Skip Navigation


International Relations of the Asia-Pacific Advance Access originally published online on March 7, 2006
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 2006 6(2):269-306; doi:10.1093/irap/lci137
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
6/2/269    most recent
lci137v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Chong, A.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

International Relations of the Asia Pacific Vol. 6 No. 2 © Oxford University Press and the Japan Association of International Relations 2006, all rights reserved

Singapore's foreign policy beliefs as ‘Abridged Realism’: pragmatic and liberal prefixes in the foreign policy thought of Rajaratnam, Lee, Koh, and Mahbubani1

Alan Chong

Department of Political Science, National University of Singapore, AS1#04-05, 11 Arts Link, Singapore 117570, Singapore. Email: polccs{at}nus.edu.sg

This article aims to uncover the nuances of Singaporean foreign policy's theoretical contributions to a local variant of realism in international relations, as sourced from the thoughts and discourse of the Republic's elite foreign policy-makers. Previously, pinioning Singapore within classical realism has meant that questions of hegemonic socialization of ideas have been ignored in analysing its foreign policy. It behoves the scholar to pose questions to ideological verities of policy doctrines: From where did it originate? What are its tenets? How is it chosen over other alternatives? The conclusion however hopes to reveal that in terms of discourse ‘Singaporean realism’ is less completely faithful to classical realist precepts than is originally believed by pre-existing scholarship. The theorizing of Singaporean foreign policy is likely to be reconciled in terms of an oxymoron such as ‘practical idealism’ and ‘weak state, soft power’.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.