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

摘要

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’.