Then it struck me. The Western diplomats there were seeing Singapore through the lens of Western politics. It is a handicap when it comes to understanding Singapore.
In the democracies of the West, political parties compete to form the government. As in business, so in politics: Having coherent, clearly-perceived brand values can be key to popular loyalty and market share (votes). Most parties in the West are understood to represent distinct approaches to economics and social issues, one strain of which is social conservatism.
Since social conservatism is often correlated with respect for authority, and since the PAP has created an authoritarian system in Singapore, Western observers can hardly be blamed if they put two and two together and assumed that the PAP represents social conservatism. In many instances, they are not wrong. There are plenty of policy examples, e.g. discrimination against single-parents, pro-family rhetoric, reluctance of the state to provide social support, bias in favour of organised religion at the expense of secularism, treating gay people as second-class citizens, that smack of social conservatism as understood in the West.
Where they are wrong is in the “cart-before-the-horse” problem. In the West, parties compete for power in order to implement their value systems. Thus, values come first and power is a means to an end.
In Singapore, it’s the other way around. At least for the PAP, power comes first — they are already in power and they expect to stay in power for a very long time — and values are there to serve their staying in power. Values are means to an end. Hence, power is non-negotiable, values are.
