Scholars have generally assumed that authoritarianism and rule of law are mutually incompatible. Convinced that free markets and rule of law must tip authoritarian societies in a liberal direction, ...nearly all studies of law and contemporary politics have neglected that improbable coupling: authoritarian rule of law. Through a focus on Singapore, this book presents an analysis of authoritarian legalism. It shows how prosperity, public discourse, and a rigorous observance of legal procedure have enabled a reconfigured rule of law such that liberal form encases illiberal content. Institutions and process at the bedrock of rule of law and liberal democracy become tools to constrain dissent while augmenting discretionary political power - even as the national and international legitimacy of the state is secured. This book offers a valuable and original contribution to understanding the complexities of law, language and legitimacy in our time.
In his 2016 review essay, "The Rule of Law: Pasts, Presents, and Two Possible Futures", Martin Krygier identifies "two venerable themes" that remain, he argues, crucial to present interrogations of ...rule of law (200). These are "arbitrary exercise of power and its institutionalized tempering"; themes, he notes, that are "related to each other as vexed problem and putative solution" (200). In the course of making his compelling argument for the continuing pursuit of rule-of-law ideals, Krygier produces an invaluable mapping and assessment of the ever-expanding field of rule-of-law scholarship. Situating recent analysis in relation to established thought and rule of law's "unprecedented voguishness" (200), Krygier issues a challenge to those of us wedded to the received notion that the institutionalized tempering of power necessarily involves state power.
Gavin Hood's 2016 film, Eye in the Sky (Eye), opens on a scene of familial warmth and domestic togetherness. Words on the bottom left corner of the screen inform us that the place is Kenya, and the ...time is 7 am. We are introduced to a little girl, Alia, in the outdoor space of her family's very simple home; a home that appears to have been built out of scavenged and somewhat makeshift materials. The space is adjacent to an outdoor oven. Alia's mother sets bread into this oven with a baking peel. The parents have calm loving demeanours and use endearments when speaking to the child. Alia stands next to her father who is putting the finishing touches to a hoop that Alia receives with excitement. 'Go play', her father instructs her. Alia spins and twirls inside the hoop with an entrancing, lyrical grace. Then the camera moves up and away to show us a jarring contrast: on the other side of the cinder block wall separating the family's compound from the street, men in camouflage uniforms stand in a jeep with a machine gun set on a tripod, patrolling the neighbourhood.
One of the funny things about living in the United States is that people say to me: 'Singapore? Isn't that where they flog you for chewing gum?' - and I am always tempted to say yes. This question ...reveals what sticks in the popular US cultural imaginary about tiny, faraway Singapore. It is based on two events: first, in 1992, the sale of chewing gum was banned (Sale of Food Prohibition of Chewing Gum Regulations 1992), and second, in 1994, 18 year-old US citizen, Michael Fay, convicted of vandalism for having spray-painted some cars was sentenced to six strokes of the cane (Michael Peter Fay v Public Prosecutor). If Singapore already had a reputation for being a nanny state, then these two events simultaneously sharpened that reputation and confused the stories into the composite image through which Americans situate Singaporeans.
What does rule of law look like from beyond an Anglo-American perspective? This Commentary excavates a subterranean strand of Singapore’s rule of law discourse – rule of law as the necessary ...subordination of ‘the people’ – to argue that colonial ideologies are inevitably perpetuated and revitalized when the postcolony adopts rule of law as a pillar of the nation-making project.
This brief comment on Nick Cheesman’s
Opposing the Rule of Law
highlights the roles of first, documentary records; second, ethnographic engagements and methodologies; and third, the analytic traction ...gained by illuminating the concept of rule of law through juxtaposing rule of law with the asymmetrically opposed concept of law and order.
This brief comment on Nick Cheesman’s Opposing the Rule of Law highlights the roles of first, documentary records; second, ethnographic engagements and methodologies; and third, the analytic traction ...gained by illuminating the concept of rule of law through juxtaposing rule of law with the asymmetrically opposed concept of law and order.
Gavin Hood's 2016 film, Eye in the Sky (Eye), opens on a scene of familial warmth and domestic togetherness. Words on the bottom left corner of the screen inform us that the place is Kenya, and the ...time is 7 am. We are introduced to a little girl, Alia, in the outdoor space of her family's very simple home; a home that appears to have been built out of scavenged and somewhat makeshift materials. The space is adjacent to an outdoor oven. Alia's mother sets bread into this oven with a baking peel. The parents have calm loving demeanours and use endearments when speaking to the child. Alia stands next to her father who is putting the finishing touches to a hoop that Alia receives with excitement. 'Go play', her father instructs her. Alia spins and twirls inside the hoop with an entrancing, lyrical grace. Then the camera moves up and away to show us a jarring contrast: on the other side of the cinder block wall separating the family's compound from the street, men in camouflage uniforms stand in a jeep with a machine gun set on a tripod, patrolling the neighbourhood.
Gavin Hood's 2016 film, Eye in the Sky (Eye), opens on a scene of familial warmth and domestic togetherness. Words on the bottom left corner of the screen inform us that the place is Kenya, and the ...time is 7 am. We are introduced to a little girl, Alia, in the outdoor space of her family's very simple home; a home that appears to have been built out of scavenged and somewhat makeshift materials. The space is adjacent to an outdoor oven. Alia's mother sets bread into this oven with a baking peel. The parents have calm loving demeanours and use endearments when speaking to the child. Alia stands next to her father who is putting the finishing touches to a hoop that Alia receives with excitement. 'Go play', her father instructs her. Alia spins and twirls inside the hoop with an entrancing, lyrical grace. Then the camera moves up and away to show us a jarring contrast: on the other side of the cinder block wall separating the family's compound from the street, men in camouflage uniforms stand in a jeep with a machine gun set on a tripod, patrolling the neighbourhood.
