Uncoupling Conceptual Understandings and Political Preferences: A Study of Democratic Attitudes among Singapore’s Highly Educated Young

Democracy is subject to constant and seemingly interminable contestation in academic and policy contexts, and yet, empirically and methodologically robust analysis of what the term means in practice for actual citizens has remained an area of relative lacuna. Admittedly, large-N surveys have attempted to address this research gap by examining attitudes to numerous components of democracy, but without the fine-grained detail required to overcome simply reproducing the focus on liberal procedural, Western precedent-based, top-down approaches to understanding such a complex and varied political system. This article proposes a methodological approach, based on the requirements of comparative political theory and research into how people view democracy. This allows us to explore political attitudes and the meaning of democracy with a bottom-up approach using the methods of repertory grid and in-depth interviews. Singapore is a particularly exciting case for comparative political science: although it has all the advantageous conditions that, according to classic modernization theory, promote the development of democracy, it is still not a democracy. 

To what extent will the conceptualization of democracy by citizens in a country like Singapore resemble theoretical definitions, and how suitable do they consider democracy to be for Singapore? What are their expectations for a good government or regime? This article examines what highly educated Singaporeans, ranging in age from their twenties to their forties, think about democracy. In doing so, the article also pursues the goal of comparing methods between repertory grid interviews and in-depth interviews in order to work out potential interfaces, and points of connection, between the two methods to allow for the most productive research outcomes. We find that, conceptually, these Singaporeans’ perceptions of democracy appeared very similar to what is usually discussed as electoral democracy in established literature. When evaluating the performance of a government or a regime, however, liberal ideas of freedom and fairness competed with more pragmatic approaches that reflect the principles of progress and success as well as community and performance-focused orientations. As a result, our respondents did not prioritize democratic practices as much as other aspects of governance like efficiency. Our findings on the influence of state ideology on highly educated young people in Singapore strengthen the arguments of political myth as an integration and legitimization strategy in autocratic regimes and democratizing strong states or regimes with a particularly pronounced ideological hegemony. 

拆分概念性理解与政治偏好：对新加坡高学历年轻人的民主态度的研究

关键词: 新加坡, 政治态度, 民主的意义, 凯利方格法, 深度访谈。

尽管民主在学术和政策语境中随时处于无休无止的争议之中，但对于这个概念在实践中对实际的公民意味着什么， 我们在经验性和方法上的严格分析却还保持着相对的空白。的确有大样本调查试图通过考察对民主的许多组成部分的态度来填补这个空白，但是对于理解一个如此复杂多样的政治系统来说，它们缺少克服那些简单复制只关注自由主义程序主义的、以西方先例为基础的自上而下的方法所必需的精细的细节。本论文基于比较政治理论和对人们如何看待民主的研究的要求，提出一种方法论方法。它使得我们可以通过一种使用凯利方格法和深度访谈的自下而上的方法，来探求政治态度和民主的意义。新加坡对比较政治科学来说是一个特别令人兴奋的案例：尽管根据经典民主化理论来说，新加坡有着所有能促进民主发展的有利条件，但它仍然不是一个民主国家。

在何种意义上像新加坡这样一个国家的公民对民主的概念化理解会接近于理论上的定义？他们认为民主有多适合新加坡？他们对好政府或者政体的期望是怎样的？本论文考察了年龄在二十到四十多岁之间的受过良好教育的新加坡人对民主的看法。与此同时，本论文也致力于比较凯利方格法和深度访谈，以期找到这两种方法之间最有利于产生丰硕研究成果的潜在的交界面和连接点。我们发现，从概念上来说，新加坡人对民主的看法非常类似于既有文献中通常所讨论的“选举民主”。然而当他们评价政府或者政体的表现的时候，自由主义的自由和公平理念就会与反映进步和成功的原则的更为实用主义的方法以及关注社区和绩效的理念相竞争。结果是，我们的调查对象并未给予民主实践跟诸如效率之类的其它的治理维度一样高的优先性。我们关于国家意识形态对新加坡高学历年轻人群的影响的研究发现强化了这样的论点：政治迷思–特别是辅以突出的意识形态主导地位–是专制政体以及民主化中的强国家/政体的一种整合和和合法化策略。

Translated by Li Guo