[rsynnott]

> Singapore is now rich. It was poor just 40 years ago

Many countries, particularly in that general region, have achieved that without being police states, though. Even where they had oppressive governments (as with Taiwan and South Korea back in the day), that has generally eased.

[gojomo]

Despite the fact that Singapore doesn't have North American levels of political diversity and free speech protection, I don't think it's fair to imply it is a 'police state'. It's a rich city with a powerful political establishment that uses some levers of power that are taboo in North America. But there's an elected parliament, a non-corrupt bureaucracy, and a respected legal system derived from English law. (Though, there are no jury trials and the government always wins its libel cases.)

In the economic dimension, at least, the case can be made Singapore has gone farther and faster than its other 'asian tiger' peers.

And, I'm not sure that Taiwan or South Korea would come out better in a point-by-point comparison of either economic or political/social freedoms. They're all different than US standards regarding dissent, by my understanding. (I've read the least about Taiwan's internal politics.)

[rsynnott]

I'm comparing more to Europe than to the US, but in particular, Singapore is not meaningfully democratic. The one party is enormously dominant, and there's considerable evidence that other parties are pressured not to field candidates. "The government always wins its libel cases" - sort of demonstrates that (a) the government is at least unusual (normal democratic governments do not bring libel cases, or the Daily Mail would be in a lot of trouble), and (b) the judiciary is compromised.

> And, I'm not sure that Taiwan or South Korea would come out better in a point-by-point comparison of either economic or political/social freedoms

Both are now relatively democratic, though it's a recent thing.

[gojomo]

Singapore is obviously not the usual sort of competitive democracy with vibrant (and even celebrated) dissent like the major Western democracies.

But it's also far from a 'police state', the very loaded term you introduced. It's interesting precisely because it seems to illustrate that there's not a stark binary choice between 'democracy' and 'despotism', but rather a more multidimensional choice space, and on many scales their choices are doing very well.

It's also the case that even in impeccable liberal democracies, cities/regions/jurisdictions larger than Singapore's 4-million population can remain overwhelmingly loyal to a single party for decades, for its local officials and representatives to national legislature.

For example, Chicago has had Democratic Party mayors for almost twice as long as Singapore has existed as a country. Some unfair play by the incumbent machine is an understood factor, but it's also the case that the major alternative statewide, the Republican Party, isn't very attractive to city residents. What competition does occur happens under one party label.

Against its region, then, the noncompetitiveness of Singapore internal politics may be just as much or more an outgrowth of that same sort of local identity/satisfaction against distinct alternatives, as it is from the unfair play.