisation and developmentof,the“nation”. We can get a general sense of how profound the changes between these two dates were, if we start by freezing history in 1990 and 2004, 13SS21c.indd345 8/30/109:43:25AM 346 KarlHack and asking for each: what was the situation in Singapore?What sort of societyandeconomydidthecity-statepossessatthatparticularmoment intime? BookendstoaPeriod:1990and2004 The situation at the beginning of this period can be illustrated by two seminalpublictexts,abookfrom1989,andaspeechfrom1990. Thebookpublishedin1989wasthesecondeditionofwhatisnow the most-cited history of Singapore to date, and almost certainly for a long time to come: C.M.Turnbull’s A History of Singapore, 1819–1988.1 Its concluding chapter noted the dawn of a new era, in which a better educated generation, in a more stable and prosperous world “began to question restrictions and discipline” which had seemed necessary in the faceofcommunism,separationfromMalaysiain1965,Britishwithdrawal frommilitarybasesfrom1968,andthestruggletocreateareputationasa placeforForeignDirectInvestment(FDI)andmultinationalheadquarters fromthe1970s,soastofundagrowingpopulation,muchofitwithlittle morethanprimaryeducationandthemostbasicofaccommodation.2 According to Turnbull, “consciousness of the recent past weighed perhaps too heavily with the leadership, and particularly Lee Kuan Yew, makinghimover-fearfulforthefutureandtrappedinhisownexperience ofhistory”,atatimewhenSingaporewasnolongerapotentiallyexplosive societyoftransientimmigrantcommunitiesbutanascentnation,andno longer threatened by communism and subversion, but a largely literate society, raised in Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats which racialquotaskeptmixed,andeducatedinnewschoolswhichmixedraces anddrilledmulticulturalandmultiracialtolerance.AccordingtoTurnbull, Singapore thus “still faced the problem of reconciling Western-type democracyandindividualismwithsocialandeconomicdiscipline”. The withdrawal from Parliament in the late 1960s of the Barisan SosialishadleftthefieldopentothePeople’sActionParty(PAP)electoral dominance from 1968–1988, to the extent that the ruling party could guaranteeamajoritybeforemostelections.Inaddition,electoralchanges were introduced after the PAP’s grip lessened slightly in the 1980s (following J.B. Jeyaretnam’s Workers’ Party by-election victory in 1981, and during the brief 1990s flourish of Chee Soon Juan’s Social Democratic Party,withitsDaretoChangethemeofmorefreedomandwelfare).3 These seemedtosupportTurnbull’sthesis,includingastheydidtheintroduction 13SS21c.indd346 8/30/109:43:26AM [3.23.92.53] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 17:41 GMT) RemakingSingapore,1990–2004 347 and increase in Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs), where electors voted for a slate of candidates, thus further reducing the chance ofthehandfulofdeterminedoppositioncandidatesmakinginroads,even iftheydidmanagetoavoidmakingstatementswhichattracteddefamation suits.4 Of course, in as much as Turnbull had identified a real problem —ratherthanjustechoingtheliberalmantrathatmodernisationinevitably createditsowncontradiction,intheformofanincreasinglyeconomically importantandassertivemiddleclass...
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