Are Singaporeans rational in being politically ignorant?

    Well, there was one student asking me about how the Public Choice model apply to Singapore.  In that aspect, it is always good to try applying the facts that you have learned to Singapore.

    One key concept of the model is that voter ignorance is rational.  In Singapore, rational voter ignorance also holds in the form of a  more commonly used term, political apathy. However, it should be clear that there is an even stronger form of voter ignorance that is present in Singapore, known as self-censorship.  Well, as an introduction to this topic, there is no better article than Catherine Lim's Great Affective Divide.  If you people cannot remember, she contributed two articles to the Straits Times in 1994 that describe how Singaporeans feel about the political life in Singapore.  It was the second article that she wrote, commenting on the pay-hike for ministers that was recently passed then, which drew a sharp response from PM Goh.  You can read Catherine Lim's  two articles here.  It was that episode that started the "If you want to comment on politics, join a political party" era.  It has been five years from that incident and that era shows no sign of changing, as seen here.  The 'Catherine Lim's affair' was also the episode that started the "remember your place in society before you engage in political debate, or better known in Hokkien as the bo tua bo suay (Neither big nor small)" era.  I guess the entire affair makes all of us rational, at this present moment, in engaging in self-censorship.  For those keen to understand what does self-censorship means, James Gomez has a brilliant article describing this phenomenon here.

    A recent analysis of Catherine Lim's article at this present year, 1999, was analyzed by Cherian George.   Cherian's analysis drew another robust reply from PM Goh's press secretary, which was replied to by Cherian here.