Michael Barr explores the complex and covert networks of power at work in one of the world's most prosperous countries - the city-state of Singapore. He argues that the contemporary networks of power are a deliberate project initiated and managed by Lee Kuan Yew - former prime minister and Singapore's "founding father" - designed to empower himself and his family. Barr identifies the crucial institutions of power - including the country's sovereign wealth funds, and the government-linked companies - together with five critical features that form the key to understanding the nature of the networks. He provides an assessment of possible shifts of power within the elite in the wake of Lee Kuan Yew's son, Lee Hsien Loong, assuming power, and considers the possibility of a more fundamental democratic shift in Singapore's political system.

Cultural Politics and Asian Values looks at the political, cultural and religious background of East and Southeast Asian societies and those of 'the West', with a view to seeing how they are affecting contemporary national and international politics: democratization, the international human rights discourse, NGOs and globalization. The book surveys the political history and pre-history of the 'Asian values' debate, taking it up to the era of Megawati Sukarnoputri, Chen Shui-bian and Kim Dae-jung. In chapters on Confucianism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and liberalism, Barr explores the histories and conceptual essences of the world religions involved in or affected by the debate.

Cultural Politics and Asian Values looks at the political, cultural and religious background of East and Southeast Asian societies and those of 'the West', with a view to seeing how they are affecting contemporary national and international politics: democratization, the international human rights discourse, NGOs and globalisation. The book surveys the political history and pre-history of the 'Asian values' debate, taking it up to the era of Megawati Sukarnoputri, Chen Shui-bian and Kim Dae-jung. In chapters on Confucianism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and liberalism, Barr explores the histories and conceptual essences of the world religions involved in or affected by the debate.

Cultural Politics and Asian Values looks at the political, cultural and religious background of East and Southeast Asian societies and those of 'the West', with a view to seeing how they are affecting contemporary national and international politics: democratization, the international human rights discourse, NGOs and globalization.
The book surveys the political history and pre-history of the 'Asian values' debate, taking it up to the era of Megawati Sukarnoputri, Chen Shui-bian and Kim Dae-jung. In chapters on Confucianism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and liberalism, Barr explores the histories and conceptual essences of the world religions involved in or affected by the debate.

Cultural Politics and Asian Values looks at the political, cultural and religious background of East and Southeast Asian societies and those of 'the West', with a view to seeing how they are affecting contemporary national and international politics: democratization, the international human rights discourse, NGOs and globalisation.
The book surveys the political history and pre-history of the 'Asian values' debate, taking it up to the era of Megawati Sukarnoputri, Chen Shui-bian and Kim Dae-jung. In chapters on Confucianism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and liberalism, Barr explores the histories and conceptual essences of the world religions involved in or affected by the debate.

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Hardly more than a decade old, the twenty-first century has already been dubbed the Asian Century in recognition of China and India's increasing importance in world affairs. Yet discussions of Asia seem fixated on economic indicators-gross national product, per capita income, share of global trade. Makers of Modern Asia reorients our understanding of contemporary Asia by highlighting the political leaders, not billionaire businessmen, who helped launch the Asian Century. The nationalists who crafted modern Asia were as much thinkers as activists, men and women who theorized and organized anticolonial movements, strategized and directed military campaigns, and designed and implemented political systems. The eleven thinker-politicians whose portraits are presented here were a mix of communists, capitalists, liberals, authoritarians, and proto-theocrats-a group as diverse as the countries they represent. From China, the world's most populous country, come four: Mao Zedong, leader of the Communist Revolution; Zhou Enlai, his close confidant; Deng Xiaoping, purged by Mao but rehabilitated to play a critical role in Chinese politics in later years; and Chiang Kai-shek, whose Kuomintang party formed the basis of modern Taiwan. From India, the world's largest democracy, come three: Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Indira Gandhi, all of whom played crucial roles in guiding India toward independence and prosperity. Other exemplary nationalists include Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh, Indonesia's Sukarno, Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew, and Pakistan's Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. With contributions from leading scholars, Makers of Modern Asia illuminates the intellectual and ideological foundations of Asia's spectacular rise to global prominence.

This book delves into the limitations of Singapore's authoritarian governance model. In doing so, the relevance of the Singapore governance model for other industrialising economies is systematically examined. Research in this book examines the challenges for an integrated governance model that has proven durable over four to five decades. The editors argue that established socio-political and economic formulae are now facing unprecedented challenges. Structural pressures associated with Singapore's particular locus within globalised capitalism have fostered heightened social and material inequalities, compounded by the ruling party's ideological resistance to substantive redistribution. As 'growth with equity' becomes more elusive, the rationale for power by a ruling party dominated by technocratic elite and state institutions crafted and controlled by the ruling party and its bureaucratic allies is open to more critical scrutiny.

Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's first prime minister (from 1959 to1990), has been an international figure not only for establishing Singapore's political and economic stability but also for fostering economic development throughout Asia. He is particularly renowned as a principle architect of the 'Asian values' campaign of the 1990s, which sought to preserve the undemocratic traits of Asian culture while attending to the demands of a capitalist economy operating globally.

A critical examination of Lee's life, career, and ideas, this is the first book to analyze the origins and substance of Lee's political thought. Augmenting established primary sources with his own interviews and correspondence with Lee's old associates, Barr shows how Lee has been influenced by British and Chinese racism and elitism, western progressivism, and even the cultural evolutionism of Arnold Toynbee. This reassessment of Lee's achievements and worldview sheds new light on a key figure on the world stage.

Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's first Prime Minister, is a figure whose international stature far exceeds that of the tiny island over which he presided for thirty years. Lee is the principal architect of Singapore's political stability and its economic development throughout Asia. Yet the continuing interest in the man several years after his retirement from the prime ministership derives mainly from his contributions on the greater world stage. Lee was a leading figure in the recent revival of Confucianism throughout the Chinese world and was a main initiator of the 'Asian Values' campaign of the 1990s. In this role he has been at the forefront of both practical and theoretical efforts to reconcile undemocratic, illiberal elitism with the requirements of a prosperous capitalist economy operating within the global economic system. Lee presents an ostensibly 'Asian' argument, but his essential message is global. This first book ever to analyze the origin and substance of Lee's ideas is timely and relevant, as well as provocative, and will appeal to a broad spectrum of readers, not just of Singaporean history but all the way from political science to semiotics. It is a compelling and lucid study, which is vindicated by the fact that the dissertation on which it is based won the Asian Studies Association of Australia President's Award.

Singapore gained independence in 1965, a city-state in a world of nation-states. Yet its long and complex history reaches much farther back. Blending modernity and tradition, ideologies and ethnicities, a peculiar set of factors make Singapore what it is today. In this thematic study of the island nation, Michael D. Barr proposes a new approach to understand this development. From the pre-colonial period through to the modern day, he traces the idea, the politics and the geography of Singapore over five centuries of rich history. In doing so he rejects the official narrative of the so-called 'Singapore Story'. Drawing on in-depth archival work and oral histories, Singapore: A Modern History is a work both for students of the country's history and politics, but also for any reader seeking to engage with this enigmatic and vastly successful nation.

Singapore's era of pluralism between the 1950s and 1970s was a time of extraordinary cultural, intellectual and political dynamism. Students, labour unions, ambitious political contenders, and representatives of the various ethnic communities all stepped forward to offer alternate visions of Singapore's future from across the entire political spectrum. They generated a ferment of ideologies, priorities, perspectives and social visions such as mainstream 'official' Singapore politics had never known before and has not seen since.Post WWII Singapore history generally follows a central theme of progress to establish the PAP political, economic and social model. Alternatives receive cursory treatment as problems, false starts, or difficulties to be overcome. This book reveals a more complex situation that involved a much larger cast of significant players, and gives due weight to the middle years of the twentieth century as a period that offered real alternatives, rather than a chaotic age before the dawn.The book will remind older Singaporeans of pages from their past, and will provide a younger generation with a novel perspective at their country's past struggles. For outside observers, it offers a fascinating glimpse of a side of Singapore that has received relatively little attention.