Crisis narratives in political discourse in Singapore

Abstract

In many ways and from different academic perspectives, Singapore presents a challenging case for analysis. Composed of a population of varied ethnic groups speaking different languages, embracing different religions, and practising different cultures and traditions, the island-republic had successfully circumvented many of the problems that plague ethnically pluralist societies, and has emerged victorious in managing the disparate peoples, bringing about peace, stability and ultimately progress of the nation and country. This dissertation is fundamentally based on the following question: what strategies of control had enabled the political leadership to carry out its plans for social development in the republic? But more specifically, what has been/is the strategy of control utilised by the political leadership in enabling the creation and continuity of a socially harmonious and relatively conflict-free society? The dissertation will show that one strategy of control utilised in, and by, the state in managing the country and ethnic relations within it, is the (recurrent) construction of, and reliance on a discourse of (racial) crisis. The technique of crisis construction a?? production, orchestration and management a?? enables the orchestration of consent among the citizenry, generates allegiance to the state, invokes, reinvokes and ratifies its governing authority, and ultimately, ensures control by the state over the citizenry, persuading social action and unity in the direction of the elite political will. The climate created by the discourse of (racial) crisis encourages the adoption and support of the state-endorsed pursuit of racial harmony and cohesion, and it is in this way that social order, unity and harmony is achieved in ethnically pluralist Singapore.