The volume offers an analysis of one of the most interesting contemporary political regimes, the 'case' of Singapore. This island, extremely small, devoid of natural resources and surrounded by two infinitely larger and hostile countries, represents an economic and political experiment that has given rise to a hybrid regime that is essentially authoritarian, but with a 'smiling face', and which has launched a dizzying development process on whose results it bases its legitimacy. And today, Singapore emerges in the world economy as the successful global city that leaders of countries around the world look up to. However, its extraordinary economic successes were explicitly accompanied by rather invasive and illiberal policies, in fact entailing a serious challenge to the Western free-democratic political systems which, at present, are struggling to give concrete solutions in the same fields of intervention. Presentation by Puccini Giusto. Foreword by Gianluca Bonaiuti. |