Environmental Governance under Authoritarian Rule: Singapore and China

This paper considers the possibility of technocratic authoritarian rule to deal more effectively with environmental problems than liberal democracy by comparing Singapore, often regarded as the role model of eco-authoritarianism, with China which wants to follow the city-state's footsteps. However, a closer look at Singapore shows that the city-state's environmental record is only stellar in a utalitarian sense when it is profitable for the city-state. The picture is very different when we consider the near complete destruction of the small country's natural areas. In regard to China, such an approach would, however, be devastating as natural areas have already been reduced to a minimum. In addition, China does not even have effective institutions to deal with the massive environmental crisis the country is facing. Despite massive air and water pollution and heavy investments in new technologies, China has not been able to revert this dire situation. Instead, the reliance on “performance legitimacy” has resulted in an attempt to maintain massive economic growth by among other things increasing the consumption of China's growing middle class. The comparison thus demonstrates that technocratic authoritarianism is not a realistic option to deal with environmental problems.