Audience agency in a curious instance of failed securitization: Public resistance to the Singapore government’s eugenics program

Abstract

Securitization theory posits that security threats are socially constructed. Yet, how audiences influence the failure and success of securitization attempts is still not well understood. In this article, I argue that audiences bring their normative perspectives to bear upon the interpretation of securitization attempts. This theoretical addendum, I hold, permits a fuller appreciation of how audiences express their agency when receiving securitization attempts. I examine the Singaporean context, where the discursive backdrop favours the construction of security threats. While the Singaporean government has successfully securitized many issues, Lee Kuan Yew’s attempt to securitize the country’s declining birth rates failed dramatically. This occurred, I contend, as the Singaporean public was deeply offended by the normative premises of Lee’s eugenicist argument, thus refusing to engage with the issue on the government’s terms. These objections were only fuelled by the eugenics programme the government later introduced, ultimately causing the government to discontinue its pronatalist policies and significantly revise its rhetoric. This article develops the understanding of how securitization unfolds by expanding on the conceptualization of audience behaviour. By examining Singapore, which has failed to inspire many analyses of securitization, it also diversifies securitization theory’s empirical reach, highlighting its intelligibility within non-democratic contexts.

Keywords

Agency audience normative resistance securitization Singapore

Introduction

How do certain issues become seen as threats? For the Copenhagen School, security is the result of securitization, or ‘naming a certain development a security problem’ (Wæver, 1995: 54). We may think of security threats as the product of intersubjective processes of social construction. For a security threat to arise, it must have been constructed as such.

Singapore exemplifies this understanding. In Singapore, the rhetoric of security is pervasive. Narratives of the country’s innate vulnerability are extensive, deeply entrenched, and intertwined with the national imagination of citizens. The beliefs underlying this thinking and the policies designed to cope with them are often said to comprise a survivalist ideology. It is widely acknowledged that the People’s Action Party (PAP) government’s propagation of survivalism has produced a crisis mentality amongst Singaporeans (Abdullah, 2018; Heng, 2013; Tan, 2012). Both as part of this ideological project and in sporadic bids to legitimate policies that it favours, over the years, elites have resorted to purveying national security arguments spanning a multitude of issues.

Many of these efforts have been successful. As Abdullah puts it, ‘the absence of alternative discourses in the realm of security points towards the pervasiveness of the PAP hegemony’ (2018: 482). Survivalism and the security challenges that have been constructed as part of it have proven instrumental for the government’s efforts to rally the public behind a nationalist cause and secure legitimacy for an authoritarian brand of politics. The paranoia engendered by this discourse, and a national identity premised on the idea of danger, mean that ‘survival’ and ‘security’ are frequently employed as frames for presenting issues and controversial policy proposals to the public (Rahim, 2009, 78–80; Tan, 2012). Areas governed by this logic include race relations, religious affairs, freedoms of press and expression, drug use, geopolitical ties with neighbouring states and terrorism. Curbs on freedom of speech, high levels of military spending, conscription and a draconian fake news law are but a few of the measures rationalized with reference to national security (Neo, 2020; Rahim, 2009: 78). This discourse enables the PAP government to justify its far-reaching intrusions into the lives of citizens (Tan, 2012: 70).

Yet underneath the barrage of issues the PAP government has, successfully framed in terms of security, rests a curious anomaly. In one particular case, leveraging the economic security of Singaporeans as the referent object, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew argued that the country’s rapidly declining birth rates constituted a serious threat to the country’s future. Lee’s National Day Rally speech in 1983 was devoted to addressing this issue at length, characterized by rhetorical elements such as urgency, alarm, repeated references to the existential nature of the issue and finally, the need to find solutions to it quickly. Shortly after, the PAP government began implementing pronatalist policies to incentivize and disincentivize childbearing among different segments of the population. These moves sparked public outcry, of epic proportions in the context of modern, authoritarian Singapore (Palen, 1986). Interestingly, a population that had hitherto accepted its government’s construction of a multitude of threats, rejected the perception of the country’s declining birth rates as a security issue. What explains this peculiar incident?

For Wæver and the Copenhagen School, security threats are constructed via processes of securitization (Buzan et al., 1998; Wæver, 1995). Perceptions of insecurity do not necessarily hinge on the existence of any genuine threat; of greater importance is the discursive ability of political actors to colour an issue with a particular hue (Buzan et al., 1998). However, the factors that cause such efforts to resonate with people are less well understood. In this article, I argue that an audience’s pre-existing attitudes are vital in its willingness to accept security arguments made by elites. Specifically, I contend that securitization audiences – even those within undemocratic contexts – may exert their agency on the process by expressing concerted normative disagreement with the premises of a securitizing move. To this end, I discuss the importance of understanding audience receptivity to securitization efforts, and maintain that a securitization attempt understood as morally egregious is likely to be scrutinized and resisted by an audience.

The remainder of this article is structured as follows. The section below reviews the literature on securitization. Here, I argue that while existing works have made great progress, they have not paid sufficient attention to the role and agency of audiences. Following this, I discuss the theoretical importance of audience receptivity, and how audiences may exercise their agency in resisting a securitization effort. The next section provides empirical validation of these considerations, by delving into events that occurred in Singapore during the 1980s. I conclude by offering implications derived from this case for the future study of securitization.

Securitization: An overview

With securitization theory, the Copenhagen School provides a theoretical framework through which to understand the emergence of non-conventional security threats, such as transnational crime, disease, migration and climate change (e.g. Bigo, 2014; Curley and Herington, 2011; Emmers, 2003; Sjöstedt, 2008; Trombetta, 2008). Wæver (1995) defines securitization as a ‘speech act’. This speech act – or the representation of an issue as an urgent, existential threat – involves a few key features and actors, such as: the referent object, which is deemed threatened and thought to stake an unequivocal claim to survival (e.g. the nation); the securitizing actor, who conveys the speech act; and the audience, to whom this securitizing move is communicated, and whose approval, crucially, is necessary for it to be successful (Balzacq, 2005; Buzan et al., 1998; Wæver, 2003: 11–12).

Securitizing actors, ultimately, utilize speech acts to convince an audience of an immediate threat in store. Successfully invoking the logic of security legitimates the use of extraordinary political measures, which securitizing actors would otherwise not have access to.

As such, securitizing an issue potentially ‘takes politics beyond the established rules of the game and frames the issue either as a special kind of politics or as above politics’ (Buzan et al., 1998: 23).

The conditions that facilitate securitization: Bringing the audience in

Why do some securitization attempts succeed, while others fail? This question receives less attention. The identification of ‘facilitating conditions’ is understood to be something securitization studies may offer more clarity on (Baele et al., 2018; Stengel, 2019; Watson, 2012).

The Copenhagen School

The audience is an important part of the Copenhagen School’s intersubjective model of securitization. The authors distinguish between a securitizing move and (successful) securitization. Attempts to frame an issue as an existential threat are, strictly speaking, securitizing moves. Only when a relevant audience accepts this mode of framing does the issue undergo securitization (Buzan et al., 1998: 25–31).

Copenhagen School authors identify three facilitating conditions of securitization. The first concerns the key discursive elements of a securitizing move – such as a ‘plot’ describing an existential threat to a referent object, the idea that a point of no return will be reached if nothing is done, and finally, a potential ‘way out’ (Buzan et al., 1998: 32–33). The second concerns the ‘social capital’ of the securitizing actor, which enhances the credibility of the actor’s claims. Third are features intrinsic to the threat itself. Actors are more likely to successfully conjure a threat if they can make discursive references to objects ‘generally held to be threatening’ (Buzan et al., 1998: 33; Wæver, 2003).

However, for an intersubjective theory of how security threats arise, these conditions err on the side of objectivism. For instance, the Copenhagen School’s discussion of a securitizing actor’s social capital refers, largely, to whether or not they hold a ‘position of authority’ (Buzan et al., 1998: 33). But if securitization is a process via which elites seek to legitimate the implementation of extraordinary measures, then conditions pertaining to the arbiters of this process (i.e. the audience) ought to be given greater consideration. As Vuori (2008: 70) notes, ‘the audience is the key to the process of securitization, as legitimacy has to be argued somehow, it cannot be forced. Therefore, there is an important fourth felicity condition: conditions related to the audience of securitization.’

Post-Copenhagen understandings of securitization

The Copenhagen School’s account is challenged, most notably, by Balzacq, who argues that securitization can only be realized within a particular ‘configuration of circumstances’ – such as the context, the audience’s psycho-cultural bearings and the power relations which exist between the audience and the securitizing actor (Balzacq, 2011a, 2005). Other second- generation scholars make similar arguments, in which the audience’s role is key for the production of intersubjective understandings of threat (McDonald, 2008; Salter, 2008; Stritzel, 2007; Watson, 2012).

This tradition focuses on the contextual and relational dynamics embedding the securitizing actor, the audience and the move itself. Stritzel observes that securitizing actors may exploit the linguistic contexts in which securitization occurs, by framing ‘their arguments in terms of the distinct linguistic reservoir that is available at a particular point in time’ (2007: 369). A securitizing move is more likely to succeed the more compatible it is with an existing discursive terrain. Similarly, Balzacq contends that securitizing moves are more likely to be accepted when the securitizing actor ‘tune[s] his/her language to the audience’s experience’ (Balzacq, 2011b: 182–184, 2005).

That said, it is not always clear what such broad stipulations mean in practice. Namely, these works do not identify the precise nature of these favourable contextual circumstances. In creating a distinct analytical space for the audience, addressing their contextuality alone is not enough. Rather, the appreciation of securitization’s embeddedness should be refined further, by charting the specific ways in which the ‘psycho-cultural’ orientations of audiences interact with securitizing moves and actors (Balzacq, 2005, 2011a). Theorizing the conditions under which contextual fits themselves occur, in other words, remains an area where much work can be done.

Moreover, empirically, scholars show that audiences participate actively in shaping processes of securitization (Côté, 2016). For instance, they challenge the manner in which securitizing actors present an issue, spurring renewed securitization attempts, changing or shaping policy outcomes, and even sanctioning political actors for pursuing extraordinary measures unilaterally (Collins, 2005; Curley and Herington, 2011; Salter, 2008: 336).

Theoretical attempts aiming to capture this intersubjectivity, however, should be refined further, for they often devolve into discussions of the contextual situatedness of audiences, as opposed to their agency. For instance, Balzacq (2005: 184) asserts that any effective securitization is audience-centred: ‘To persuade the audience (e.g. the public) . . . the speaker has to tune his/her language to the audience’s experience.’ Yet, such characterizations imply that securitization is happening to the audience, which is caught between the securitizing actor’s sphere of influence and the context, rather than partaking in the process (Côté, 2016). While they articulate the agency of the securitizing actor, they are less able to express that of audiences. While acknowledging audience acceptance as the key criterion of securitization’s success is an important step for an intersubjective theory of how security threats arise, understanding how such audiences interact with the discursive attempts of elites is just as key. If we agree that an audience must concur with a securitizing claim for an issue to become a security threat, yet do not seriously think of that audience’s ideational leanings as a causally relevant variable in the process, how agentic is our understanding of it?

Post-structuralist accounts of securitization

Post-structuralist securitization scholars agree with the Copenhagen School’s basic premise that understandings of security are produced in and via discourse. However, in reconciling the emphasis on discourse with other key tenets like process and intersubjectivity, they adhere to more constitutive understandings of discourse and hegemony, inspired by thinkers such as Derrida and Butler (Oren and Solomon, 2015; Stengel, 2019; Wilhelmsen, 2017).

For instance, Wilhelmsen conceives of securitization not as a speech act or an utterance per se, but as something produced gradually over time, via multiple texts that represent an object as an existential threat (Wilhelmsen, 2017). Securitization, per this reading, is not instant, actor-centric nor necessarily intentional, but a continuous (re)production of reality. As such, successful securitization is not about audience acceptance per se, but a discourse of security assuming hegemonic status. In such cases, ideas regarding the existential threat, the ‘point of no return if nothing is done’ and the ‘way out’ typically gain overwhelming resonance, such that extraordinary measures can be taken legitimately (Wilhelmsen, 2017: 172). Oren and Solomon (2015: 316), likewise, argue that successful securitization is the result of the ‘collective chanting of a phrase that becomes itself the existential threat it ostensibly refers to’. As catchphrases connoting ideas of (in)security are marketed repeatedly by political actors, a particular discourse of security is unthinkingly internalized and reproduced by segments of society.

Thus, the iterability of the move is the key ‘facilitating condition’ these works specify. Repeat an idea long and hard enough and it embeds itself in an audience’s security consciousness. While this is a valuable insight, it is incomplete, for it voids the question of whether all portrayals of threat possess an equal chance of acquiring mass resonance. For instance, debates concerning Russian interference in the 2016 American presidential elections revealed that the likelihood of political claims being internalized rests not as much on their iterability per se, as whether audiences find them convincing (Stengel, 2019: 298; Van Rythoven, 2015). Likewise, while medical professionals around the world persistently highlighted the dangers of Covid-19, these attempts only resonated with some. In the United States, partisan affiliations and distrust towards key securitizing actors – such as Anthony Fauci – impacted the degree to which members of the public accepted the warnings raised by pandemic scientists (Evans and Hargittai, 2020).

Hence, while existing works on securitization make valuable contributions to understanding when security threat constructions are likely to resonate, audience-specific facilitating conditions have attracted an acute lack of attention. This is a major oversight, considering that, theoretically, the audience is the final arbiter of securitization. If we accept the empirically corroborated premise that securitization is a process of argumentation made to audiences, we should also entertain the idea that an audience’s receptivity – a function of its pre-existing attitudes – can determine the outcomes of securitization efforts. While some works imply the importance of this point, as a crucial determinant of securitization outcomes, it has not received enough consideration. This, however, masks a fundamental dynamic and a fascinating array of factors likely to be contained within these processes.

Securitization failure

When do securitization attempts fall short? A smaller body of works addresses this question. Åtland & Ven Bruusgaard (2009), who study the non-escalation of the Elektron security incident between Russia and Norway, stress the importance of a securitizing actor’s social capital. Neo (2021) meanwhile, examines why fake news, although broadly recognized as a threat, was not successfully securitized in Malaysia. He attributes this to the audience’s lack of trust in the lead securitizing actor, who became the subject of a major corruption scandal during the time. Salter (2011) provides the most comprehensive theoretical exposition of securitization failures, carving out the different phases of securitization processes and the various types of failure that may emerge. These range from ‘internal’ failures, where an audience rejects the idea of a specific issue being an existential threat, to ‘external’ failures, whereby the audience accepts a threat but resists the emergency measures proposed. McDonald (2012) provides an example of an external failure with reference to environmental politics in Australia, where the public accepted climate change as a security threat, but the Rudd government’s relatively moderate policy proposals were still successfully challenged.

Overall, while successful instances of securitization are often explained with respect to the range of facilitating conditions hitherto described, unsuccessful securitization attempts are frequently explained by their absence – such as the speaker’s social capital and whether a discourse contains fear-eliciting elements (Åtland and Ven Bruusgaard, 2009; Neo, 2021; Van Rythoven, 2015). That said, why certain securitizing moves are actively resisted and how these unfold in reality remain understudied. From a theoretical perspective, however, failed securitization cases are essential, especially in illuminating the variety of factors that influence processes of securitization (Ruzicka, 2019). Perhaps more importantly, they promise to express the various facets of audience agency more readily; in that the very fact that a securitization effort has failed implies resistance. This article adds to the understanding of why and how securitization efforts flounder – by focusing on a sociopolitical context where wholesale rejections of securitization are especially unlikely, for reasons that I will explain.

Beyond acceptance and rejection: The multifaceted nature of audience agency and influence on securitization outcomes

Broadly speaking, the predispositions of audiences towards the features of securitization attempts structure their receptivity to the latter, and thus, securitization’s success and failure. The receptivity of an audience, or the degree to which an audience positively engages with a securitizing argument, therefore, is a key precondition for the success of a securitizing move. Should a securitizing actor face an unreceptive audience, there is little prospect of audience acceptance. Audiences will tend not to be receptive to information their schema filter out, and vice versa (Potenz, 2019).

Securitization is a highly purposive act, aimed at legitimating unorthodox policy measures that would not gain currency unless they were justified as a response to an existential threat (Buzan et al., 1998). The taken-for-granted beliefs of mass publics, however, are a major determinant of the extent to which such projects succeed (Hopf, 2013). For instance, audiences that have experienced the catastrophic impacts of climate change have stronger inclinations to consider the issue a security threat, and hence, are more easily persuaded by securitization attempts addressing climate change. The common sense of the audience that one addresses is key to the persuasiveness of a political argument. This is the source of the audience’s agency. If a securitizing move challenges closely guarded beliefs and worldviews, it is highly likely to meet resistance.

Beyond this, however, securitization theory’s understanding of audience agency is limited, and one may further develop its conceptualization within the framework. The term ‘audience’ itself implies a level of agency and engagement with a speaker. Journalists, for example, often consider the role of their audiences to lie in between the passive consumption and active creation of content. Audiences indirectly create content via their normative sensibilities, which speakers need to account for. It is worth noting that ‘the audience’ is not a concept unique to the securitization paradigm either. Other research traditions employ the term to refer to segments of the public that receive – and interact with – messages disseminated by the media and elites (Livingstone, 2004; Lupia, 2013; Tomz, 2007).

Importantly, such audiences are often considered ‘active’, in that they interpret and respond to communication efforts according to their own sensibilities. Audiences exercise their agency in processes of communication beyond merely accepting or relegating a communicative effort to the annals of history. Rather, they engage, often reading into the normative perspectives embedded within a particular communication effort. And where these are disagreeable, they proceed to criticize it with reference to an alternative perspective, which they view as more legitimate (Philo, 2008).

Studies of social psychology and dual process theories of information processing make similar claims regarding audiences. The tendency of audiences to selectively engage with communication efforts, for instance, is well established (Stroud, 2008; Sweeney and Gruber, 1984). Expectancy violations – i.e. when audience expectations concerning appropriate speech are seriously violated by a speaker’s message – prompt reactionary behaviour in the form of increased scrutiny and criticism (Baker and Petty, 1994; Nelson and Garst, 2005). Such (concerted) criticism in turn impacts future communication efforts. In the case of political communication efforts, elites that fail to resonate with an audience will often tweak their messaging such that it avoids offending the sensibilities of a public (Papadouka et al., 2016).

This is a key form of agency, to fully appreciate which, we must look beyond securitization theory’s typology of audience acceptance and rejection. Audiences do not simply accept or reject political messages: they engage, (re)interpret, scrutinize, ridicule, resist, dismiss and much more (Hendrickx, 2023). Securitization theory remains a compelling device with which to access the social construction of security issues due to the more complete, sociological picture of the phenomenon it promises to provide – as opposed to the lawlike, positivistic forms of causality embraced by other branches of social enquiry (Guzzini, 2011). However, expanding the vocabulary of possible audience reactions permits fuller expressions of their participation in securitization.

In short, two points are noteworthy. Securitization audiences are, likewise, more likely to criticize and bring their normative perspectives to bear on securitization attempts which violate their sensibilities. They partake in processes of securitization beyond mere acceptance and rejection. Elites – or securitizing actors – are not the only ones capable of shaping the discursive landscape; audiences also send signals which are received by political elites, who then modify their messages to avoid alienating the former. This holds even in authoritarian regimes, where political arguments still need to be legitimated by the public (Vuori, 2008). Hence, audiences may exercise their agency in securitization processes by expressing criticism and ridicule of securitization attempts, forcing elites to shape the latter such that they cohere with their normative dispositions.

Conceptualizing securitization in a security-laden, authoritarian context

The Singaporean case fascinates for two reasons. First, ‘security’ in the country’s politics – or ‘deep securitization’ – is ubiquitous (Abulof, 2014). The country’s national identity is premised upon a widely held understanding of the fundamentally vulnerable nature of its geopolitical, social and economic existence. The logic of security governs numerous aspects of public life, and elite rhetoric frequently reinforces such ideas (Ad’ha Aljunied, 2020; Seng, 1998; Tan, 2012).

Second, Singapore is often described as an electoral authoritarian regime (Ortmann, 2014), in which one party dominates and sets the limits of political contestation. The government has de facto been PAP-controlled since 1959; opposition parties have largely been relegated to the fringes of power. Elections exist, and although arguably free, are unfair, for tactics such as gerrymandering render the playing field highly uneven (Ong, 2018). A consistent supermajority in parliament allows the government to introduce any new bills it pleases – including those that allow crackdowns on political dissent.

The PAP government also exercises great control over key institutions such as trade unions, the bureaucracy and the media. Independent media are heavily suppressed via an arsenal of tools such as censorship laws and defamation lawsuits, while the domestic mainstream media function primarily to spread the government’s messages. Hence, there is limited space for expressing opposing views (George, 2007). While today, the existence of new media affords activists and the public some leeway to express political dissent online – although laws have been introduced to police social media as well (Neo, 2020) – in the decades prior, this was severely circumscribed. Lee Kuan Yew’s premiership, in particular, often presented freedoms of the press and expression as liberal, ‘Western’ ideals incompatible with an ‘Asian’ society focused on economic development (Barr, 2000).

It is important to first consider what constitutes securitization – or a securitization attempt – in such a security-laden, authoritarian context. As Abulof (2014: 400) notes, societies where security discourses are pervasive are locked in a state of ‘deep securitization’. In these conditions, normal politics is ‘immersed in the discourse and praxis of “existential threats”’. As a result, to politicize is to securitize. Moreover, under deep securitization, security practices are routinized, for the pervasiveness of discourses of security causes them to be taken for granted. Hence, securitizing actors may avoid presenting what may commonly be considered an extraordinary measure as such, instead highlighting their normalcy and necessity in the context of the existentially threatened polity (Abulof, 2014). This is important to keep in mind when approaching the Singaporean case.

For the Copenhagen School, a securitizing move is a discourse that presents something as an existential threat to a referent object. Importantly, while explicit mentions of the term ‘security’ are not necessary, the issue must be framed as one of survival and priority courses of action premised on the idea that if something is not dealt with soon, it will be too late (Buzan et al., 1998: 23–27).

Importantly, the ubiquity of these discourses in Singapore renders the ground ripe for new considerations of security as well. Metaphors of security are thus often used by the government to frame public understandings of emergent issues, in a bid to gain political control (Hudson, 2008a; Neo, 2020; Tan, 2012). Security itself, in this case, comprises the common sense of the public. In such a context, the wholesale rejection of a securitization attempt is unlikely – as evidenced by the many successfully securitized domains like race relations and drug use. This is only likely if a particular discourse of security challenges other deeply held views. If a securitizing move disturbs different ingrained normative ideas – for instance, regarding the rightful extent of a government’s reach in regulating the lives of its people – it is highly likely to meet resistance. And this resistance in turn forces securitizing actors to redefine their efforts, in a bid to appease the audience.

It has also been noted that elements of securitization theory imply a liberal democratic, European bias – seen, for example, in the binary between ‘normal’ and ‘special’ politics – thus calling into question the framework’s applicability in non-democratic contexts. However, while securitization theory presents securitization as an act that breaks with normal politics and institutes extraordinary rules, in non-democratic contexts, leaders may resort to securitization to relieve themselves of other constraints – e.g. normative ideas concerning the public and the private (Neo, 2020; Vuori, 2008). Hence, despite the Eurocentrism evident in the original formulation of the theory, securitization remains relevant to the study of politics in non- democratic contexts.

Reproductive rights and the rhetoric of security in Singapore

Securitizing birth rates

During its independence in 1965, Singapore’s population stood at roughly 1.9 million and was growing at 2.5% a year. To reduce the country’s birth rate, the government introduced legislation that encouraged virtually cost-free abortions, sterilization and fertility disincentives. Framed as a survival strategy, the ‘Keep Your Family Small’ and ‘Stop at Two’ campaigns – introduced in 1968 and 1971, respectively – discouraged families from having more than two children (Tan, 2001; Wong and Yeoh, 2003). A web of anti-natalist policies included tax breaks for families with up to two children, and priority school registration and preferential allocation of government housing for smaller families. Coupled with the effects of education, increasing affluence and increasingly modern outlooks, these caused birth rates to plummet by the early 1980s (Palen, 1986: 4; Tan 2001: 101). By 1980, Singapore’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR) fell below the replacement level of 2.10 to 1.82, a sharp drop from 4.62 in 1965. The anti-natalist initiatives, therefore, were immensely successful.

But now, a new and potentially graver problem was said to have surfaced, which called for the reversal of these policies. In 1983, Singapore’s then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew used nearly the entirety of his National Day Rally speech to address a single issue: the country’s now rapidly declining birth rate – and this too, specifically amongst educated Singaporean women (National Archives of Singapore, 2017). 1983, as such, marked a radical change in Singapore’s population policy initiatives.

Lee Kuan Yew’s argument was highly alarmist in tone and quality. Citing census data from 1980, he lamented the inverse relationship between education levels and birth rates, as women with limited or no formal education were having an average of 3.5 children, while those with tertiary education were having on average only 1.65 children (Palen, 1986: 5). These, to him, spelled deeply significant problems for the country’s future. As he put it, ‘If we continue to respond ourselves in this lopsided manner we will be unable to maintain our present standards. Levels of competence will decline. Our economy will falter, the administration will suffer, and society will decline’ (Lee Kuan Yew, 1983). For him, if the current demographic trend was to persist, Singapore would wade unwittingly into a ‘minefield’, facing economic peril.

There were a few sides to this argument. Perhaps most notably, Lee focused on the economic security of Singaporeans. For a country that lacked natural reserves and was hence reliant on human resources, the fact that ‘brighter’, university-educated citizens were not reproducing at rates proportionate with the rest of the country’s population, meant that the intellectual capacity of the Singaporean population would diminish. An adherent of eugenics, Lee argued that if less educated women were to have more children, the nation’s gene pool would become dangerously diluted (Hudson, 2008b).

Moreover, for Lee, a less intelligent population meant that the political acumen of Singapore’s future leaders would diminish, thus causing standards of public administration to decline. The PAP government has long-established discursive links between ‘good politics’, national survival and individual qualities such as intelligence, integrity and honesty – in a bid to individuate, and thus claim, political legitimacy (Oliver and Ostwald, 2018). As Boon-Hiok (1978) notes, in Singapore, the notion of survival has been fused with themes of achievement, excellence and merit, at most levels of society.

Furthermore, the glaring trend of the time was that reproductive behaviour differed significantly between racial and socio-economic groups. Rich, educated, Chinese segments of the population were having fewer children than poor, uneducated minorities, who were reproducing at higher rates. For elites, this was a major concern. Hence, there were racial and classist undertones to the discourse as well. It was evident that the concerns over Singapore’s growth were driven in part by anxieties over the country’s identity and namely, a diminishing Chinese majority (Hudson, 2008b: 23).

In short, however, academic capabilities were often conflated with intelligence, and the latter was seen as a trait that is genetically transferred to children (Tan, 2001: 102). For Lee, declining birth rates among educated women necessarily meant a less intelligent population, which in turn implied danger for the country’s survival. Most importantly, it spelled doom for Singapore’s economic competitiveness, given the reliance of the country on its human resources, and a world on the cusp of the digital era (National Archives of Singapore, 2017). It also threatened to do away with Singapore’s hard-earned standards of living and public administration by producing less capable leaders. These observations and prejudices led the PAP government – and particularly Lee – to infer that if something was not done to reverse the country’s demographic trend, Singapore would become an anaemic, dull society that would get left behind (Tan, 2001: 102).

To understand why all of this is significant, bear in mind that, for the PAP government, following Singapore’s separation from Malaysia in 1965, the country’s ‘survival’ has been a major – if not the biggest – political issue. The PAP leadership’s deep anxiety about the country’s vulnerability – being a small island-state lacking in natural resources and surrounded by larger and ethnically Malay neighbours – is well documented (e.g. Abdullah, 2018; Barr and Skrbiš, 2008; Heng, 2013). Elites externalized this anxiety by cultivating a ‘siege mentality’ among citizens, repeatedly stressing the fragility of the country’s existence and the tough measures this necessitated.

Lee Kuan Yew’s speech and arguments must, therefore, be viewed in this context. While the term ‘existential security’ was not mentioned, the country’s survival was heavily implied throughout. For Lee and other PAP elites, Singapore’s survival hinges on a few key factors: most importantly, its economic attractiveness and ability to lure foreign capital; but also good individual political leaders. The country’s lack of natural resources has always guided government policies and decisions to emphasize the development of human capital – hence, for instance, the strong focus on education and academic excellence. Lee’s suggestion that Singapore’s intellectual capacity, economic competitiveness and standards of public administration were set to decline, therefore, was very much an invocation of Singapore’s survival in the long run. And as the Copenhagen School argues, a securitizing move invokes concerns surrounding the survival of the referent object and discusses urgently necessary courses of action. There is little doubt that Lee’s speech did just this.

But further, the prevalence and scope of the discourse of vulnerability in Singapore means that the term ‘security’ need not be mentioned for something to register in the public imagination as a threat. This is precisely Abulof’s (2014) point on the workings of deep securitization. Singaporeans are frequently treated to the idea that the country’s future is uncertain, and that nothing in the present can be taken for granted given the inherently vulnerable state of its existence (Barr and Skrbiš, 2008). Lee’s emphasis throughout on the country’s future thus functions as a shorthand for this notion of vulnerability, which foregrounds a fundamentally survivalist, existential concern. Merely politicizing the country’s declining birth rates – by using a familiar rhetorical strategy to present it in the most public of arenas – serves as an attempt to securitize it.

Audience backlash: Ideational objections

Despite the government’s best efforts, however, both this securitizing argument and the extraordinary measures introduced thereafter were rejected. Shortly after Lee’s nationally televised speech, pro-natalist policy campaigns were rolled out by the PAP government. During this time, in what is now known as the ‘Great Marriage Debate’, the Straits Times ran feature articles showcasing the views of Singaporean women on the Prime Minister’s heavily controversial speech. The discourse that ensued was complex and multifaceted, with specific elements of the PAP government’s securitization attempt receiving significant scrutiny.

A range of opinions was aired, with a modicum of support for Lee’s views. That said, criticisms levelled at the Prime Minister were highly charged and entirely uncharacteristic of political discourse in Singapore at the time. Of these, two specific aspects are noteworthy.

First, the sexist implications of the argument, which focused on women, were heavily criticized. The response from large swathes of the public towards this aspect in particular was scathing. Many educated women, for instance, expressed deep unhappiness at being exploited and seen as reproductive vehicles of labour (Tan, 2001). Some were outraged at the Prime Minister’s suggestion that their sexuality and willingness to procreate could be incentivized by financial rewards (Quah, 1984: 180). In an interview featured by the national newspaper, an unnamed respondent had this to say:

I value my career and my independence. I am not going to be a baby machine and I am not going to be bogged down with two or three children particularly when one can never be sure about how a marriage will work out. In my case, there are more things in life than just marriage and children. I find it disturbing that that the views of what women should do come from an all-male government. (Straits Times, 1983)

Likewise, others felt objectified, expressing disapproval at the government’s implication that a woman had to get married and bear children to fulfil their societal ‘role’. They pointed out a glaring contradiction in the government’s position by questioning its policy of encouraging women to go to work and be assertive in the workplace, but not in their personal lives. Further, there was disappointment that this discourse inadvertently focused the nation’s problems on the shoulders of women, while further stigmatizing unmarried women (Lyons-Lee, 1998). A slew of related concerns was also prevalent, like those regarding the chauvinistic attitudes of Singaporean men, which often meant married women had to assume a disproportionate share of domestic duties, and the state’s reluctance to institutionalize gender equality (Lyons-Lee, 1998).

Aside from this, others expressed serious concern over the eugenicist premises and implications of Lee’s argument, i.e. that well-educated people necessarily produce intelligent children, and as such, should produce more children at the expense of the less educated. As Quah (1984: 180) notes, ‘the outpouring of criticism of Lee’s views was unprecedented and quite surprising by local standards, and perhaps even astounded the Prime Minister himself’. Crucially, this backlash was due not only to the sensitive nature of the issue, but to the fear that the government would begin encroaching into deeply private aspects of its citizens’ lives, by suggesting whom they should marry, and how many children they should bear (Quah, 1984: 180). The adversity of this reaction even caused high-ranking members of the government to adopt a more congenial tone, in attempts to ‘clarify’ the Prime Minister’s sentiments. Lee himself appeared to soften his rhetoric shortly after (Quah, 1984).

Audience backlash: Policy rejection

Despite this backlash, in preparing the public for its soon-to-be highly contentious policy initiatives, the PAP government exercised the full extent of its control over mainstream media, running propagandistic media campaigns and leveraging scientific opinion in support of the government’s eugenicist position. Over the following months, the government-controlled Straits Times published a series of headline articles which asserted the need for educated women to bear more children (Palen, 1986: 5–6). While the effects of nature and nurture on humans remained heavily debated by the scientific community, the media cited the dominance of the former’s influence as scientific fact. Local academics with expertise in population planning and public health were enlisted to buttress Lee’s thesis on the dominance of genetic causes of intelligence (Palen, 1986).

Then came the actual policy measures. Among these, the Graduate Mothers Scheme was the most notorious. Announced in 1984, it afforded tax breaks and priority registrations at primary schools to university-educated women who gave birth to three or more children (Wong and Yeoh, 2003).

On the flipside, to discourage poorer, uneducated women from reproducing, sterilized women below 30, without GCE O-Level qualifications and earning less than a monthly household income of $1,500, were given material rewards to undergo sterilization after having their first or second babies – a cash grant of $10,000 that was made out to their retirement savings account, which could be used to purchase government-funded flats (Tan, 2001: 103). Should a couple birth a child despite having received this sum, they were required to repay it, along with 10% compound interest every year (Swee-Hock, 1985: 98).

Other policies were also introduced. A central theme of the Great Marriage Debate, for instance, was that more university-educated women were choosing to remain unmarried, and that better genes were thus being squandered in a population that was already known for being limited in human resources. To combat this trend, the PAP government introduced a state- funded matchmaking service for college-educated Singaporeans. Termed the Social Development Unit (SDU) – later ridiculed by Singaporeans as code for ‘Single, Desperate and Ugly’ – this service aimed to educate graduates on socializing, organized social outings for young couples to get acquainted with one another, and also introduced a digital dating platform (Tan, 2001: 103).

However, the Graduate Mothers Scheme, in particular, sparked immense controversy – of greater proportions than did Lee Kuan Yew’s National Day Rally speech. Although independent polling is prohibited in Singapore, public resentment was starkly apparent to observers. The initiatives incensed some graduate women enough to precipitate the formation of the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE), which promotes women’s rights and remains one of the most successful advocacy organizations in Singapore (Women’s Action, 2015).

Further, thousands of post-secondary students signed petitions protesting against the policy, government-controlled newspapers received a flood of highly critical letters – one woman signed off as a ‘second-class citizen’ – and public graffiti mocking the implications of the government’s policy surfaced (Palen, 1986: 8). It has also been documented that minorities secretly suspected the scheme as a means of increasing the country’s Chinese population. Crude remarks made by locals suggested that the government’s social engineering resembled efforts to create a master race. These developments themselves were deeply indicative of the bitterness among the local population, which is typically described as politically malleable (Palen, 1986).

However, the results of the 1984 General Election perhaps best encapsulated the unpopularity of the policy. The PAP’s vote share slumped by 12.9% to 62.9%, and two opposition candidates were elected to Parliament for the first time in 16 years, effectively breaking the PAP’s hegemony in government, which it had held since 1968 (Palen, 1986: 8). Although independent survey data do not exist to directly validate this claim, there was widespread consensus among political observers that the PAP government’s unpopular population policy programmes played a big part in its electoral decline. Education Minister Dr Tony Tan admitted on record that there was no good reason to continue with the scheme given the anxiety and resentment that it caused among graduates and non-graduates alike (Palen, 1986: 8).

Other sterilization efforts introduced in 1984 also roused a significant amount of dissatisfaction and anger. Both educated and uneducated women expressed their grievances. While the former felt objectified as reproductive vehicles, the latter expressed feeling degraded. Tan (2001) even notes that the unhappiness caused by this episode was partly responsible for a wave of emigration, sparking concerns of a brain drain. At its core, such pro-natalist initiatives were premised on the notion that large but socio-economically less well-off families are a strain on public resources, and that an intellectually capable population is necessary for the country to avoid economic and social ruin. The eugenicist, sexist and elitist assumptions that undergirded such forms of thinking, however, were seen as highly problematic. It was also viewed as morally repugnant for a development-oriented state to extend its technocratic reach into the bedroom, and determine the grounds on which people did and did not deserve to be conceived (Tan, 2001).

Shortly after, in 1985, the Graduate Mothers Scheme was swiftly and unexpectedly abolished. By late 1985, the sterilization programme was also greatly modified. The $10,000 sterilization package floundered, barely attracting any applicants; as of July 1985, only 56 couples had signed up (Palen, 1986: 9). Importantly, although government-led pro-natalist initiatives, such as matchmaking services, persisted, the elitism that bolstered Lee’s arguments was, going forward, heavily repressed, if not abandoned altogether. After extensive deliberation among policymakers, it was decided that Singaporean citizens of all backgrounds should be encouraged to have more children (Palen, 1986: 9–10).

In the example above, Lee Kuan Yew and the PAP government’s attempts to securitize Singapore’s declining birth rates failed, rather uncharacteristically. Both the premises of the securitizing argument presented by Lee, and the measures that were subsequently proposed and implemented by his government to tackle the identified threat were deemed too egregious, deeply offending the pre-existing sensibilities of the Singaporean public. Although the PAP government persisted with its less incendiary pro-natalist policies and softened the way in which it marketed them, the alarmist, securitizing rhetoric that characterized Lee Kuan Yew’s attempts to frame the country’s declining birth rates did not resonate at all with the public, sparking backlash and criticisms of the kind rarely encountered by the authoritarian government. The issue, in short, was never elevated to the level of security, nor was it perceived by the public to be as grave and dangerous as Singapore’s then Prime Minister may have liked.

In one-party dominant Singapore where freedoms of speech and the press are heavily policed, this episode is unique, as a host of other issues have undergone successful securitization – or at least, the appearance of successful securitization – over the years. As the illustration shows, the predispositions of the Singaporean public were significantly misaligned with the securitization attempt of the government. The idea that some people, due to their intellectual capabilities, ought to bear more children than others for the sake of the nation’s economic survival was out of touch with many members of the Singaporean public, who took pains to express this grievance despite residing in a repressive political environment. A growing number of local women also saw their social roles differently, and resisted being told to abide by more conventional gender norms. Despite the aggressive media campaigns aimed at legitimizing such views, the extraordinary measures proposed by the government only heightened these concerns, sparking greater outcry and acts of protest. While Singaporeans were used to a technocratic government that implemented intrusive measures for the sake of development, this episode was a clear message that even such a government had to abide by certain boundaries. The latter, accordingly, repackaged its attempts to boost the country’s birth rates.

The aftermath

The success of the old anti-natalist policies and the failure of the later policy reversal rendered the demographic trends of smaller families, later marriages and declining birth rates irreversible. Newer measures, however, were proposed and implemented soon after to tackle these issues. These attempted to engender the same sense of urgency, but, described as ‘cautiously pro-natalist’, were marketed in markedly different ways (Graham, 1995: 223; see also Wong and Yeoh, 2003). In securitizing the same issue, Lee Kuan Yew’s soon-to-be successor Goh Chok Tong advanced more palatable concerns, like those regarding the ability of the country to defend itself.

I know this is a longer-term problem, but if we do not address it now, it can only become more serious. We have to pay close attention to the trend and pattern of births because of their consequences on our prosperity and security, in fact, on our survival as a nation. . . . Put simply, there will not be enough young men to defend the country. . . Security is a perennial problem. . . .What I am talking about is our ability to defend ourselves. (Goh, 1986: 284–291)

In March 1987, a New Population Policy (NPP) was introduced, accompanied by a fresh tagline ‘Have Three or More Children If You Can Afford It’. This new initiative was notable in its attempt to steer clear of the elitism of Lee Kuan Yew’s earlier initiative, as it was qualified by the criterion of affordability and lacked the emphasis on education levels (Wong and Yeoh, 2003).

The key premise was that the less educated could compensate for their lack of education by working hard and earning more than the better educated, thus being able to support their children. Its main objective was to incentivize unmarried individuals to get married, and married couples to produce more than two children (Wong and Yeoh, 2003: 11–12). This policy also came with a slew of material benefits and media campaigns which stressed the intangible benefits of having more children. Childcare, primary school registration, taxation and housing were among the domains which bore the imprint of the NPP. Government advertisements on local radio broadcasts, television channels, newspapers and public posters substituted the virtues of ‘having children’ per se, with those exalting ‘family life’ more generally (Wong and Yeoh, 2003: 11). Sterilization and abortion were now both heavily discouraged, where the former had been previously so widely marketed among lesser educated groups. Prioritized primary school registration was still used to encourage couples to have children. Many, if not all, of the policies from the previous era, in short, were either scrapped or drastically remodelled (Graham et al., 2002; Wong and Yeoh, 2003).

These changes are attributable to the Singaporean public’s vehement disapproval of the earlier population initiative. Both the predecessor to and successor of the eugenics-based fertility programme tapped into concerns of national survival – as policy programmes in Singapore often do – hence constituting securitization attempts in their own right. Yet, neither of them faced the same reaction. By refusing to engage with the issue of the country’s declining birth rates on the terms set by the Lee Kuan Yew government, the Singaporean public exerted its agency on the securitization process. This eventually sparked a renewed move and a less discriminatory policy programme, the justificatory bases of which were compatible with the normative sentiments of Singaporeans. Indeed, the need for a homegrown military to defend the country had long been established and legitimated in the public sphere, due to fundamental concerns surrounding the country’s geopolitical vulnerability as a small nation (Heng, 2013).

Conclusion: Taking audiences seriously

Security threats are typically the result of social construction. However, the conditions that allow elites to successfully construct such threats are still not well understood (McDonald, 2008; Watson, 2012). In this article, I have argued that this undertheorization is partly due to the failure to explore audience-specific facilitating conditions of securitization. When asking when securitization is likely to succeed, we need to think about how the persuasions of audiences inform their receptivity to securitizing claims. As the case examined shows, when audiences harbour deeply ingrained normative aversions to a securitization attempt, they are likely to resist it.

The idea of audience receptivity is important. Successful securitization is often considered the result of audience acceptance, and failed securitization the result of audience rejection. However, these categories themselves – i.e. acceptance and rejection – should be disaggregated and explored further, to capture the nuances observed in the real world, when audiences react to the securitization efforts of political elites. In the case examined, the PAP government’s efforts to securitize the issue of the country’s declining birth rates were an epic failure, a rare occurrence in Singapore’s politics, where the PAP’s imprint on the domain of security is hegemonic (Abdullah, 2018). The disagreeableness of broad swathes of the Singaporean public to the normative premises and implications of the government’s agenda, resulted in ridicule, indignation and eventually, a critical mass of disapproval.

Securitization theory is often thought to be more applicable to democratic contexts (Wilkinson, 2007). The idea of ‘normal’ politics indeed entails a democratic bias, and audience acceptance and rejection presuppose the existence of an active, empowered citizenry (Vuori, 2008). Hence, it has been argued that securitization theory is not well suited to an exposé of political dynamics in authoritarian countries.

The case examined in this article challenges this notion. Even where mass publics have limited political agency, resisting a securitization effort is possible. As illustrated, the Lee Kuan Yew government was unable to proceed with its original pro-natalist policies without suffering huge political losses. The extent of the backlash it received forced it to dramatically modify both its rhetoric and policies. Insofar as securitization is a purposeful act that is advanced to meet the policy objectives of a securitizing actor, the legitimacy with which the move is received by an audience is key. This is true in both democratic and authoritarian contexts. Going forward, therefore, scholars should be more attentive to the forms of agency authoritarian publics have in processes of securitization. By studying how securitization efforts unfold and come to mean, this agency becomes more evident.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Mark Salter and his two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments in furthering this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Pradeep Krishnan

Pradeep Krishnan is a doctoral researcher at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, where he works at the intersection of political psychology and public perception. As part of a multiyear government-funded project, he investigates public attitudes towards expert legitimacy in Europe. Simultaneously, his doctoral research delves into the psychology of public beliefs and the receptivity of mass publics to political communication efforts. Pradeep Krishnan previously earned a master’s degree in social sciences from the National University of Singapore, receiving accolades such as the Graduate Teaching Fellowship and Honour Roll placement for exceptional teaching and academic performance. Email: Pradeep.krishnan@student.unisg.ch.

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