Election Strategy and Ethnic Politics in Singapore

Joel S. Fetzer
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引用次数: 15

Abstract

According to Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s electoral system is essentially representative and does not suffer from significant ethnic conflict. Opposition leaders, however, denounce legislative elections as unfair and claim that Singapore's ethnic minorities disagree politically with the Chinese-dominated People's Action Party (PAP). This essay aims to test both of these hypotheses empirically, using freely available electoral and public-opinion data. Logistic regression of the 1968-2006 parliamentary election results by constituency indicates that the PAP government did create Group Representation Constituencies in 1988 so as to eliminate districts that had voted disproportionately for the opposition in 1984. Analysis using Gary King's method of ecological inference suggests that ethic polarization between Chinese and Malays was moderately high in the 1976 election, peaked in 1988, and was minimal in 2006. Indians, meanwhile, appear to have voted with the Chinese in all three elections. A parallel cross-sectional, logistic regression of the 2002 Singapore subset of the World Values Survey, however, has Indian respondents being slightly less likely to admit to dissatisfaction with the government and indicates that being Malay does not make one more willing to express such dissatisfaction. These empirical results thus cast doubt on the extent to which Singapore's elections have been truly free, fair, and devoid of ethnic tension. The findings also suggest that young, middle-class, highly educated Chinese have replaced working-class Malays as the greatest challenge to continued PAP dominance.
新加坡的选举策略与族群政治
根据资政李光耀的说法,新加坡的选举制度基本上是代表性的,没有严重的种族冲突。然而,反对党领导人谴责立法选举是不公平的,并声称新加坡的少数民族在政治上与华人主导的人民行动党(PAP)存在分歧。本文旨在利用可免费获得的选举和民意数据,从经验上检验这两种假设。对1968-2006年国会选举结果的Logistic回归分析表明,人民行动党政府确实在1988年设立了团体代表制选区,以消除1984年投票给反对派不成比例的选区。使用Gary King的生态推理方法进行的分析表明,华人和马来人之间的种族分化在1976年的选举中较为严重,在1988年达到顶峰,在2006年达到最低点。与此同时,印度人似乎在所有三次选举中都投票给了中国人。然而,对2002年世界价值观调查新加坡子集的平行横断面逻辑回归显示,印度受访者承认对政府不满的可能性略低,这表明马来人并不会使一个人更愿意表达这种不满。因此,这些实证结果让人怀疑新加坡的选举在多大程度上是真正自由、公平和没有种族紧张关系的。调查结果还表明,年轻的中产阶级、受过高等教育的华人已经取代了工薪阶层的马来人,成为人民行动党持续主导地位的最大挑战。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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