Advance Publication
Accepted: June 16, 2025
Published online: March 23, 2026
Creating a Compliant Civil Service for Nation Building in Singapore, 1959–1984
Jason Lim*
*School of Creative Arts and Humanities, Faculty of the Arts, Society and Business, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales 2522, Australia
e-mail: jlim[at]uow.edu.au
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3378-0333
DOI: 10.20495/seas.26006
By the time Singapore celebrated 25 years of nation building in 1984, the citystate was being praised for its “good governance” and economic achievements. However, what has constantly been overlooked is that these achievements were the result of a compliant civil service. After the People’s Action Party (PAP) was elected to office in 1959, it cracked down on its leftist political opponents and the press, while introducing “attitudinal reform” of the civil service. Civil servants learned very quickly that they were not supposed to question the wisdom of the ruling party. While Singapore today continues to highlight the Westminster system of government as a positive legacy of British colonialism, the reality is that the civil service is no longer politically neutral. This article explains how the PAP government worked to dominate the civil service in the 1960s before using it to serve its own political interests by the 1980s.
Keywords: Singapore Civil Service, People’s Action Party, Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Keng Swee, political neutrality
