<i>Authoritarian Rule of Law: Legislation, Discourse and Legitimacy in Singapore</i>. By Jothie Rajah. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2012. 352 pp. $29.99 paper.

Rahim, Lily Zubaidah

doi:10.1111/lasr.12038

Cited by 13 publications

(16 citation statements)

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“…Thus, while our study hints at the importance of authoritarianization, political science research has shown that authoritarianism comes in many guises. Thus, Rajah (2012) found that Singapore is a case of 'authoritarian Rule of Law' rather than a regime completely disregarding laws; and Levitsky and Way (2002) coined the term 'competitive authoritarianism' to describe authoritarian regimes where elections still play a role. Future research should further investigate whether such varieties of authoritarianism affect MNC political uncertainty in different ways and how.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Research Agendamentioning

confidence: 99%

The antecedents of MNC political risk and uncertainty under right-wing populist governments

et al. 2023

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Right-wing populist parties who obtain governmental power rely on ethno-nationalist mobilization for domestic legitimacy. They may therefore adopt policies that explicitly seek to disadvantage foreign multinational corporations (MNCs). Understanding what factors increase a foreign MNC’s exposure to adverse action by right-wing populists is an understudied question in the field of international business policy. We investigate this question in post-socialist member states of the European Union, which constitute extreme cases of right-wing populist government power. As such, they constitute a fertile ground to further our theoretical understanding of the distinction between calculable political risk and incalculable political uncertainty. Through a case study-based theory-building approach, which draws on existing literature and interview data, we derive a series of propositions and develop a research agenda. We identify factors at the country-, sector-, and firm-level that influence exposure to adverse policy action by host-country governments. We explore when political risk may turn into political uncertainty and provide suggestions to foreign MNCs operating in right-wing populist contexts on how to reduce this uncertainty. Our study provides insights for policy makers too, who should be aware of the impact political shifts towards right-wing populist governments have on political uncertainty for foreign companies.

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Section: Limitations and Future Research Agendamentioning

confidence: 99%

The antecedents of MNC political risk and uncertainty under right-wing populist governments

et al. 2023

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“…Of various internal mechanisms, the court system serves as a crucial tool for authoritarian rulers to address the agency problem (Ginsburg 2002). A common practice adopted by autocrats is to develop an administrative law regime (He 2009; Li 2013; Pei 1997; Solomon 2007), delegating the tasks of dispute settlement among citizens and executive agents to courts (Li 2013; Rajah 2012). However, the efficacy of administrative law has increasingly been contested with increasing decentralization, which many authoritarian countries have embarked on (Wang 2018).…”

Section: Recentralizing the Authoritarian Judiciarymentioning

confidence: 99%

Judicial recentralization as political control: Evidence from the judicial leader rotation in China

Wang

2023

Social Science Quarterly

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This study analyzes how authoritarian leaders use the judicial system to solve the principal-agent problem in the government hierarchy. We argue that autocrats recentralize court personnel to enhance the central government's monitoring power over local officials. Methods: Our empirical analysis takes advantage of a judicial personnel rotation reform in which the Chinese Communist Party recentralized court personnel by rotating provincial-level court leaders in 14 out of 31 provinces. Results: Panel data analysis shows that judicial recentralization increased adjudicated administrative lawsuits by nearly 30 percent. We also demonstrate that the enhancement in judicial responsiveness is not driven by alternative channels such as learning or the substitution between different ways of petitions. Conclusion:This study explores the dilemma faced by authoritarian leaders in balancing the need for an effective court system to address local governance issues while maintaining control, highlighting the compromise solution of recentralizing local judiciaries to partially insulate them from local interference.

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“…Singapore's judiciary is widely perceived to act professionally and impartially in businessrelated cases. Yet, it is less so when it comes to civil-political cases, when the PAP government or leaders launch defamation and lawsuits against the opposition leaders and dissidents (Freedom House, 2021a;Thio, 2012;Rajah, 2012b). Further, its process of judicial review rarely, if ever, finds any legislation to be unconstitutional (Chua and Haynie, 2016).…”

Section: Dip In Horizontal Accountabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Democratic backsliding in illiberal Singapore

Tan

Preece

2022

Asian Journal of Comparative Politics

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Singapore is a well-known illiberal democracy, ruled by one party, the People's Action Party (PAP), uninterruptedly since 1959. The rise of disinformation, the leadership succession crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic have posed challenges to the ruling party's technocratic, ‘soft-authoritarian’ governance style. Is it business as usual in Singapore? Or has its democracy backslid like its regional neighbours? Drawing on an established index of accountability and V-Dem's democratic indicators, our study investigates whether democratic institutions in hybrid regimes such as Singapore have changed. We find that mechanisms of diagonal accountability related to media and civil society have declined. Vertical and horizontal accountability remains weak as expected in a hybrid regime such as Singapore. The PAP government has returned to relying on the law as a ‘fist in velvet glove’ to muzzle dissent and constrain information that may last post pandemic.

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Authoritarian Rule of Law: Legislation, Discourse and Legitimacy in Singapore. By Jothie Rajah. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2012. 352 pp. $29.99 paper.

Cited by 13 publications

References 0 publications

The antecedents of MNC political risk and uncertainty under right-wing populist governments

The antecedents of MNC political risk and uncertainty under right-wing populist governments

Judicial recentralization as political control: Evidence from the judicial leader rotation in China

Democratic backsliding in illiberal Singapore

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