11 - Singapore: Subtle NGO Control by a Developmentalist Welfare State

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Since independence in 1965, Singapore has achieved a remarkable degree of economic development relying on its own distinctive policies and today boasts a national income that is second only to that of Japan in Asia (World Bank 1997, p. 21). Some 78 per cent of Singapore's total population of 3,865,000 are Chinese, but there are also important Malay and Indian minorities, each constituting a distinct ethnic community. Even among the Chinese majority, the English-educated elite and those who speak only Chinese form two different social strata. The island nation has avoided serious inter-ethnic or inter-class conflict, however, and Singaporeans have harnessed their collective energies to the task of achieving rapid economic progress.

This developmental state has been run by the one-party rule of the People's Action Party (PAP). The government has kept Singaporeans in line by severely limiting their freedom of expression and imposing harsh controls in other areas of social life, but at the same time it has managed to distribute the country's wealth through a wide range of social services in such areas as health, welfare, and education. For this reason, Singapore's non-governmental organization (NGO) sector has generally been regarded domestically and internationally as underdeveloped and anemic. Since the 1990s, however, slowly but surely, new types of NGOs have appeared in the field of social advocacy, utilizing as their byword civil society.

This chapter seeks to explain the peculiarities of and subsequent changes in NGO behaviour in Singapore by examining the evolution of the statedirected distribution of resources and the mechanism of national social control since the country's independence.

STATE MANAGEMENT AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF NGOs

In Singapore organizations falling into the six categories defined in chapter one of this volume (non-governmental, non-profit-making, voluntary, of a solid and continuing form, altruistic, and philanthropic) are generally called NGOs, but so are self-help groups, clubs, and associations that benefit only specific groups. Singapore's corporate registration laws place all of these in the same category and call them NGOs, even self-help groups.