Authoritarian Rule of Law

Abstract

Scholars have generally assumed that authoritarianism and rule of law are mutually incompatible. Convinced that free markets and rule of law must tip authoritarian societies in a liberal direction, nearly all studies of law and contemporary politics have neglected that improbable coupling: authoritarian rule of law. Through a focus on Singapore, this book presents an analysis of authoritarian legalism. It shows how prosperity, public discourse, and a rigorous observance of legal procedure have enabled a reconfigured rule of law such that liberal form encases illiberal content. Institutions and process at the bedrock of rule of law and liberal democracy become tools to constrain dissent while augmenting discretionary political power - even as the national and international legitimacy of the state is secured. This book offers a valuable and original contribution to understanding the complexities of law, language and legitimacy in our time.

Exporting autocracy: how China's extra-jurisdictional autocratic influence caused democratic backsliding in Hong Kong

“…45 While the appointments were subsequently confirmed, such attacks from the CCP collaborators have cast a dark shadow over the future of the judicial appointment process. 46 Should China exert further indirect autocratic influence over the judicial appointment process through its local collaborator network, 47 the degeneration of Hong Kong's judicial system into "authoritarian rule of law" akin to Singapore 48 is no longer unimaginable.…”

The Leviathan's Rule by Law

“…Legal development in nondemocracies has attracted growing scholarly attention, spurring a literature that explores the functional aspects of law and courts in those countries (Fu ; Ginsburg & Moustafa ; Moustafa ; Rajah ) . Most of the studies, however, rely on case analysis, interviews, or archival research, and many focus on the role of courts and judicial power, neglecting the broad range of legal tools employed by a nondemocratic state to achieve its desired policy objectives.…”

Knowledge in Development, Law and Regulation, or How are We to Distinguish between the Economic and the Non-Economic?

“…79 While this difference is still hard to pinpoint or to make fruitful, it becomes ever more evident that in close proximity to the continuing stand-offs between conservative and progressive struggles over development policies, the range of theory, vocabulary and categories, frameworks and imaginations is expanding. In that context, the astutely recorded accounts by Achebe of his interactions with 'third world experts', 80 the extermination of interview protocols and legislative materials of law-making processes in Singapore's 'authoritarian' Rule of Law 81 or the anthropological scrutiny of the World Bank's human rights programs 82 -they are all and each one of them crucial elements that help draw a richer and more sophisticated picture of the development context today. In other words, we see a significant analytical expansion and deepening of our 'knowledge' basis vis-à-vis the developmental state and the transnational 'aid and development' apparatus that is staring at it.…”