Singapore's First Year of COVID-19 : Public Health, Immigration, the Neoliberal State, and Authoritarian Populism

This book addresses the question of what Singapore's COVID-19 pandemic response in the first year can tell us about the strengths and weaknesses of the Singapore model and what its prospects might be in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous post-pandemic world. As a concise, holistic, and critical documentation of the first year of COVID-19 in Singapore, the multi-disciplinary chapters in this book provide a broad-ranging analysis of an internationally admired model of governance severely tested by a global pandemic crisis whose end is still not in sight. The book focuses specifically on the interconnections among Singapore’s political economy, public health policies, immigration policies, and the elite and pragmatic system of state authoritarianism that, especially since the 1980s, has been at the heart of managing the tensions and contradictions of a nation-state that is also a global city, an important node in a network of goods, services, investments, wealth, people, ideas, and images, all moving rapidly. The chapters critically employ topics and concepts such as neoliberal globalization, authoritarian populism, moral panic, social stigmatization, heterotopia, spatial segregation, and others to make sense of a thoroughly complex situation. Acknowledgements 5 Contents 7 Editor and Contributors 8 About the Editor 8 List of Contributors 8 List of Tables 10 1 Neoliberal Globalization, Authoritarian Populism, and Moral Panics 11 Pandemic in Singapore: Year One 12 Becoming a Neoliberal Global City 16 Authoritarian-Populist Reactions 19 Moral Panic 22 Emerging from the Pandemic, Resilient? 25 References 29 2 Neoliberal Singapore: Nation-State and Global City 32 Survival and the Siege Mentality 33 The Global City 35 Authoritarian Neoliberalism 36 Pragmatism, Elitism, and Paternalism 38 The Persistent Centrality of the State 40 A Corporate Style of State Management 42 Market Morality 46 The Singapore Model Abroad 47 In a Time of Crisis, a Victim of Its Own (Neoliberal) Success? 49 Course Correction: Towards a More Inclusive City-State? 53 References 54 3 Public Health Legacies: Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and SARS in Singapore 61 A Neoliberal Public Health System 63 Moral Panics, Stigmatization, and Threat Perception 68 Sars, a Wake-Up Call 74 Conclusion 80 References 81 4 Tackling Covid-19, the Singapore Way 86 The Singapore Success Story and Its Hidden Failures 88 From Vulnerability to Preparedness 89 2 January to 6 February 2020: Early Response 91 7 February to 14 March 2020: Reinforcing Measures 94 15 March to 6 April 2020: Managing the Panic 95 Circuit Breaker and the Transition to a New Normal 97 A Covid-19 General Election: A Mandate for Action and Leadership Succession 98 References 101 5 The Contradictions and Challenges of Singapore’s Immigration Policy 105 Foreign Talent 111 Migrant Workers 112 Cosmopolitan Singapore 115 The PAP Government’s Pragmatism 116 The Great Recession of 2007–2009 117 The General Elections of 2011 120 The Population White Paper and Little India Riot of 2013 121 The Impact of the Pandemic on Foreigners in Singapore 124 References 125 6 Migrant Worker Dormitories: Virus in a Neoliberal Politics of Space 132 Migrant Workers and the Precarity of Place 134 Migrant Worker Dormitories: Heterotopia and Moral Panic 136 Public Discourse: Us vs. Them 139 Covid-19 in the Dormitories 140 Uncertainty and Mental Distress 143 Civic Activism for the Migrant Worker Cause 145 Public Perception and Media Discourse 146 The Government as Pragmatic Mediator 148 Dormitories of the Future 149 Conclusion 150 References 151 7 Ready for the Post-Pandemic World? 159 From Dormitories to Lounges 161 From Pandemic to Endemic 164 A New Authoritarianism 165 References 169 Index 170