Molly Elgin

Asian Values
A New Model for Development?
This paper explores modernization theory, re-examining the argument that economic
development inevitably leads to democratization. Using Singapore as a case study, the
conditions that allow for the continuance of authoritarianism after economic development is achieved are considered. Analyzing the role of state capacity and mechanisms of
state control, the author argues that institutional, rather than cultural, explanations are
the determining factors in Singapores continued authoritarianism.

[E]conomic freedom is an end in itself. [It] is also

an indispensable means toward the achievement of
political freedom.1
Milton Friedman

Molly Elgin
Stanford University

eral economic policies without democracy. However, even Lee is hesitant to call the Singaporean
experience a model, for it is unclear that Singapores development is replicable elsewhere. In
other places that followed the liberal authoritarian trajectory, such as South Korea and Taiwan,
the ultimate result was a transition to democracy.
It is clear that we need to re-examine these
theories in light of the developments of the late
20th century. With that in mind, I will reconsider the argument that modernization inevitably leads to democratization. In particular, what
conditions allow for the continuance of authoritarianism even after economic development is
achieved? I will look into the case of Singapore
to begin to answer this question and attempt to
elucidate some of the factors influencing regime
type.
Much of the debate on the relationship between regime type and economic development
focuses on the argument of modernization theory, an idea that developed out of the work of
political sociologists such as Emile Durkheim
and Max Weber, but that found its 20th century
voice in scholars such as Daniel Lerner and Seymour Martin Lipset. Lipsets work posited that
political development is a reflection of the social
and economic structure within a state. Though
his work examined a variety of other important
factors, such as enfranchisement and religious institutions, he focused on the effects of economic
development in ensuring stable democracies.
Modernization theory posits that as incomes rise,

ilton Friedmans view of political freedom is common in the United States and
many Western countries. The theory that rising
incomes lead to political liberty is embodied in
the declaration of the United States government
that only nations that share a commitment to
protecting basic human rights and guaranteeing
political and economic freedom will be able to
[] assure their future prosperity.2 Yet, criticisms of the theory that capitalism and democracy are inevitably linked have increased in recent
years. Not least among the critics are government
officials from countries such as China, Vietnam,
and Russia, which, until the recent financial collapse, experienced record growth rates despite
their non-democratic regimes. Do these countries present a new development model with a
diminished role for democracy? Should developing countries look to Singapores experience and
reject modernization theory?
The most prominent alternative is based
upon the Asain values thesis promulgated by
Lee Kuan Yew, the former prime minister of Singapore, to explain how Singapore was able to develop without political liberalization. The Asian
values thesis, as explained by Lee, claims that the
cultural inclination to respect authority and hard
work allows East Asian countries to pursue lib135

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Asian Values

can enact economic and social reform that leads

to political reform once a certain GDP per capita
is reached. Some champions of democracy object
to sequencing theory, arguing that the popular
participation and checks on institutional power
exhibited in democracies helps to promote economic growth. Siegle, Weinstein, and Halperin
present data disproving the sequencing theory,
showing that there is no difference in growth
between poor democracies and poor autocracies
overall. The finding is even more positive towards
democracy if East Asia is eliminated from the
data set; in that case, democracies exhibit a 50%
higher growth rate on average than poor autocracies.
However, the causal logic and underlying
theory about the relationship between economic
and political freedom is heavily debated: socioeconomic development does not necessarily lead
to political freedom. Samuel Huntington famously pointed out that modernization does not
necessarily mean political development and that
disorder is more commonly the outcome when
political mobilization outpaces political institution building.9 Michael Rosss research finds an
equally disturbing result: democracies perform
no better than autocracies in terms of the wellbeing of the poorest citizens.10
In fact, some would argue that autocracies,
because they are insulated from political pressure, are better able to improve economic conditions. The Lee thesis, named for the former Singaporean prime minister, maintains that this is
especially true in developing countries, because
the denial of basic civil and political rights can
actually help economic development. Democracy, the argument goes, is a luxury that the poorest
countries cannot afford.11 After all, capitalism
came before democracy essentially everywhere,
except in [the United States], where they started at the same time.12 The implication of this
theory is that development policies should focus
on economic development through authoritarianism and worry about democracy later, if at all.
In contrast, Amartya Sen points out that
there is little evidence, and certainly no defini-

a middle class develops, changing not only the

social conditions of the middle class, but also
political power dynamics. Citizens of the middle
class associate with several competing political
affiliations, creating cross-cutting interests and
thereby moderating the tensions among competing pressure groups. Moderation enhances stability, leading to longer-term democratic regimes.3
But how does this theory apply to outcomes
in the real world? The correlation between democracy and democratization to economic gain
is convincing of the top twenty-five richest
countries, all but two (Hong Kong and Singapore) are democracies4 democratic transitions,
at a minimum, do not to hurt economic outcomes, and may provide some benefits.5 Lipset proposes that wealth is causally related to
democratic development, through both social
and political means. Political means include the
enhanced power of a growing middle class, but
education also plays a role, changing views that
increase the receptivity to democratic political
tolerance norms.6 Though the meaning of this
phrase is not entirely clear, Lipset explains an important shift to the political middle in democracies. This moderation limits the consequences of
losing for the opposition, which in non-democracies can be quite high. A quick look to sites
such as Freedom House or Human Rights Watch
shows that members of the opposition in nondemocracies often suffer imprisonment, bankruptcy, or death.7 Errors or disagreements can
be tolerated in democracies because non-violent
change is possible.
Modernization implies a sequencing of development, though sequencing in this theory is
the result of the relationship between variables,
rather than a consequence of design. Economic
growth starts a chain of events leading eventually and inevitably to political reform: economic
reform economic growth social change
democracy.
Sequencing theory takes this idea of sequencing and adds an element of design.8 The idea is
that autocracies are less encumbered by the slowness of the democratic political system, and so
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Molly Elgin

dom in Singapore, however, Freedom House assigned scores of 5 and 4, respectively, to political
rights and civil liberties, classifying Singapore as
partly free.17 Polity IV declares: over the past
forty years [Singapores ruling party] has created
a hegemonic party system under the guise of
democratic governance. In number terms, on
a 21-point scale of regime authority, with -10
being a hereditary monarchy and +10 a consolidated democracy, Singapore rates a 2.18 What do
these numbers say about our intuition regarding
the relationship between economic and political
freedom? Is Lipset wrong about the path towards
democracy?
Does the case of Singapore defy modernization theory? Before analyzing this case, some
background is necessary. Singapore was first a
British trading center and then a separate British colony. Following independence from Great
Britain, Singapore entered the Malaysian Federation in 1963, and was expelled in 1965 as
a result of disputes between Singapores ruling
Peoples Action Party (PAP) and Malaysias ruling Alliance Party and high levels of racial tension that included riots. The violence and uncertainty of the years in the Malaysian Federation
had a profound impact on fledgling Singapore,
and continue in many of the nations policies
today. With tensions between the Chinese and
Malay populations, and a threat of invasion or
forced re-entry into the Federation, Singapores
new government took immediate steps to ensure
national sovereignty. In the first year of separation from the Malaysian Federation, Singapore
joined both the United Nations and the Commonwealth, and began establishing diplomatic
relations with other countries, bolstering the nations international recognition.19 Two years later,
in 1967, Singapore co-founded the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and established mandatory national military service.20 All
of these steps can be seen as a concerted effort
on the part of Singapores leaders to establish an
international presence and to bolster legitimacy
through external recognition.
At the same time, the government embarked

tive proof, that authoritarian regimes encourage

economic growth.13 Dani Rodrik and Romain
Wacziag counter the Lee thesis with a study that
shows that the short-term benefits of democratization are especially true for the poorest countries. Democracy tends to follow periods of low
growth, they find, which calls into question the
sequencing arguments, and does tend to be associated with a decrease in growth volatility.14 In
empirical analysis, there is much ambiguity, calling attention to the fact that there are many factors influencing political and economic development. The diversity of experience among countries does, however, call for more investigation.
As is evident from this review of the literature, there is no consensus on the relationship
between economic growth and political freedom
or democracy. Przeworski sums up much of this
debate by saying that institutional factors do
seem to matter in terms of development, but it is
evidently not the regime type that matters.15 This
raises the question of what does matter. Developing the theory to understand more completely
the circumstances that allow political and economic freedom to work together, as well as the
factors influencing their separation, is a task left
unresolved by the literature to date.
Although most of the worlds wealthiest
countries are democracies, there are certainly developed countries that do not fit the democratic
mold. Singapore, a seemingly notable exception
to modernization theory, will be the focus of this
paper. Exploring Singapores growth as a nondemocracy may provide more insight into the
mechanisms of growth, the role of institutions
in development, and the prospects for political
change in countries that have experienced rapid
economic growth.
The extreme disparity between the freedom
of Singapores economic sphere and that of its
political sphere is striking. According to the Economic Freedom of the World Index, Singapore is
ranked first in the world in economic freedom.16
Singapore did especially well in the freedom to
trade internationally and lower regulation, ranking in the top ten. In evaluating political free137

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Asian Values

Yew, Singapores first Prime Minister, is one of

the main proponents of this hypothesis. He does,
however, explain that Eastern and Western countries are different and what works to promote
development in the West will not work in East
Asia. Lee says instead that East Asian values emphasize that an individual is not a separate entity,
but part of a family, which is then part of society.
Mere policy prescriptions, he explains, do not
capture the cultural contributions to economic
growth. Cultures with less emphasis on scholarship, hard work, and thrift, he says, will grow
much more slowly than the countries of East
Asia did.23 Asian values, the thesis goes, created
a new path to economic growth that is inconsistent with democracy.
The Asian values thesis is grounded in the
ideas that there is a set of Asian values that instills
standards such as hard work and discipline, and
that these social structures transfer to political
structures. Russell Dalton and Nhu-Ngoc Ong
have investigated these claims using the World
Values Survey and comparing six countries with
Confucianism-influenced culture with four

on a strategy to bolster internal legitimacy. To reduce ethnic tension, a Constitutional Commission on Minority Rights and policies integrating schools and neighborhoods was introduced
in late 1965. The countrys hardships may have
aided in its rapid progress: with the withdrawal
of the British, the major economic and security
base of the country faced a crisis. This climate
of crisis helped the PAP to sweep the legislature, providing an unopposed political climate
to introduce drastic reforms. These included
strict labor laws, a family planning program, and
mandatory savings through the Central Provident Fund.21 The reforms, and the general global
economic upswing of the 1960s, helped establish Singapore as an industrial base and led to
its incredible economic growth, which has averaged 9% since independence. Singapores GDP
growth since independence is shown in the chart
below, along with a chart comparing the percentage change in GDP among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
One often-cited explanation of Singapores
success is the Asian values thesis. Lee Kuan

Gross Domestic Product (Millions of S$, in 2009 S$)

Gross Domestic Product of Singapore 1960-2009

275,000
250,000
225,000
200,000
175,000
150,000
125,000
100,000
75,000
50,000
25,000
0
1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

Year

Chart 1: Rapid GDP growth in Singapore between 1960 and the present.22
Summer 2010

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2005

2010

Molly Elgin

30000

Regional Context of Singapore's Growth, 1975-2003

GDP Per Capita, $PPP

25000

20000

Indonesia

Malaysia

Philippines

Singapore

Thailand

Vietnam

15000

10000

5000

0

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

Year

Chart 2: Regional context of Singapores economic growth. [$ = US$]

(Source: Australia National University Division of Economics, http://rspas.anu.edu.au/economics)

Western countries.24 Their analysis of the survey

responses shows no distinguishable difference
between the East and West on deference towards
authority. Singapore unsurprisingly ranks 2nd on
the high authority index, which measures attitudes towards authority in social structures, but
behind the United States. Approval of democracy and the democratic process is high across all
of the ten countries studied, though Singaporeans are more lukewarm towards the democratic
process than citizens of the other countries. Dalton and Ong find that there is no link between
respect for authority in the family and respect
for regime type in Asia, calling into question the
idea that Confucian values represent a significant
cultural challenge to democracy in East Asia. But
now that we have rejected the notion that Asian
culture provides the basis for authoritarian social
and political institutions, let us take the analysis
a step further.
According to the World Values Survey, Singapore tends to be more approving of authority
and less approving of democratic processes than

the rest of East Asia. Is Singapore more Asian

than the rest of Asia? Or are there unique institutional factors that shape these attitudes? And can
these institutional factors explain the perpetuation of authoritarianism in Singapore? I will argue that Singapores particular political climate
and institutions play a larger role in explaining
Singapores preservation of authoritarian rule
even as a high-income country than do Asian
values. This is not to say that there are no cultural influences on the development process, but
that they are not exclusively explanatory.
In seeking to explain Singapores seeming
defiance of modernization theory, I will first analyze the role of state capacity and mechanisms
of state control in maintaining authoritarianism.
The idea of state capacity involves not necessarily just what the government does but what it
is capable of doing. Michael Mann specifies two
aspects of state capacity, despotic and infrastructural. Mann defines despotic power as the range
of actions which the elite is empowered to take
without routine, institutionalized negotiation
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Asian Values

policies and citizens responses to policies.30 I

have included a comparison of government effectiveness among Southeast and East Asian
countries to provide a clearer picture of Singapores comparative ability to create and implement reform. The bars in the charts indicate the
percentile at which the country ranks, meaning
that if the bar is close to 100, that countrys governance is rated among the top in the world according to that specific measure. Here we notice
that Singapore is rated as one of the top of the
world in indicators of stability, lack of risk, and
implementation of policy, but in the bottom half
of countries in terms of voice and accountability,
which is expected for a non-democracy. It is the
strength of the other indicators in comparison to
the weakness of accountability that puzzles us.
According to modernization theory, the social
change created by economic growth should lead
to democracy, yet as chart 3 makes clear, political reform falls far behind economic and social
reform in Singapore.
How is this dichotomy possible? As with
most things in Singapore, through very careful
control. Government policy has very carefully
not only created growth, but also moderated the
deleterious effects on the least well-off and prevented the formation of a strong civil society. In
the process, the state has created stakeholders,
citizens with a direct interest in the state. This is
accomplished through several mechanisms. One
of the most powerful is the Housing and Development Board. Originally founded in 1960 to
combat the housing shortage in Singapore, the
HDB has implemented the successful Home
Ownership for People Scheme, which allows
married Singaporeans to buy houses, aided since
1968 by government subsidies.31 The result is that
by 2003 over 90% of Singaporeans owned their
homes.32 It is important to note that this ownership functions more as a lease, however, as HDB
maintains the management and regulates owners rights, including limiting the ability to sublet,
resale, or accumulate equity. The HDB housing
ownership scheme is important to our analysis
for two reasons: (1) It demonstrates Singapores

with civil society groups.25 Infrastructural power, on the other hand, is the power of the state
to penetrate and coordinate the actions of civil
society through its own infrastructure, allowing
for the possibility that the state is a mere instrument of forces within civil society, as opposed to
an organization imposing order from above, as
despotic capacity implies.26
Singapore has both high despotic and high
infrastructural capacity, both of which are very
carefully controlled. In Singapore, maintaining
a careful balance of despotic and infrastructural
capacity ensures the survival of the current regime. Balancing the two types of capacity enables the state to both provide for its citizens and
repress them in carefully calculated ways. First, I
will look into Singapores infrastructural capacity, focusing on the intentional development of
human capital through the provision of public
goods and the process of developing stakeholders
in a non-democracy. Then I will explore Singapores despotic power with a discussion of institutionalized fear perpetuated through control of
information and a lack of independence of the
judiciary. Finally, I will return to Lee Yuan Kews
thesis, looking at some ways in which Singapore
has mimicked democracy and refuting the idea
that Asian values have given rise to Singapores
institutions and economic growth.
In discussing Singapores infrastructural state
capacity, I will utilize not only Manns definition
of the penetration of society, but also Theda
Skocpols interpretation of the capacity of the
state as an actor to accomplish policy goals.27
Concerted efforts by the government to improve
the quality of life of its citizens have yielded impressive results. Singapore ranks 20th in the world
in terms of Gross Domestic Product per capita28
and 25th in terms of the human development index, which captures important social measures,
such as life expectancy at birth, education, and
the adult literacy rate.29 To approximate both
Skocpols and Manns conception of infrastructural capacity, I use the World Bank Indicators
of governance, which measure the capacity of the
government to formulate and implement sound
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Molly Elgin

Chart 3:
World Development Indicators
of Singapores
Governance.

Singapore Governance Indicators (2008)

Voice and Accountability

Political Stability

(Source:
D.Kaufmann,
A.Kraay, and
M.Mastruzzi,
Governance Matters VIII: Governance Indicators
for 1996-2008
(2009).)

Government Efectiveness

Regulatory Quality

Rule of Law

Control of Corruption

0

25

50

75

100

Percentile Rank (0-100)

Chart 4:
Regional Context: Government
Effectiveness in
East/Southeast
Asia.

Government Effectiveness Index (2008)

Singapore

South Korea

(Source:
D.Kaufmann,
A.Kraay, and
M.Mastruzzi,
Governance Matters VIII: Governance Indicators
for 1996-2008
(2009).)

China

Philippines

Indonesia

Vietnam

0

25

50

75

100

Percentile Rank (0-100)

infrastructural capacity. (2) By, in essence, coopting the middle class, the state is preventing
the formation of social groups that could pres-

ent a challenge to the authoritarian system. (This

second point is more subtle.)
Another benefit of the HDB to the per141

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Asian Values

tutionalized fear. Donald Emmerson, an expert

on Southeast Asia, tells a story of a late-night arrival in Singapore. On the way downtown from
the airport, his taxi driver was speeding a little,
setting off the speeding alarm set up in Singaporean taxis. Emmerson jokingly told the driver
he could unplug the system, to which the driver
responded that if he unplugged the system, all
other taxi drivers would follow suit, and mass
chaos would reign in the streets of Singapore.37
The story is a convenient way to portray the
feeling of vulnerability in Singapore: that if the
carefully ordered society is not preserved, chaos
may result. Tellingly, in response to the statement Most people can be trusted, only 17.6%
of Singaporeans answered that they agreed. In
contrast, 36.9% of Taiwanese agreed, 35.5% of
Americans, and 45.5% of Indonesians.

petuation of Singapores authoritarian regime is

that the government closely regulates living arrangements. This control provides two benefits
that limit the formation of Lipsets cross-cutting
interests. The first and perhaps more obvious
one is the neutralizing of ethnic tensions. As
mentioned earlier in this paper, the ethnic tension and race riots Singapore experienced in the
early days of independence played a profound
role in shaping Singapores growth and development agenda. One aspect of this included the
integration of schools and mandatory education
programs so that Chinese children could learn
about Malays and Singapores other ethnic minorities, and vice versa. Since its inception, the
state saw reducing ethnic tensions as one of its
primary tasks, accomplished mainly through
education33 and housing ethnic balancing.34
Another potential way that housing regulations
restrict the formation of cross-cutting interests is
that housing is strictly limited to nuclear family
units35, perpetuating the traditional role of the
family and emphasizing family loyalty and lessening the need to develop a strong civil society.36
This hypothesis would certainly require further
analysis, but it is interesting to note the family
restrictions in Singapores housing regulations
and to consider the effects.
We now move to a discussion of Singapores
despotic capacity. The capacity may not seem as
evident as in some other authoritarian regimes
where political violence is more common, but it
is powerful nonetheless. Rather than resort to violence, Singapores despotic capacity is maintained
through institutionalized fear, the climate of fear
created by Singapores strong state capacity, and
characterized by its use of what Cherian George
has termed calibrated coercion. Institutionalized
fear is a difficult concept to explain, but I present
it here as a perception of vulnerability, defined by
the proximity of invasion, economic disaster, or
internal disorder. These are difficult attitudes to
measure, but I will do so (imperfectly) through
responses to the World Values Survey. Before
presenting the survey responses, though, a quick
anecdote may help explain the concept of instiSummer 2010

Country
Singapore
Taiwan
United States
Indonesia
China
South Korea

Public Trust
17.6%
36.9%
35.5%
45.5%
52.5%
27.3%

Table: Levels of Public Trust38

The comparison with other Confucianvalued countries, above, shows us that this fear
and lack of trust is not cultural. Also we would
not propose that Singaporeans have some sort of
intrinsic inclination to fear. Rather, these survey
responses and anecdotes allow us a glimpse into
the unique political and social environment leading to these attitudes among Singaporeans.
To see how this sense of fear is further institutionalized, we look to the courts. Singapores
ruling party practices a soft autonomy which
sometimes does not seem all that soft. The favored method of crushing the opposition is
through lawsuits, suing opponents until they are
bankrupt and thereby stifling the voice of dissent. Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, the recently
deceased leader of the opposition, is one such example he was sued multiple times, with total
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damages of approximately S$1.6 million.39 His

crime was to openly oppose the ruling Peoples
Action Party (PAP), which has ruled Singapore
since 1959.
The strategy extends to the press and the
international press the International Herald
Tribune has been forced to pay fines in order
to keep their Singaporean leadership.40 Media
is tightly controlled in Singapore, and even the
suggestion of PAP criticism is harshly rebuked.
In 1994, an American professor, Mr. Lingle, living in Singapore published an article that did not
specifically name Singapore, but mentioned that
some Asian countries are in the habit of bankrupting their opponents. When the government
sued him, this put the prosecutor in the unusual
position of having to prove that Mr. Lingle was
in fact talking about Lee Kuan Yew and his son,
who replaced Lee as Prime Minister. There is
nothing secret, then, about the means that the
PAP uses to obstruct opposition. Even the openness with which the PAP goes after its opponents
speaks to the desire to maintain stability and order: citizens are aware of exactly how they will be
dealt with if they take on the government.
The development of infrastructural capacity
may actually help despotic capacity. By building
infrastructure, the state is able to gather more
information and monitor more closely threats
to its survival. The internet provides an interesting example of how infrastructure can lead to
an increase in the growth of despotic capacity.
Information Technology (IT) is vital to Singapores interest to remain an economic stronghouse. But, with the benefits of IT comes the
difficult-to-control internet, and any source of
unregulated expression is immediately suspect in
Singapore. The leaderships strategy to deal with
the internet is telling of their overall approach
to governance. The government has invested
heavily in IT infrastructure, and Singapore has
one of the highest internet penetration rates in
the world.41 Heavy regulation ensures that the
potential for political expression is limited. The
government carefully monitors usage; hosts are
responsible for content posted to their site, and

government regulation prohibits material that

might threaten the public interest, public morality, public order, public security, [and] national harmony or that offends [] good taste
and decency.42 Interestingly, though, sites that
criticize the PAP have been allowed to continue
posting content, provided that the sites register
with the government. This strategy ensures that
the internet does not become a tool of the opposition, because usage is relatively free, but the
government is always watching. As with many
other things in Singapore, expression is allowed,
but in strictly circumscribed ways.
Given PAPs widely accepted legitimacy, the
PAPs tactics seem unnecessary. Even if dissent
were permitted, it does not seem likely that the
PAP would even come close to defeat in elections. Policies promoting the provision of public
goods and rapid economic growth have improved
the quality of life for most Singaporean citizens,
and dissent and revolution are mostly unknown
sentiments. So why does the PAP continue to
ruthlessly go after its opponents? One possible
explanation that the way in which dissent is routinely oppressed (though in non-violent ways)
continues the atmosphere of fear. By cracking
down on the opposition, disagreement with the
government becomes an inherently antisocial
activity. The targeted but complete defeat of opponents perpetuates the idea that with political
freedom comes chaos it makes the opposition
seem like a more serious threat to society. This
idea may seem counterintuitive, but it is part of
a very carefully calibrated coercion on part of the
Singaporean government.43
The calibrated part is possible because Singapore has a high level of state capacity. State
capacity facilitates Singapores method of oppression, calibrated coercion. Cherian George
coined the phrase calibrated coercion to describe the much-nuanced oppression in which
the Singaporean government partakes. The use
of the judiciary is one example; the control of the
media and the internet provides another useful
example. Singapores breed of carefully balanced
policy would not be possible in an autocracy
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Asian Values

we also notice is that some of Singapores success

can be attributed to the adoption of elements of
democracy: creating stakeholders, property ownership, and relatively free flow of information.
Singapore even conducts elections, though of
course these lack meaningful contestation.
In terms of policy, then, it would be useful
to adopt a more nuanced view of modernization
theory that incorporates its likely effects on democracy but also is responsive to specific country
factors. The prospects for democracy in Singapore are not great, but in formulating policy, we
should not fail to recognize the significant human
development of which even non-democracies are
capable. That being said, the role of voice and accountability that democracy provides is, as Milton Friedman said, a good in and of itself. The
discussion above showed that there is a cost to
limiting political freedom, even with a high level
of public goods provision. Regarding democracy
promotion, therefore, we should not neglect the
importance of voice and accountability, especially in our efforts towards developing countries.
Though Singapore has achieved quite a bit, the
analysis here shows that it would be hard to replicate this high level of control elsewhere, and the
costs to human development could then be enormous. Given the costs of a lack of voice and political expression, the tradeoff between decisionmaking ability and accountability embodied in
Lee Kuan Yews thesis should be decided on the
side of democracy.

with less state capacity. Singapores policies depend on the governments capacity to sanction
non-compliance, increasing peoples tendency to
defer to the government.
It may be, too, that Singapores size and
economy enable it to exert control more effectively than other countries might. Singapore
ranks 192 out of 251 countries in terms of total
area44 and has a highly homogenous economy
that implies less incentive for competing sector
interests. With no agricultural sector, and about
2/3 of its GDP composed of services, many of
the sector-specific interest groups that arise in
more diversified economies seem unnecessary.
Combined with the states intentional integration of ethnicities, discussed above, this carefully
calibrated control may not be replicable elsewhere.
In light of this analysis, let us return to Lee
Kuan Yew and the Asian values thesis as a rejection of modernization. The preceding analysis
shows that rather than arising from a specific set
of Asian values, most of the deference to authority in Singapore is created and perpetuated by the
state. Careful balancing of despotic and infrastructural capacity prevents the path to democracy. Rather than cause us to reject the modernization thesis, Singapore may be the exception that
proves the rule. Certainly, modernization does
not necessarily lead to democracy, but the case
of Singapore shows us that maintaining a nondemocracy in an advanced economy involves
high levels of carefully calibrated control. What

Endnotes
1 Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962): p. 8.
2 National Security Council, The 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States of America, White House website, <http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nssall.
html>.
3 Seymour Martin Lipset, Some Social Requisites of Democracy, The American Political Science Review (1959): pp. 83-84.
4 United Nations Development Program, Human Development Indicators, UNDP website, <http://hdrstats.undp.org/indicators/5.html>, taken from World
Bank, World Development Indicators 2007, Washington, DC, aggregates calculated for HDRO by the World Bank.
5 Dani Rodrik and Romain Wacziarg, Do Democratic Transitions Produce Bad Economic Outcomes?, CDDRL Working Papers, 29 (2004): p. 8.
6 Seymour Martin Lipset, Some Social Requisites of Democracy, The American Political Science Review (1959).
7 See the Freedom House website, <http://www.freedomhouse.org/>.
8 See Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence (Cambridge University Press,
2005).

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9 See Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (Yale University Press, 1968).
10 Michael Ross, Is Democracy Good for the Poor?, American Journal of Political Science, vol. 50, no. 5.
11 Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Random House, 1999): p. 15.
12 Bruce R. Scott, quoted in: Patricia Cohen, An Unexpected Odd Couple: Free Markets and Freedom, The New York Times, World Section, June 14, 2007.
13 Amartya Sen, p. 150.
14 Rodrik and Wacziarg, p. 205.
15 Prezworski and Limongi, p. 65.
16 Fraser Institute, Economic Freedom of the World: 2008 Annual Report, Fraser Institute website, <http://www.freetheworld.com/>.
17 Freedom House, Freedom in the World Singapore (2008), Freedom House website, <http://www.freedomhouse.org/>. Countries are ranked 1-7, with 1 the
most free and 7 the least.
18 Polity IV Project, 2006 Country reports Singapore, <http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/Singapore2006.pdf>.
19 US Library of Congress, Country Histories: Singapore, <http://countrystudies.us/singapore/10.htm>.
20 Gavin Peebles and Peter Wilson, Economic Growth and Development in Singapore: Past and Future (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2002).
21 US Library of Congress, <http://countrystudies.us/singapore/11.htm>.
22 Singapore Department of Statistics, Time Series on Annual GDP at Current Market Prices, <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/themes/economy/hist/gdp2.
html>.
23 Comments from Fareed Zakaria, A Conversation with Lee Kuan Yew, Foreign Affairs, vol. 73 (1994): pp. 113-114.
24 Russell Dalton and Nhu-Ngoc Ong, Authority Orientations and Democratic Attitudes: A Test of the Asian Values Hypothesis, Japan Journal of Political Science,
6 (Cambridge University Press, 2005): pp. 211-231.
25 Michael Mann, The Autonomous Power of the State: its Origins, Mechanisms, and Results, p. 113; first published in the European Journal of Sociology, available
at <http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/mann/Doc1.pdf>.
26 Ibid., pp. 114-115.
27 Theda Skocpol, Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Current Research, in: Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol (eds.), Bringing the State
Back In (Cambridge University Press, 1985): p. 8.
28 Calculated based on a selected country report for advanced economies obtained from the World Economic Outlook Database, October 2008, at the
International Monetary Fund website, <http://www.imf.org/>.
29 Human Development Index, Human Development Report 2007/2008, available at <http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/>.
30 World Bank Governance Indicators, World Bank website, <http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/index.asp>.
31 Housing and Development Board website, <http://www.hdb.gov.sg/>.
32 Singapore government website, Statistics, <http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/keyind.html>.
33 Diane Mauzy and R. S. Milne, Singapore Politics Under the Peoples Action Party (New York: Routledge, 2002): p. 100.
34 Freedom House Country Reports, Singapore (2008), <http://www.freedomhouse.org/>.
35 Housing and Development Board website, <http://www.hdb.gov.sg/>.
36 Discussion based on DDRL class 2008-10-6 with Avner Greif, hypothesizing the effect of the Catholic Churchs policies restricting the formation of family
ties on institutional growth and development in Europe.
37 Donald Emmerson, Singapore and the Asian Values Debate, Journal of Democracy, 6:4 (Oct. 1995): p. 95.
38 The World Values Survey, <http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/>, selected samples: Chile [2000], China [2001], Great Britain [1999], Republic of Korea
[2001], Singapore [2002], Taiwan [1994], United States [1999], Indonesia [2001].
39 International Herald Tribune, Asia/Pacific section, September 30, 2008, available online at <http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/09/30/asia/AS-SingaporeObit-Jeyaretnam.php>.
40 William Glaberson, Paper to Pay $214,285 in Singapore Libel Case, The New York Times, November 29, 1995, World section.
41 See <http://www.sba.gov.sg/>.
42 Internet Code of Practice, <http://www.sba.gov.sg/>, 1996.
43 Cherian George, Managing Civil Disobedience, Singapore Straits Times, October 10, 2005, letters section.
44 Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook, <https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2147rank.html>.

Molly Elgin
Molly Elgin graduated in June 2010 from Stanford University with a Master in International Policy Studies, with
a concentration in Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. She is currently Chief of Staff at the Center
on International Cooperation at New York University. Her main research interests include international influences on political development, political transitions, and economic development, particularly in Asia. She earned
her undergraduate degree in International Political Economy summa cum laude from Tulane University in 2004.

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