Following are extracts from: David Brown (1994), "Ethnicity and Corporatism in Singapore", The State and Ethnic Politics in Southeast Asia, London: Routledge, pp 78-106. Apparently at least half the level was flummoxed by the article.

Getting to read articles like this (there's another one on Civil Society) is one reason why everyone should take SC1101E - Making Sense of Society (the introductory Sociology module)!


"Corporatism refers to attempts by an avowedly autonomous state elite to organize the diverse interest associations in society so that their interests can be accommodated within the interdependent and organic national community. It points to: 'The ideal of a harmonious, well-regulated, nonconflictive society, based on moral principles and well-defined norms which are issued and maintained by the public authority, the state... There should be some intragroup autonomy and self-regulation, but the very existence of groups and their relationships with each other are granted and regulated by the state... It is the state that legitimates and enfranchises group and individual participation in public affairs... This is exactly the opposite of the... Western European tradition, in which society and its groups legitimate the power of the state.'"

"Military regimes... in which the state machinery was highly institutionalized, centralized and monopolistic, and in which the masses were deprived of opportunities for autonomous political participation. In some cases, limited political participation was restored by these bureaucratic-authoritarian states, but the form and content of such participation was restricted to ensure that it posed no threat to the stability, unity and economic development of the system."

"Corporatism constitutes a strategy which has been employed in states facing crises of both early and late industrialization, but its emergence in Third World states has tended to be sparked off particularly by the need to curtail populist participation when new economic policies demand sacrifices from the emergent working class. The restriction of mass participation initially enables the technocratic elite to concentrate on the administration of economic development. But if they are to get the active co-operation of the masses in economic restructuring, then the elite must move towards reliance, not on coercive or authoritarian domination, but rather on rebuilding a co-operative partnership between state and society, initially by employing strategies of economic tripartism which institutionalize state-supervised co-operation between state, management and workers' unions. In promoting such institutions for corporatist participation, the state elite seeks to attain both legitimacy and control."


"The Singaporean 'middle class' does not conform to the 'liberal' model of professionals who, because of their wealth, skills and predominantly private-sector occupations, are economically independent of the state, and therefore also politically independent. Thus the percentage of the educated elite employed by the state remains remarkably high, averaging about 40 per cent, and the combination of a stress on deference (promoted as an 'Asian value') and of material prosperity, has produced a 'depoliticized culture' which is not conducive to the spread of ideas of individual or group liberty rights against the state. Thus Ho Wing Meng has argued that:

'Propserity and material well-being... have given rise to... the growing cult of materialism, and with it, the related phenomena of cupidity, philistinism, political apathy, alienation and, for many people, a sense of spiritual deprivation. For most Singaporeans, this cult of materialism takes the form of an obsessive preoccupation with the pursuit and acquisition of pecuniary and material gains and the honorific display of wealth.'


"Corporatism is also inhibited by the impact which the anti-corporatist values of western liberal-democracies have had on Singaporean society, which ensure that government leaders, even while pursuing policies with corporatist implications, continue to legitimate them in part by acknowledging liberal and pluralist ideals; hence the cryptic and illusory quality of much of the language and practice of Singaporean politics."

"In the case of Singapore, the corporatist tendency has extended to incorporate the ethnic dimension to such an extent that the state elites have developed a marked predisposition to depict and to organize Singaporean society along primarily ethnic lines, even for the discussion of economic, political and social issues which do not relate directly to the ethnic realm of linguistic, religious or racial matters."

[On the shift from the 'Ethnic Mosaic' policy of the 1960s to Meritocracy in the 1970s] "The aim was to change ethnicity from being a problem in the way of national integration, towards making it a resource conducive to both unity and development... The state promoted national unity by fostering a 'garrison mentality' in which the potentially destabilizing and subversive implications of ethnic loyalties were stressed."

"The portrayal of Singapore as a meritocracy implied the adoption of an ethnically neutral portrayal of the Singaporean national identity, but it had the additional function of legitimating the government's strategy of discouraging political participation. The meritocratic argument asserted that there was equality of opportunity in the hierarchically organized and highly competitive society, and that the resultant socio-economic inequalities were the just and fair outcome of universalistic procedures. In terms of politics and power, the implication was that those who attained political elite positions did so because they had the most merit and were best fitted for government by their expertise. It followed that the job of government should be left to these experts, while the ordinary people pursued the non-political occupations for which their own levels or forms of merit best suited them."

"The PAP government sought to inculcate what has been termed a 'spectator' political culture into the populace. The aim was: 'to create a nonideological [national] identity, or if this seems to be a contradiction in terms, an identity through an 'ideology of pragmatism'. Discussion of basic questions of political philosophy and ideology, even political discussion in general, was severely curbed until it flowed at a low ebb out of public purview.'"

"Singaporean society is complex in its ethnic diversity (with, for example, at least forty-two dialect/language groups) but the government sought, with increasing intensity during the 1970s, to promote the image of an 'official four race model' of society. The diverse cultures of each racial group were 're-created' into four cultural compartments, portrayed as internally homogeneous and mutually distinctive. Thus, for example, Malay and English-speaking Baba Chinese were educated in their 'mother-tongue' which, according to government ideology, is Mandarin."

"'Singapore's Multiracialism puts Chinese people under pressure to become more Chinese, Indians more Indian, and Malays more Malay, in their behavior.'"

"The main response of the government to these problems [of dramatizing its argument that loyalty to nation constituted a morally absolute commitment] has been to promote repeatedly the 'garrison mentality'; to publicize the various dangers and threats facing Singapore which make the defensive unity of the whole community imperative to the country's very existence. It is this siege view of politics which lies behind the idea, promoted by the government after 1965, that Singapore's national ideology was the 'ideology of survival'."

"National unity has also been promoted by the state's articulation of another more general threat, that of 'westernization'. During the 1970s, the Singapore government sought to promote the universalistic and pragmatic values associated with the adoption of western technology, but at the same time sought to prevent Singaporean society from becoming 'de-ethnicized' by being assimilated into what Lee Kuan Yew has disparagingly termed a 'pseudo-western' cultural community. In particular, it was convenient to see social problems such as youth alienation and drug abuse as arising not because of tensions inherent in Singapore's social development, but as being imported by 'infections' from the West. The need to protect and guard Singapore against such 'contamination' from the West thus became a legitimatory rallying cry which was employed by the state throughout the 1970s. Increasingly, the West came to be depicted as the source of social degeneracy and political instability."

"Singaporeans have thus been repeatedly reminded of the ethnic tensions of the 1960s in order to maintain a garrison mentality, and the PAP leaders have frequently employed the spectre of ethnic unrest to combine calls for national unity with the mobilization of support for the PAP. They have depicted opposition politicians as 'playing up communal issues which could tear the Republic apart', and have then equated support for the PAP with the safeguarding of Singapore's future"

[On the 1980s] "The government launched a campaign of TV and cinema advertisements to urge the civic virtue of the co-operative community. Singapore was deluged with songs and slogans such as 'Count on me, Singapore' and 'This is my Home'.

"The identity of the nation and of the PAP continued to be portrayed in morally absolutist terms. Goh Chok Tong, then Deputy Prime Minister, stated this explicitly in April 1989, when he asserted that politics is 'a perpetual struggle between good and bad forces... The good can continue to win decisively if Singaporeans continue to elect their Government and MPs responsibly. The 'forces of good' were presumed to be embodied in the PAP."

"The government has promoted the acceptance among the Malays of the 'Malay cultural-weakness orthodoxy', whereby the Malays are persuaded to see their own internal cultural attributes as responsible for their socio-economic problems, instead of blaming the Chinese or the government. It is the lack of achievement motivation, or the rural orientation of Malays, which is, in this view, the cause of their 'predicament'. Such a view has been promoted, not just through repeated government speeches, but also through the formation in 1982 of Mendaki, (the Council for the Education of Muslim Children), which was established to 'reform Malay attitudes and values'."

"The role of Confucianism in society similarly became a focus for debate. Many Chinese still regarded Confucianism as incompatible both with modernization and with democracy, and the public discussions on this facilitated the government's assertion of the opposite view. The government's argument that a Confucianist route towards development was suitable for Singapore was promoted by the formation of the Institution of East Asian Philosophies, which hosted prestigious international conferences on 'Confucianist Modernization'."

"The state has thus sought to change ethnic consciousness from an all-embracing racial affiliation into a compartmentalized distinction between ethnicity as a politically disruptive loyalty, ethnicity as a component cultural basis for national identity, and ethnicity as a legitimate interest association."

"Government leaders have repeatedly argued that their intention is to achieve a more consultative form of government, and to accommodate political opposition and critical comments. At the same time, however, they have stressed that there must remain limits to such participation. Political comments should not be made by organizations not registered as political parties; participation will only be allowed if the government believes it to be 'constructive' and conducive to the building of consensus, and the views which are aired should not be partial, articulating sectional 'vested' interests, but must be motivated by concern for the common good. The tension between the two themes is clear, and one result is simply that there exists a degree of confusion about the direction of Singapore's politics."

"In the GRC scheme, voting on ethnic lines, which had previously been condemned by government as 'dangerous communalism', appeared to be suddenly promoted by government as the legitimate articulation of ethnic interests."

"If ethnic consciousness refers, essentially, to a kinship myth in which the ethnic community provides the sense of security to the individual which the family offers to the infant, then it would seem likely that the attempt to unravel such a myth, by dividing it into loyalty, identity and interest compartments, runs the risk of robbing ethnicity of its intrinsic power and appeal, so that it becomes eventually a new source of anxiety and confusion rather than a source of security."


This article was not written by, nor was it given to me by, the infamous Professor Ch** B*ng H**t (vowels replaced with asterisks to throw off search engines, so I am not disturbed by searches for p*rn, or worse, involving him.)

[Addendum: Even when I put a note saying it's not written or given by Ch** B*ng H**t, people think that it was. Is his reputation that bad?!]