Opponents and champions of authoritarian rule both seek to draw lessons from Singapore's combining of a modern capitalist economy with a tightly controlled polity. China's leaders are among the most interested, generating anxieties especially among Hong Kong democrats. These books share an analytical concern with understanding the significance of colonial legacies in these city-states for subsequent legal institutions and, hence, political regimes. Jothie Rajah shows how inherited institutions in Singapore have not been harnessed to democratization but to authoritarian rule. Waikeung Tam's account of Hong Kong explains why the path has been different here thus far, but raises questions about the future.

The argument that rule by law rather than rule of law prevails in Singapore is not new. Christopher Tremewan in The Political Economy of Social Control in Singapore (1994), Kanishka Jayasuriya in Law, Capitalism and Power in Asia: The Rule of Law and Legal Institutions (1999), and Francis Seow in Beyond Suspicion? The Singapore Judiciary (2007) all drew this distinction. However, the gap Rajah seeks to fill with Authoritarian Rule of Law is in the “systematic treatment of the role of legislation and public discourse in dismantling and reconfiguring the ‘rule of law’” (p. 11).

Rajah's discourse analysis penetrates more deeply than previous work into the ideological techniques and effects of the ruling People's Action Party's (PAP) assault on the rule of law. No other study renders so clearly how underlying ideological assumptions of PAP law and the way it is administered are mutually reinforced across different social and political institutions. This book involves detailed case studies of such varied legislation as the Vandalism Act, Newspaper and Printing Presses Act, Legal Profession Act, and Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act. All have implications for the scope and nature of political expression and organization and, crucially, the opportunity or otherwise for the scrutiny of state powers in defining that scope.

The most powerful feature of the case studies is their demonstration of how law is harnessed specifically for the purpose of undermining capacity outside the state for organized, collective attempts to question or challenge PAP ideology and interests. This is the thread that runs through the often complex and seemingly contradictory arguments advanced by the PAP and its functionaries to justify the immense state discretionary powers for proscribing professional comment, political criticism and advocacy, or any other civil society activity contesting the PAP narrative. Rajah's argument has wider implications, not least for the use of new media technologies by government critics. Increased individual political expressions are not intrinsically threatening to the PAP, hence greater regulatory focus on collective action using those technologies.

Rajah draws an insightful continuity between colonial and PAP rule: “In short, the nation-state has indeed built upon and strengthened the colonial legal system, but it has done so in a manner that has entrenched the ‘rule of law’/‘rule by law’ divide, denied the primacy of individual rights, and served the goals of state power” (p. 279). Thus, the colonial legal regime is adopted in “a manner that renders the nation-state a neo-colonising entity, subordinating and infantilising citizen-subjects” (p. 279).

The curious aspect of this blatant political project is, however, the PAP's insistence nevertheless on its rule-of-law credentials. This is the aspect of Rajah's argument that demonstrates the strengths and limitations of her discourse analysis. The ideological construction of rule of law in Singapore is depicted as a legitimacy-building exercise with interrelated national and international dimensions. The PAP's account of the rule of law emphasizing “corruption-free delivery of social order and efficiency” (p. 286) certainly does have appeal for international businesses, external regulatory authorities, and governments, which, in turn, the PAP attempts to exploit domestically to justify legislation violating citizens' rights in Singapore—a point well demonstrated by the author in her discussion of the 2009 Public Order Act (pp. 259–66).

The extent to which actors internalize the PAP's ideology is intrinsically difficult to ascertain, however. How do we distinguish this from other factors mediating the embrace or exploitation of official ideology, and indeed challenges to it? For domestic actors in particular, state capitalism generates high levels of vulnerability to political persecution and co-optation. Around 80% of Singaporeans live in state-controlled public housing, while government-linked companies (GLCs) dominate the upper echelons of the local economy and thus directly and indirectly affect business contracts and job opportunities.

Rajah also refers frequently to “the state,” but, drawing on Michel Foucault, this is principally to emphasize and illustrate the cohesiveness of the “governmentality power complex” (p. 63). Yet the elaborate ideological framework and associated state power structures examined in this book have social and economic foundations. These need to be incorporated into any analysis attempting to explain whether the existing rule-of-law myth is consolidated or challenged as Singapore's state capitalism evolves. Equally, this important book is essential reading for understanding the political regime in Singapore.

In sharp contrast with the situation in Singapore, a growing recent literature attests to the ways in which opponents of authoritarian rule elsewhere, especially in Latin America, have incorporated judicial institutions into democratization strategies. Tam's study of legal mobilization brings the analysis of postcolonial Hong Kong into those debates. Tam observes the emergence of legal actions around human rights and public-policy causes since the early 1990s, and how they have proliferated and broadened following the handover of sovereignty to China in 1997. Explicitly political issues contested legally have included the right to participate in public affairs, gay rights, peaceful assembly and demonstration, freedom and privacy of communication, freedom from torture, and nonpermanent residents' right to travel and enter Hong Kong (p. 35).

Tam draws on historical institutionalism, with special emphasis on the concepts of critical antecedents and critical junctures, to explain the rise of legal mobilization. He argues that the Chinese government's military suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen democratic movement and the more gradual process of the sovereignty transition “created a critical juncture during which a new legal opportunity structure was created and the legislature was weakened” (p. 5). The 1991 Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance (HKBORO), the 1997 implementation of the Basic Law, and the establishment in the same year of the Court of Final Appeal (CFA) were pivotal in legal opportunities for individuals to use the law to advance their interests.

These institutions are seen by Tam as defining “the incentives and constraints faced by political actors and structuring power relations among them” (p. 6). The HKBORO introduced a legal framework for suing the government, while the Basic Law entailed more comprehensive provisions of civil and political rights and socioeconomic relationships than were hitherto provided. This included provisions of economic and social policies, ranging from public finance, trade, education, culture, and labor to social services (p. 64). Moreover, “the historical legacies of a legal complex (consisting of an independent and competent judiciary, an autonomous and organized legal profession, and government-funded legal aid), constituted the structural factors behind the rise of legal mobilization in postcolonial Hong Kong” (pp. 5–6).

Against this background, Chinese influence over the judiciary, compared with the executive and legislative branches, is more insulated, including the appointment of judges (p. 72). The Basic Law also contains mechanisms to protect the security of tenure by judges, while the judiciary, especially in the upper courts, is still staffed primarily by expatriates. This has been especially important for enhancing public confidence in the CFA's impartiality and credibility (p. 70). Authorities' legal strategies to reassure investors and others have thus provided an opening for activists.

Tam's focus on cause lawyers' motivations is his most distinctive contribution to the general historical-institutionalist literature on legal mobilization, and the point of departure from existing Hong Kong studies. The majority of cause lawyers, Tam explains, are active in promoting civil liberties, democracy, and social justice through other non-court settings, notably through progressive political parties such as the Civic Party and the Democratic Party and various social movements. Their long-standing political activism “expanded their social capital in areas such as social networks, reputation, and political power” (p. 116). Intentionally or not, he effectively concedes here that institutions must be understood not just through the mediations fostered by their internal incentives and constraints but also through their utility to wider processes of social and political contest.

The full analytical potential of this implicit recognition of the inseparability of institutions from wider conflicts is not realized, however. This is evident in Tam's qualifications about cause-lawyer activism. For instance: “Although the judiciary is assertive in defending civil and political rights, it is relatively reluctant to assume an active role with respect to social and economic rights” (p. 76). Judgments on minimum wages and public-housing rental policy are among the examples provided (p. 76). This speaks to societal differences over liberalism and social democracy not discussed or explained by Tam. Yet such differences matter for the prospects of forging coalitions to sustain and advance legal mobilization and its institutions.

Moreover, Tam acknowledges that the CFA has backed off in cases where litigation involves vital Chinese government interests, and that the Chinese government and its business allies in Hong Kong have meted out financial retribution to various cause lawyers. He cites one case where a partner of a large international law firm reneged on an undertaking to represent a leading politician out of fear of offending Chinese authorities (p. 143). Another case concerned an environmental protection group whose lawsuit against town planning policy was given a wide berth (p. 144).

Meanwhile, the author observes that “the strength of capitalism seems to work against more democratic politics” (p. 150), as lucrative opportunities for lawyers in commercial and conveyancing practices mount (p. 150). This invites further analyses not only of the growing economic dependence on mainland China, with which he briefly engages, but also about the specific interests and dynamics of the form of capitalism involved.

Tam casts much light on the confluence of factors conducive to legal mobilization in Hong Kong. However, the analysis of the factors that appear, by his account, to be a threat to legal mobilization is underdeveloped. As with Rajah's's book, Tam's Legal Mobilization under Authoritarianism could be extended by reflecting more deeply on the interrelationship of capitalism and legal institutions. Nevertheless, Tam's arguments are largely persuasive and should generate fruitful debate about both Hong Kong's future and the study of institutions.