7 - Is Singapore an Authoritarian Constitutional Regime? So What If It Is?

Summary

Scholars studying Singapore have given it many labels ranging from a dictatorship and one-party state to an illiberal democracy. In 2015, Mark Tushnet, in a much-discussed article published in the Cornell Law Review, used Singapore as the quintessential prototype of what he calls “authoritarian constitutionalism.” This chapter critically examines and unpacks Tushnet’s model of “authoritarian constitutionalism” and argues that this categorization is neither accurate nor useful. The author argues that Tushnet’s construction of this model is based on flawed premises and variables and that from the perspective of comparative constitutional law, this kind of model-making is unhelpful for scholars seeking to understand the true nature of how constitutions work in different societies.