ABSTRACT
In sharp contrast with many accounts in this collection, the case of the People’s Action Party (PAP) in Singapore is one where a ruling party employed adaptive strategies in the face of political crises to usher in political authoritarianism, not to accommodate itself to democracy. This is all the more remarkable given the PAP’s origins in the emerging political pluralism and competitive party politics of Singapore in the 1950s and its rhetorical championing of democratic values during that period. So effective have the PAP’s adaptive strategies proved that it has not only ruled Singapore continuously since 1959, but it also appears in no foreseeable danger of losing its stranglehold over power.
