Hard Choices: Challenging the Singapore Consensus

Preface

PREFACE PREFACE Singapore’s economic success masks some uncomfortable truths about life in this city-state. While per capita GDP has risen astronomically (by some estimates, it is the highest in the world today), Singapore is also one of the most unequal societies among developed economies. Incomes at the bottom are relatively low by rich country standards. Meanwhile for many Singaporeans, the country’s impressive material achievements have not necessarily translated into higher levels of happiness. In various surveys, Singaporeans are found to work some of the longest hours in the developed world, are described as one of the world’s least happy peoples, and more than half indicate they would emigrate if given the chance. And perhaps for the first time in the country’s history, citizens have given political expression to their dissatisfaction. Singapore’s general and presidential elections in 2011 mark a significant turning point in the country’s political history. For many, it heralded the end of dominance by the only party—the People’s Action Party (PAP) —that Singaporeans have elected into office since the country gained selfgovernment in 1959. Although it is still by far the largest party in parliament, the decade-long erosion of popular support for the PAP (it won 75.3 per cent of the vote in the 2001 general election compared with just 60.1 per cent in the 2011 election) suggests that the era of mostly unchallenged political dominance is over. The presidential election of August 2011, in which the PAP’s preferred candidate secured a plurality of just 35.2 per cent of the popular vote in a fourman contest, is further evidence of the party’s weakening grip on the Singapore polity. The by-election defeats in 2012 (Hougang) and 2013 (Punggol East) cemented perceptions of the PAP losing ground ineluctably. More importantly, a number of highly contentious issues, both new and old, have emerged since the 2011 elections. Events in 2013 have provided establishment critics in Singapore with plenty of fodder: the widespread unhappiness over the government’s Population White Paper in January 2013, the adverse reactions to the government’s new rules on online news sites, questions about the sustainability of the country’s growth model and its high reliance on foreign labour, continuing frustration with the public transport system and its frequent breakdowns , and concerns over the government’s tendency to resort to hard-ball measures to deal with political opponents and dissenters. As this book was going to press, a riot on 8 December 2013 reportedly involving 400 foreign workers from South Asia shocked Singaporeans (and foreign observers) and raised deeper questions about the prosperous city-state’s relationship with its large contingent of foreign workers. The PAP has sought to respond to these societal, economic, and political changes. It has mounted a serious effort to change, reform, and even abandon policies that are viewed as a source of public unhappiness . New social spending measures targeted at lower- and middleincome Singaporeans have been emphasised in the government’s recent budget statements. A year-long public consultation exercise (“Our Singapore Conversation”) resulted in a raft of measures in the areas of housing, education, and healthcare announced by the Prime Minister at the National Day Rally in August 2013. These measures, the government contends, mark an important shift in the way the Singapore state shares risks with citizens, and how the government builds an inclusive society. At the same time, the reforms announced since the 2011 elections are noteworthy for what they do not include. Commentators have pointed to the dearth of reforms that would expand the democratic space in Singapore. Some, including contributors to this book, have also argued that the PAP’s old verities of vulnerability, meritocracy, elite governance, economic growth, and technocratic rationalism have remained mostly intact. That the changes announced so far have been entirely in the policy realm also suggests that the PAP remains much more concerned with shoring up its performance legitimacy than with expanding the state’s basis of legitimacy to include the liberal ideas of voice and representation, transparency, and political freedoms. It x has probably assessed that Singaporeans care more about the material benefits of its rule, and that its hold on power still relies on the production of economic benefits for the majority of Singaporeans. While the PAP’s strategy of focussing on material benefits may well be sufficient in slowing or even...