“Democratic Authoritarianism” and the Censorship of the Press

Democracy and authoritarianism are incompatible. But Singapore Government uses democracy—the fact that it is an elected government—to defend its authoritarian press censorship. This paper examines the arguments for “democratic authoritarianism” sympathetically and explores its irrationality by looking into how it works in Singapore and its implications for press censorship.

To Singapore’s leaders, it is authoritarianism driven by democracy or “democratic authoritarianism”. For long, it has been offered as a strong defense for the authoritarian practice of press censorship in Singapore. As an elected government, they can censure both the local and foreign press in whatever way they want. They argue that what they want to do is acted on behalf of the people for the sake of public interest. And it is to counter this modern variant of authoritarian thinking on the press that this article is devoted. In the following, the irrationality of this political belief and its application in press censorship will be explored. The second part of this article will reconstruct and present the arguments of “democratic authoritarianism” based on the thinking of Singapore’s leaders. Then the third part will call into questions its conceptual assumptions and empirical validity by looking into how it is worked out in Singapore and its implications for democracy and freedom of the press. It will be shown that the democratic authority informed by “democratic authoritarianism” is neither democratic in nature nor that the authority they enjoy is deserved. It does not represent democracy, but democracy betrayed.