In this new addition to the Cambridge Studies in Law and Society, Jothie Rajah examines state governance in Singapore, which she describes as a system of “rule by law” in contrast to the liberal understanding of the “rule of law”. A revised version of the author's doctoral dissertation, the study is detailed and well-referenced: the bibliography, for example, exceeds 30 pages. The preface begins with an account of Rajah's Singaporean legal education that prized a strong legal professional identity and the role of the lawyer in upholding justice. Despite the “religious exaltation” of the rule of law, Rajah discovered that this ideal conflicted with reality in a country where the government was not to be challenged. From this starting point, the study builds upon the author's desire to understand the paradoxical co-existence of the “rule by law” and “rule of law” perspectives in Singapore. By focusing her analysis on five key pieces of legislation (although, notably, not the Internal Security Act, which has received extensive academic attention elsewhere), Rajah illustrates the mode of authoritarian governance used by Singapore's government as the means to supply itself and the state with popular legitimacy. While Rajah's study sets out to examine the complex relationships among legislation, public discourse and legitimacy in Singapore, the work is in effect a study of the psychology of the state and its motivations and successes in using rule of law rhetoric to secure its legitimacy and achieve its goals.

Much of Rajah's analysis of Singapore's government focuses on the words and actions of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's first Prime Minister who served in that office for more than three decades and who is regarded as the founding father of the country (Lee Kuan Yew read law at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge). The first chapter begins with a discussion of Lee Kuan Yew's 2007 speech to the International Bar Association's annual conference held in Singapore, in which he highlighted the country's high ranking in rule of law and governance indicators (p. 2). The speech raises the question of how Singapore's government was able to build its legitimacy as a rule of law state despite failing to protect certain civil rights. Rajah finds that legislation has been used as an instrument by Singapore's government to silence criticism and constrain the capacities of non-state actors to challenge state power. Following a lengthy literature survey related to discourse, governance and the rule of law, Rajah sets out the methodology of the study. Briefly, the study examines legal discourse in Singapore, which expresses “elite formations of social knowledge and elite efforts to manage contestations and negotiations” (p. 57). Rajah focuses on legal discourse surrounding five pieces of legislation – the Vandalism Act, the Press Act, a series of amendments to the Legal Profession Act, the Religious Harmony Act, and the Public Order Act. According to Rajah, this body of legislation has been used by the government to prevent citizens and other non-state actors from criticising the government and moderating state power.

The chapters following the introduction and methodology present the selected statutes as case studies. In Rajah's examination of the Vandalism Act (ch. 3), she observes that the Act became the first legal instrument to impose mandatory corporal punishment (caning), being introduced shortly after Singapore's expulsion from Malaysia in 1965. Singapore's government originally enacted the Vandalism Act to criminalise certain forms of opposition politics, which Rajah sees as being motivated by anti-American graffiti that was blamed on opposition political parties. Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew claimed that the legislation was designed to target rampant “slogans, drawing of pictures, painting and marking … on public and private property” (p. 74). Rajah draws upon comments made by government officials that justified the imposition of caning as punishment for vandalism on the basis that it was equivalent to elders giving youth “a good spanking” (p. 76). The Vandalism Act therefore not only punished forms of political opposition but also provided instruction on good citizenry in the new state of Singapore. Rajah also studies court trials under the Vandalism Act, finding that the legislation was used to target political opponents and enforced by an ideologically convergent judiciary. In the post-Cold War era, however, the legislation has been used by the government to promote Asian values distinct from those in the West. Following the 1994 case where American Michael Fay was imprisoned and caned for spray painting vehicles, former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew commented that in the United States, the world's richest county, individual rights trumped those of the collective, whereas in Singapore the interest of the community took precedence (pp. 104–5).

The case study on the 1986 amendments to the Legal Profession Act (ch. 5) is particularly interesting given the legal training of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. Rajah writes that the amendments to the Legal Profession Act demonstrate that even after achieving economic prosperity, the government continued to portray Singapore as a vulnerable state in need of protection. The legislative amendments were prompted by the Law Society's public criticism of new legislation that regulated the foreign press. The Law Society issued a public statement that raised concern over the undefined phrase “engaging in domestic politics” that was included in the Press Bill. Shortly thereafter the government introduced amendments to the Legal Profession Act to limit the power of the Law Society to comment on legislation in the absence of a request from the government. Rajah details a hostile questioning process in which members of the Law Society Council were subpoenaed to appear before the parliamentary committee considering the amendments and faced critical questioning principally by the Prime Minister. Rajah sees the exchanges as the state seeking to limit the “narrative space” of lawyers to challenge the state and providing an opportunity for the Prime Minister to demonstrate his expertise and control of legal matters.

In her conclusion (ch. 8), Rajah argues that the five legislative case studies illustrate how the government makes law by portraying the state as vulnerable and in need of legislation to effectively combat local problems. According to Rajah, the citizens of Singapore are “constantly colonised” by the government because it controls the social narrative and has entrenched a divide between rule of law and rule by law that denies individual rights and legitimises state power.

The book succeeds in providing a rich contextual exploration of several important pieces of legislation in Singapore. The case study format works well to present a qualitative examination of legal developments and Rajah offers insightful analysis that demonstrates how the government of Singapore has successfully exploited rule of law rhetoric to achieve its goals and bolster its legitimacy. This conclusion calls into question a quantitative evaluation of the rule of law and suggests that a more context-sensitive approach is needed to understand rule of law dynamics within each state. In Rajah's study, certain sources of information and legal developments were selected for examination while others were not. The author could have better explained her selection. Further legislative developments in several of the cases would have confirmed and strengthened the analysis. These minor criticisms, however, do not take away from the importance of the work as a study of legal governance in a fascinating country that has become one of the world's most prosperous under a model of authoritarian rule with limited political opposition and civil rights protection. On the whole, Rajah's study presents an intriguing account of how the rhetorical value of the rule of law, severed from its liberal substantive content, can be utilised by an authoritarian government to secure its legitimacy while limiting civil and political rights.