IN THE COMPANY OF CITIZENS: THE RHETORIC OF SINGAPORE INC. BY ROHINI SHASHIKIRAN SINGH DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Communication in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2016 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor John Murphy, Chair Professor Cara Finnegan Professor David Tewksbury Associate Professor Ned O' Gorman Abstract The leaders of Singapore take great pride in the small republic's economic achievements. Given its economic success, prominence in international markets, and cultivation of the world's highest density of millionaires, it is unsurprising that the nation is often referred to as "Singapore Inc.," a metaphor depicting the country as a corporate enterprise. But what happens to the relationship between people and their government when citizens are cast as shareholders and employees, and the government the nation's expert managers? How do these groups talk to each other and what kinds of arguments do they use to negotiate public problems? In this dissertation, I address these questions by exploring the implications of a corporate constitution of the nation for public deliberation. In asking what it means to run a country like a company, I engage with the concept of neoliberalism: the “leakage” of economic rationalities into non-economic spheres. This dissertation is thus a project in examining how neoliberalism affects the conditions of political participation by transforming a political relationship between citizens and their government into an economic one between workers and CEOs. Through an analysis of the annual National Day Rally address delivered by Singapore’s Prime Ministers from 1960 to 2014 and two public controversies over immigration and censorship, I show how the government borrows the logic and language of the business world to set the terms of public discourse and how the people respond in ways that alternately resist and reinforce these norms. I conclude that rhetorical scholarship can benefit by drawing on concepts from organizational communication and that Singapore presents a unique case of neoliberalism that blends the liberal focus on individual endeavor with republican notions of sacrifice for a common goal. ii Acknowledgements Seven years ago, I stepped into a graduate seminar titled “Conceptual Criticism in Public Address.” I had signed up at the last moment and thus didn’t know that readings had been assigned for that first day. However, people were kind – Courtney Travers (then Caudle) shared her printouts with me and I sat in a kind of haze as John Murphy led us patiently through John F. Kennedy’s speech at American University. I remember dutifully jotting down notes such as “read Northrop Frye,” “check who Northrop Frye is” and “look up chiasmus (sp?).” Since then, I have been the recipient of many small and large acts of kindness from my colleagues and advisors at Illinois. Chief among them are my dissertation committee, headed by my advisor John Murphy whose steady hand, keen eye, and infinite patience are paralleled only by his warmth, humor, and stellar presidential impressions (we also talked about triadic repetition that first day). Cara Finnegan taught me the importance of engaging with primary texts closely and sensitively, be they photographs, essays on counter-publics, or National Day Rally speeches. As she said in a class on public sphere theory, “What Does The Text Say?” Ned O’Gorman took me on as a research intern when I was very green and gave me a front row seat into how a rhetorician combs through archival records and conceptualizes a large historical project. Dave Tewksbury gave me the chance as his teaching assistant to explore the history of mass media and seems to have discovered an unbeatable formula for how to be both authoritative and affable. I also thank my friends and family for putting up with many anguished discussions about Singapore, neoliberalism, and Midwest weather (No, Nikki Weickum, 50F is not “pleasant”). Marissa Lowe Wallace, Courtney Caudle Travers, and Natalie White have been stalwart supports through long chats and even longer conference presentations. Nikki Weickum is a delight who is equally able to conduct a conversation in person or via post-it notes left on your computer, and is one of the warmest people I am lucky to know. Tania Rozario has been a source of joy, advice, and excellent tea. She’s not half bad – for a Malaysian. Ada Fung Platt, my dearest friend, is an editor with a gifted way with words. Her love, counsel, and singular ability with a baking pan kept me going through college and graduate school. My husband Ben served on the front lines of this dissertation. He has listened to arguments, entered into discussions about the project, talked me back from deleting the whole thing, and humbled me with his kindness and faith in me. He’s also quite good with a quiche. Finally, my mother Glenda Singh, who uprooted her life to move to Singapore, who pursued and obtained a graduate degree so she could get a job in a new country, and who did all these things while looking after my family, bears the greatest thanks. Her hard work, selflessness, and love is a constant source of awe and if I become half the person she is, I’ll have really made something of myself. iii Table of Contents CHAPTER 1: THE NEOLIBERAL ISLAND .................................................................................1 CHAPTER 2: RALLYING THE NATION: THE CORPORATE METAPHOR IN NATIONAL DAY RALLY ADDRESSES, 1960-2014 .........................................................................38 CHAPTER 3: CONTESTING THE CORPORATE METAPHOR: AUTHENTICITY IN IMMIGRATION DEBATES .............................................................................................66 CHAPTER 4: WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? STRATEGIC AMBIGUITY IN PUBLIC POLICY ...........................................................................................................................103 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................138 APPENDIX A: MARKING CHANGE AND TURNING POINTS IN SINGAPORE'S NATIONAL DAY RALLY ADDRESSES, 1960-2014 ..............................................................160 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................161 iv 1 CHAPTER 1: THE NEOLIBERAL ISLAND Regimes around the world are under pressure to deliver more and cost less…To make government work in the 21st century requires the same basic "business plan" as in any other failing, but potentially still viable, enterprise. - The Atlantic, May 16, 20131 We market Singapore as a "product." To stay ahead of the competition we have to constantly innovate and enhance the Singapore product. - Economic Development Board, Singapore, 19942 The hysteria was palpable in the website Techcrunch's 2011 proclamation that "America is gripped by a new red menace and this time, it's not the commies – it's a sea of red ink." 3 Frustrated by reports of "abysmal fiscal neglect" in the United States government, or as the site termed it, the "pseudo-company in which we all essentially own shares," the writers declared that "if politicians reported to voters the way management reports to shareholders, no one would finish out their terms." The contention that business principles should shape government behavior persists not only in the U.S., where Bill Gates admonishes the government for following a "non-optimal path" that a normal business would avoid,4 but on the other side of the globe, where Singapore's Prime Minister tells the nation that Microsoft is "the kind of business 1. Eric Schnurer, "Government Should Run Like a Business—but Not in the Way You Think," The Atlantic, May 16, 2013, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/05/government-should-run-like-a- business-but-not-in-the-way-you-think/275693/?single_page=true. 2. Economic Development Board, Economic Development Board Yearbook, Singapore, 1994. 3. Sarah Lacy, "Can America Function More Like a Fiscally Responsible Company? It’s up to us, the shareholders." Techcrunch, February 24, 2011, http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/24/can-america-function-more-like-a- fiscally-responsible-company-its-up-to-us-the shareholders/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrun ch%29. 4. Jessica Meyers, “Bill Gates on D.C.: 'You don’t run a business like this'" Politico, March 13, 2013, http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/bill-gates-on-dc-you-dont-run-a-business-like-this-88830.html. 2 which we want to be as Singapore."5 What remains a point of debate in the U.S. has long been a creed among Singapore's incumbent party: that the government should model itself after the private sector. As the Prime Minister's exhortation for Singapore to be Microsoft suggests, Singapore takes this reasoning so far that a private company has become not merely an operational heuristic for government but the basis of the nation's identity. This dissertation explores the implications of a corporate constitution of the nation for citizenship and public deliberation. Situating my study in Singapore between the years 1960 and 2014, I ask what citizenship -its practice in terms of political engagement and its meaning as a concept and status- becomes when a country is run like a company. In studying what happens when government is organized according to business principles,