| |
Ethos Issue 6, Jul 2009
Singapore’s Political Economy:
Two Paradoxes
Bryan Caplan
Third, there is no evidence that
Singapore’s elections are corrupt.
Indeed, international observers have
consistently rated its government as
one of the least corrupt in the world,6 with elections that are “free from
irregularities and vote rigging”.7 The
Global Barometer country report for
Singapore finds that 86% of Singaporeans
believe that their elections are either
“completely free and fair”, or “free and
fair, but with minor problems”.8 So while decades of one-party electoral
dominance is frequently a strong
symptom of electoral corruption, this is
not the case in Singapore.
This is not to deny the many
peculiarities of Singaporean politics.9 My point is that these peculiarities are
largely irrelevant as far as the Median
Voter Model is concerned. In Singapore,
voters are free to vote for opposition
candidates, and opposition candidates
can safely advocate the elimination of
unpopular policies. In the Median Voter
Model, this is all you need for the will of
the people to prevail.
EXPLANATION NO. 2:
SINGAPORE’S VOTERS ARE
UNUSUALLY
ECONOMICALLY LITERATE
Many of Singapore’s successful policies
would be considered unpopular around
the world, but they persistently survive
the democratic test in Singapore. Once
we reject the dictatorship hypothesis, the
next obvious explanation for Singapore’s
effective policies is that its electorate
is unusually economically literate. In
my book The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies,10 I
find that even in the relatively marketoriented
US, the market mechanism is
unpopular, especially in international
and labour markets. Could Singapore
be the exception that proves the rule—a
country where the man-in-the-street
embraces market mechanisms?
It is worth pointing out that this
“unusual economic literacy” hypothesis
largely fails for the country where it is
most plausible: Hong Kong, which has
been ranked the freest economy in the
world since 1970.11 Under laissez-faire
policies, Hong Kong enjoyed decades
of remarkable economic growth. One
would expect this excellent performance,
combined with status quo bias, would
lead to popular support for laissez-faire
policies. It does not: Lau Siu-kai and Kuan
Hsin-chi12 find that a majority of Hong
Kong residents want to change many of
its most distinctive policies.
Given Singapore’s many economic,
political and cultural similarities to
Hong Kong, it seems unlikely that
Singaporean public opinion would be
significantly better. Unfortunately,
nothing comparable to the survey by
Lau and Kuan exists for Singapore. But
the 2002 World Values Survey13 data
suggests little reason to believe that
the Singaporean electorate is unusually
economically literate. Singaporeans
and Americans have virtually the same beliefs about the social benefits
of competition,14 and Singaporeans are
more likely to accept income inequality
as a trade-off for better incentives.15 Yet Singaporeans are actually less
sympathetic to private enterprise
than Americans,16 and seem to favour
a much more restrictive approach to
immigration than do Americans.17
There is admittedly some indication
that Singaporeans are unusually
concerned about economic performance.
The survey showed that 58.8% of
Singaporeans say that “a high level
of economic growth” should be their
nation’s top priority; 48.6% of Americans
say the same.18 Similarly, only 37.9%
of Singaporeans—versus 65.2% of
Americans—think it would be a “good
thing” if people put “less emphasis on
money and material possessions”.19 Once
Singaporeans recognise the economic
benefits of a policy, they seem more
willing to support it. Still, at this point,
the case for the “unusual economic
literacy” hypothesis looks rather weak.
EXPLANATION NO. 3:
SINGAPORE’S VOTERS ARE
UNUSUALLY LOYAL, DEFERENTIAL,
AND/OR RESIGNED
Even if Singaporean public opinion
were unusually economically literate,
it would still be hard to explain the
PAP’s dominance. In the Median Voter
Model, opposition parties’ best response
would be to mimic the policies of the
ruling party, leaving voters indifferent.
Singaporean politics plainly doesn’t
work this way; it seems to be in a political
class of its own as long as we think of it
primarily as a country.
II I |
|
