Liberalism Disavowed: Communitarianism and State Capitalism in Singapore - Softcover

Chua, Beng Huat

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1501713442 ISBN 13: 9781501713446

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2017

Synopsis

In Liberalism Disavowed, Beng Huat Chua examines the rejection of Western-style liberalism in Singapore since the nation’s expulsion from Malaysia and formal independence as a republic in 1965. The People’s Action Party, which has ruled Singapore since 1959, has forged an independent non-Western ideology that is evident in various government policies that Chua analyzes, among them multiracialism, public housing, and widespread social distributions to the citizenry.

Singapore is prosperous and peaceful, it’s highly advanced on various metrics of economic development, it has a great deal of regional influence, it is home to sophisticated industries and a large financial service sector, and it features what are by Western standards unusually low levels of social inequality. Paradoxically, however, it is no beacon of political liberalism. Chua sets forth ample evidence that the dominance of the People’s Action Party is based on a combination of economic success and media control, limits on public protests, libel suits against political opponents, and severely curtailed civil liberties.

About this title

About the Author:

Beng Huat Chua holds the Provost Chair in the Department of Sociology at the National University of Singapore and directs the Cultural Studies in Asia program at the NUS Asia Research Institute. He is the author of Structure, Audience and Soft Power in East Asian Pop Culture, Life Is Not Complete without Shopping: Consumption Culture in Singapore, Political Legitimacy and Housing: Singapore’s Stakeholder Society, and Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore.

Review:

"Liberalism Disavowed is an important book. It's the best discussion of the history and significance of Singapore?s distinctive political economy. Beng Huat Chua?s argument is theoretically rich, well supported with ample sources, and benefits from an insider?s perspective. He persuasively argues that the People?s Action Party has maintained, even reinforced, its left social democratic orientation over the past fifty years, in contrast to the mainstream view that it has abandoned its socialist roots in its quest for capitalist success in a globalized world."

(Daniel A. Bell, Shandong University and Tsinghua University, author of The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy)

About this edition

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1501713442
• ISBN 13: 9781501713446
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 234