(De)Securitising national minorities: The case of Singapore

Abstract

Singapore presents a unique case study for multiculturalists in that the state leans heavily in its promotion of racial demarcations whilst simultaneously propagating a narrative of the state “regardless of race, language or religion”. This paper argues that this apparent contradiction is a deliberate calculation to use multiculturalism to desecuritise an otherwise disparate multiracial society. Extending He’s (2018) sequencing of multicultural progress as an a priori development to desecuritisation, this paper moves past traditionally democratic assumptions to demonstrate how the Singaporean state has in effect desecuritised national minorities through semi-to-autocratic management of multiculturalism. Referring to ‘securitised multiculturalism’ that has become increasingly evident since the 2000s, the paper progresses to consider how terrorism has affected Singapore’s multicultural formulation and examines the state’s top-down responses to desecuritise the security element in ‘securitised multiculturalism’ to the extent that such is possible.