For your own good : a historical study on social control and the normalisation of state surveillance in Singapore, 1990-2015
This essay examines the recent history of state surveillance in Singapore, specifically from the 1990s to 2015. It explores how the surveillance practices of Singapore’s long-ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) government has achieved an undisputed, normative status. It argues that the PAP-government...
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| Format: | Final Year Project (FYP) |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2017
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10356/69764 |
| _version_ | 1824453101478739968 |
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| author | Muhammad Hydar Saharudin |
| author2 | Hallam Stevens |
| author_facet | Hallam Stevens Muhammad Hydar Saharudin |
| author_sort | Muhammad Hydar Saharudin |
| collection | NTU |
| description | This essay examines the recent history of state surveillance in Singapore, specifically from the 1990s to 2015. It explores how the surveillance practices of Singapore’s long-ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) government has achieved an undisputed, normative status. It argues that the PAP-government has largely framed its surveillance schemes as advantageous to Singaporean society. It does so by invoking a wide array of threats and anxieties, in which surveillance aims to monitor, avert, discipline, or neutralise. These dangers are discursively rationalised in the PAP-government’s survivalist and pragmatic beliefs. Presented with such narratives, justifications, and options, Singaporeans accept state surveillance in exchange for its purported protective and pastoral benefits. To explore this argument, this essay examines 1) the state-sanctioned secret computer scans of 1994 and 1999; and 2) the PAP-government’s expanding use of CCTV surveillance to address criminal, terrorist, and anti-social behaviours. By historicising these surveillance affairs and trends, this paper hopes to demonstrate how state surveillance in Singapore has been justified insofar that its claims and excesses are uncontested, routinised, and valorised. |
| first_indexed | 2024-10-01T07:55:22Z |
| format | Final Year Project (FYP) |
| id | ntu-10356/69764 |
| institution | Nanyang Technological University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-10-01T07:55:22Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ntu-10356/697642019-12-10T10:48:40Z For your own good : a historical study on social control and the normalisation of state surveillance in Singapore, 1990-2015 Muhammad Hydar Saharudin Hallam Stevens School of Humanities and Social Sciences DRNTU::Humanities This essay examines the recent history of state surveillance in Singapore, specifically from the 1990s to 2015. It explores how the surveillance practices of Singapore’s long-ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) government has achieved an undisputed, normative status. It argues that the PAP-government has largely framed its surveillance schemes as advantageous to Singaporean society. It does so by invoking a wide array of threats and anxieties, in which surveillance aims to monitor, avert, discipline, or neutralise. These dangers are discursively rationalised in the PAP-government’s survivalist and pragmatic beliefs. Presented with such narratives, justifications, and options, Singaporeans accept state surveillance in exchange for its purported protective and pastoral benefits. To explore this argument, this essay examines 1) the state-sanctioned secret computer scans of 1994 and 1999; and 2) the PAP-government’s expanding use of CCTV surveillance to address criminal, terrorist, and anti-social behaviours. By historicising these surveillance affairs and trends, this paper hopes to demonstrate how state surveillance in Singapore has been justified insofar that its claims and excesses are uncontested, routinised, and valorised. Bachelor of Arts 2017-03-25T05:23:07Z 2017-03-25T05:23:07Z 2017 Final Year Project (FYP) http://hdl.handle.net/10356/69764 en Nanyang Technological University 84 p. application/pdf |
| spellingShingle | DRNTU::Humanities Muhammad Hydar Saharudin For your own good : a historical study on social control and the normalisation of state surveillance in Singapore, 1990-2015 |
| title | For your own good : a historical study on social control and the normalisation of state surveillance in Singapore, 1990-2015 |
| title_full | For your own good : a historical study on social control and the normalisation of state surveillance in Singapore, 1990-2015 |
| title_fullStr | For your own good : a historical study on social control and the normalisation of state surveillance in Singapore, 1990-2015 |
| title_full_unstemmed | For your own good : a historical study on social control and the normalisation of state surveillance in Singapore, 1990-2015 |
| title_short | For your own good : a historical study on social control and the normalisation of state surveillance in Singapore, 1990-2015 |
| title_sort | for your own good a historical study on social control and the normalisation of state surveillance in singapore 1990 2015 |
| topic | DRNTU::Humanities |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/10356/69764 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT muhammadhydarsaharudin foryourowngoodahistoricalstudyonsocialcontrolandthenormalisationofstatesurveillanceinsingapore19902015 |