How utilitarian can Singapore’s authoritarian government be during the outbreak of COVID-19?

Abstract

This study seeks to examine the rationale behind Singapore’s successful works in preventing the ongoing and fluctuating COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, while many countries are still stuck in it. The research is mainly illustrated by the ideal type of Singapore-style authoritarianism, which charactered as utilitarian and highly efficient bureaucracy. The research puzzles in this paper majorly focus on the contradictory opinions of authoritarianism. In practice, with the generally negative images such as inhuman, ruthless, repressive and so on towards authoritarian regime but contrarily unexpected performances and results during the COVID-19, especially when comparing with those democratic countries. It is difficult to determine whether the restricted ruling is better or not when facing a certain crisis, or more importantly, is authoritarianism always negative? To analyze Singapore's achievements, this study defines the ideal types of Singapore authoritarianism as utilitarian and flexible, which is characterized by government measures policies. After that, different policies will be specifically explained the features and lastly compare with the similar case in China to explain more Singapore distinctiveness so that the question of Singapore-style authoritarianism can be constructed.