Read recently: Air-Conditioned Nation

Singapore: The Air-Conditioned Nation, by Cherian George.

George’s book is a collection of essays about Singapore politics in the ’90s, a period when the “old guard” PAP leadership was withdrawing from public view to make an orderly transition to new leadership. Founder Lee Kuan Yew took the position of “Senior Minister” and (somewhat) reduced his public profile. The island was liberalizing in many ways, allowing more room for artistic expression and taking a softer line on political opposition.

George comes at Singapore as a liberal critic, albeit a friendly one who appreciates the virtues of PAP government. He would like to see a more multi-cultural approach to managing ethnic tensions, and less heavy-handed regulation in politics and the press. Coming from a more liberal society, though, there are many things to admire about Singapore, perhaps including the PAP’s political management regime. It’s hard to feel sympathy for heavy-handed repression like political censorship and imprisoning dissidents. But the PAP is able to implement a lot of pragmatic and sensible policies that are impossible in a competitive political environment like the United States. And while very few elections in Singapore are competitive (and the government is completely dominated by the PAP), Singapore’s leaders are very aware of and responsive to democratic signals, working hard to keep up their majorities in each constituency. And some practices mix the virtues of an open society with the practical benefits of a less-competitive politics. For example, popular opposition figures are often “co-opted” by the government and put into important but non-partisan roles, like heads of universities or think-tanks.

Maybe all of this is susceptible to the generic case against benevolent despotism (i.e., in essence, Singapore is lucky that it’s well-governed; most countries with similar political systems would not be). But given the dysfunction of our own politics and government, it’s tempting to look around at other models.

For more on Singapore politics, I did a MeFi post on Bryan Caplan’s Singapore thoughts. George has a couple blogs with very few updates; here’s one.