Building a multicultural nation: Learning from multicultural policy and practice in postcolonial Singapore

Introduction

“We are going to have a multi-racial nation in Singapore. We will set the example. This is not a Malay nation; this is not a Chinese nation; this is not an Indian nation. Everybody will have his place: equal; language, culture, religion (Lee, 1965: 32).

During a press conference announcing Singapore’s independence after its separation from Malaysia in 1965, the then Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, promised Singaporeans that the island-state would be a “multi-racial nation”. This signified the start of a process of negotiating the meaning of what it was to belong to an ethnically diverse nation that continues today. What would this “multi-racial nation” look like? Would it end up being a balkanised society fragmented along ethnic lines, much like the plural society that existed when Singapore was a British colony (Furnivall, 1948: 304)? Or perhaps a situation in which the majority culture would become the de facto national culture, similar to up north in Malaysia (Bedlington, 1978: 84–90)? Put differently, how can one have a unified nation while also recognising internal differences?

This debate on how to reconcile ethnic diversity while also crafting a unifying national identity is not confined to Singapore but has inspired academic scholarship studying a variety of cases, from Canada (Bloemraad, 2015; Kymlicka, 1995, 2003; Winter, 2014) to the United Kingdom (Modood, 2005, 2018) and Australia. For instance, Geoffrey Levey’s recent article examines debates between majority rights advocates like Koopmans, Orgad and Kaufmann, and proponents of multiculturalism and minority rights (especially those from the Bristol School of Multiculturalism (BSM)). Levey (2026) challenges claims by advocates for majority rights that the established culture in society ought to be granted protected status (presumably against migrant cultures) on the basis on their status as a “founding” or “ethnocultural majority”. But rather than reject the concept of an established culture wholesale, he argues that “immigrants and minorities have typically participated in the cultural and institutional development of their societies” and this fact “is an argument neither for nor against nationalism or multiculturalism. Rather, it is an argument for this reality to be incorporated by all perspectives in the debate” (2025: 9). This paper takes up Levey’s call to incorporate reality into the debate about multiculturalism and nationalism by providing an additional perspective on a reality often less studied – the experiences of postcolonial societies and their engagement with multiculturalism and nationalism. It is vital to add to the empirical repertoire of cases within this literature as multiculturalist scholarship has largely focussed on the Global North, albeit with some exceptions (Kymlicka and He, 2005; Kymlicka and Pföstl, 2014; Modood and Sealy, 2024).

To make this argument, this paper is structured as follows. First, it reviews the literature on the debate between theories of multiculturalism and nationalism. It argues that while there have been fruitful efforts to find a middle ground between the two positions especially by scholars hailing from the BSM, these discussions still have two areas that are left understudied. One, their exclusive focus on liberal societies in the Global North, such as Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia, ignores a number of states that have sought to implement what Daniel Goh calls “postcolonial multiculturalism” (2008). Second, the conversation within the BSM has been largely theoretical with minimal engagement with actual state practice that might reveal whether its propositions regarding multicultural nationalism are viable in the long run.

As Dikici notes, the BSM’s framework remains “nascent” and requires further “practical propositions” to assess its real-world applicability (2022: 156 & 160). Singapore’s sixty-year record of institutionalised multicultural nationalism thus serves as a fruitful vantage point to assess the BSM’s theoretical claims. As an exemplar of a state that has sought to craft a multicultural nation as a founding constitutional principle since 1965, Singapore provides a longitudinal perspective on what multicultural nationalism looks like when practised and institutionalised over time. This post-colonial approach distinguishes it from other states studied that adopted a policy of multiculturalism only after the establishment of a national identity. The third section highlights the lessons for the BSM that can be learnt from the Singapore case. It argues that the relationship is reciprocal: while Singapore’s sixty-year post-colonial history provides valuable empirical and comparative grounding for the BSM, the BSM’s theory of “variable geometry” (Modood, 2013: 77), which allows for flexibility in the accommodations provided for different groups, the recognition of self-ascribed identities offers a normative lens through which to critique the rigidities of the Singaporean model.

Debating the multicultural nation

Multiculturalism’s embrace of ethnic diversity has long been subject to critique, from arguments that its accommodation of minority cultures enables the perpetuation of practices oppressive to women (Okin, 1999) to claims that excessive diversity undermines the solidarity needed to sustain welfare states (Goodhart, 2004). A recurring criticism is that multiculturalism promotes a “differentialist” logic, fragmenting society into a plural, Balkanised collection of communities (Brubaker, 2001). In such accounts, the emphasis on cultural difference is said to prioritise ethnic belonging at the expense of national belonging. These critiques have entered mainstream political discourse. Figures such as Angela Merkel have declared that multiculturalism in Germany had “utterly failed” (Weaver, 2010). More recently, Suella Braverman when serving as the British Home Secretary in 2023 declared that a “misguided dogma of multiculturalism” had proven “toxic” for European states, including the UK, “undermining the stability and threatening the security of society” (Wingate, 2023). These arguments are underpinned by an assumption that nationalism, as Dikici notes, is an “exclusive (aka, mono-) concept” (2022: 147), composed of a culturally unified core that is threatened by the presence of “other” cultures deemed incommensurable.

Academic responses to the growing majoritarian backlash against immigration and multiculturalism have crystallised into three broad camps: proponents of majority rights, liberal multiculturalists, and multicultural nationalists.

The first group argues that, like minority groups, majority cultures require formal recognition and protection precisely because multiculturalism has been so effective at securing minority rights (Levey, 2026: 9). Koopmans and Orgad contend that rising immigration and the proliferation of minority rights have rendered obsolete the assumption that majority cultures can sustain themselves unaided. They argue that the state must now take active steps to ensure the continuity of the majority culture (2022: 23). Kaufmann diverges from this culturalist framing, instead claiming that what is at risk is not culture, but majority identity, particularly whiteness, which he argues has become disparaged in Western societies (2022: 78). Nonetheless, what unites these theorists is the view that the majority should be granted “precedence” in ongoing contests over national identity (Bouchard, 2011). While advocates of majority rights might disavow the inflammatory rhetoric of ethnonationalist politicians like Pauline Hanson (Whitbourn, 2024), they share the assumption that national identity and ethnic pluralism are inherently in tension.

The second camp, liberal multiculturalists, argues that multiculturalism and nationalism are not only compatible but mutually reinforcing within liberal democratic contexts. Will Kymlicka, whose early work on liberal multiculturalism forms the foundational reference point for this camp (his recalibration of his normative position in the 2020s will be discussed later in this section), contends that access to a “societal culture” enables individuals to make meaningful choices about their identity. Kymlicka’s model of liberal multiculturalism supports both individual and collective rights, grounded in the idea that choice is enriched, not constrained, by belonging to a broader cultural context (1995). This rationale, initially used to defend minority cultural rights, is extended to the majority’s national culture. Advocates within this camp such as David Miller argue that in order to be accepted into the multicultural nation, immigrants need to accept and integrate into the “existing public culture,” even if doing so conflicts with their preferences (2016: 449). While such positions affirm the legitimacy of minority cultural rights, their insistence on cultural integration as a precondition for inclusion places them closer to the majority rights camp than proponents of multicultural nationalism would allow.

In recent years, Kymlicka has “recalibrated” his normative position on liberal multiculturalism regarding the inclusion of minorities in national culture (Baycan-Herzog, 2025: 23). This shift responds to empirical evidence collected by Kymlicka and his colleagues, which suggests the liberal multiculturalist approach has not been as effective as hoped. Their research on majority and minority dynamics found that minorities are still judged as ‘less deserving’ of membership benefits (Kymlicka, 2022: 109) and thus suggests that the liberal multiculturalist approach has not been as effective as hoped. Kymlicka suggests two means to remedy such “membership penalties” faced by minorities. First, he reiterates the importance of minority rights as a means to “protect minorities from predictable threats of injustice that arise from the state’s commitment to nationhood” (2022: 99–100), which is a continuation of his previous liberal multiculturalist position (1995). His second suggestion is what is seen to signal a shift in his original position – that national identity needs to be remade and retold so that “stories of peoplehood” no longer “differentially locate majorities and minorities” (2022: 114). However, what this looks like in practice is unclear. As noted by other scholars, there is a tension throughout Kymlicka’s shift (Levey, 2024). Although he does advocate for a shift in the national culture, Kymlicka is also leery of national identities, warning of their “illiberal” tendencies (2022: 95). He also seems to suggest that not all minorities can be equally included in this recasted national identity (2022: 98). This raises the question of where Kymlicka sits in the debate: his position suggests that multiculturalism can allow the thickening of the nation to encompass minorities, though it remains unclear how this is achieved beyond a vague suggestion to shift the narrative around minority cultural rights.

While liberal multiculturalists (including pre-2022 Kymlicka) assume that the national culture cannot be thick enough to encompass all groups, regardless of their status as majority or minorities, and post-2022 Kymlicka does not clearly set out what a thickened national culture would really look like, the BSM is much more forthright in its vision for the potential and means to achieve multicultural nationalism.

The BSM is characterised by its efforts to decentre liberalism as the primary basis for multiculturalism, working up instead from a sociological, identitarian approach of struggle for recognition and belonging amongst minorities (Levey, 2019: 202–205). For instance, Bhikhu Parekh, in writing the Commission for Multi-Ethnic Britain’s report in 2000, while eschewing the term “nationalism”, argues that there is a need to rethink “the national story and the meaning of Britishness” (2001: 696). Another member of the BSM, Tariq Modood, has developed this position more fully. He argues that the cultural majority’s influence on national culture “should not be exercised in a non-minority-accommodating way” (2019: 235). Modood’s conception of multicultural nationalism therefore requires a “pluralistic thickening” of national identity, integrating minority cultures into the symbolic and institutional fabric of the nation (2019: 240). This dialogical approach stands in contrast to liberal multiculturalism’s tendency to either thin out the national identity or define it primarily in terms of the majority, and provides a much fuller account of how we might solve Kymlicka’s identified problem of the “membership penalties” faced by minorities (2022). For Modood, both majority and minority groups must adapt, with neither having the unilateral right to impose their identity at the expense of the other (2020: 310). He offers practical illustrations of what this might entail. For example, Christian celebrations such as Christmas and Easter may be retained in schools, but complemented by celebrations of Eid and Diwali (2019: 239).

According to proponents of multicultural nationalism, multiculturalism can strengthen nation-building in two ways: first, by institutionalising recognition of difference, and second, by being incorporated into the national identity itself. Charles Taylor notes that ignoring or misrecognising someone’s identity constitutes a “form of oppression,” reducing them to a “false, distorted, reduced mode of being” (1994: 38). Affirming cultural identity is therefore not merely symbolic but provides a profound source of empowerment and heightens a sense of belonging to the nation among groups that were previously ignored (Chin and Levey, 2023). Moreover, multiculturalism can itself become nationalised. Bloemraad argues that multiculturalism has become a “touchstone” of Canadian identity, such that being Canadian now means embracing multicultural values (2015). It is worth noting, however, that this process closely parallels the way in which Canada adopted multiculturalism partly to distinguish itself from the United States and to manage the competing demands of a Francophone Quebec and rising immigration (Winter, 2014: 139). This suggests that the nationalisation of multiculturalism is as much a product of specific geopolitical pressures as of deliberate ideological choice. Nonetheless, in an era of globalisation and mass migration, where shared ethnic heritage can no longer serve as the foundation for national identity, non-ethnic-based markers such as adherence to the principle of accepting ethnic diversity as upheld by multiculturalism become essential.

The BSM enhances this process by framing multicultural nationalism as an open-ended, dialogical process. Unlike the institutional frameworks of liberal multiculturalism, which risk becoming a “dead dogma” of governance (to borrow Mill’s phrasing), the BSM focuses on an ongoing “multilogue” between all members of a society. By including everyone regardless of their majority or minority status, this approach ensures that national identity remains a “living truth” (Mill, 1963). This aligns with Renan’s celebrated definition of the nation as a “plébiscite de tous les jours” – an ongoing collective plebiscitary act rather than a finished product of national unity (Renan, 2023), and with Modood’s argument that a core feature of national citizenship is “an open-ended discussion of the terms of membership and the meaning of the whole to which members belong” (Modood, 2026: 5). By requiring all members of society, both majorities and minorities, to continually negotiate the meaning of the nation, the BSM fosters a fuller and more authentic appreciation for the national project. This dialogical engagement offers a distinct advantage in terms of political buy-in and national ownership, as it allows minorities to see their own struggle for inclusion reflected in the changing national story. When the nation is viewed not as a finished product to be consumed or obeyed, but as a collective project that citizens help to co-author, it produces a deeper sense of stake and resilience than top-down models. Ultimately, multiculturalism, if embedded in national consciousness and practice as proposed by BSM scholars, offers a viable alternative to majoritarian nationalism by grounding national unity in active consent and shared authorship.

Yet, despite its theoretical promise, the viability of BSM’s multicultural nationalist proposals remains uncertain. As Dikici notes, the BSM’s framework of multicultural nationalism is still “nascent” and requires further “practical propositions” to assess its real-world applicability (2022: 156 & 160). Much of this theorising has emerged in response to the recent rise of ethnonationalism in the West, as Triandafyllidou implies when she refers to pluralist nationalism as a “new analytical tool” to understand contemporary developments (2020: 803). Since these ideas of multicultural nationalism within BSM have emerged relatively recently, it stands to reason that they have yet to be implemented and their effectiveness evaluated in many of the countries being discussed. Moreover, these debates have also been limited largely to countries in the Global North, especially Canada, the UK and Australia, none of which has yet fully realised the BSM’s vision of a pluralistically thickened national identity in practice. Thus, to strengthen the BSM’s claims that multiculturalism and nationalism can indeed be productively brought together in the real world, this paper looks beyond the liberal West to the case of Singapore.

Unifying a plural Singapore

Singapore’s history of immigration and cultural diversity accelerated with the arrival of Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819, who established a British trading post through a treaty with the Sultan of Johore (Turnbull, 2009: 1–9). Leveraging its deep harbour and strategic location, the British instituted a free port policy that attracted traders of all nationalities (Wong, 1978: 56–58). Economic expansion, particularly British investments in Malaya’s tin and rubber sectors, drew waves of immigrants to Singapore, including Chinese from the tea-producing regions of Southern China and labourers from across Asia, such as Parsis, Armenians, Javanese, and Bengalis (Chew, 2013: 11–12; Ee, 1961: 34–35).

This diverse population was heavily fragmented. J. S. Furnivall described colonial Singapore as a “plural society” of communities that “mix but do not combine,” meeting only in the marketplace (1948: 304). The colonial administration structured society around racial categories, influenced by racialised colonial ethnography (Ganguly, 1997: 238). Syed Alatas, in his book “The Myth of the Lazy Native”, demonstrates how Western historians, naturalists and travel writers constructed a narrative of the lazy native, such as presenting the Malays as being indolent and preferring to cultivate rice rather than work in construction or factories (1977). This racialized world view influenced colonial policies. For instance, since the “lazy” Malay did not want to take up hard labour and the “untrustworthy” Chinese could not be trusted with honest labour, the British subsidised the immigration of the supposedly more docile Tamils to be employed as municipal labourers (Abraham, 1983: 23). The British also imposed residential zoning based on race, such as Chinatown for the Chinese and Kampong Glam for Malays, forcibly resettling populations in the process (Turnbull, 2009: 20).

Following the Japanese Occupation from 1942 to 1945, British rule resumed. As the British prepared to withdraw from Singapore in the early 1960s, talks of merging Singapore with the newly independent neighbouring Federation of Malaya began (BBC, 1957). These revealed stark differences in managing ethnic diversity. While the Malayan elite aimed to maintain privileges for the Malay majority, including land reservations and civil service quotas (Bedlington, 1978: 84–90), Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) which represented a territory with a Chinese majority, proposed policies of ethnic equality, such as civil service reform and vernacular education (Yeo, 1973: 90). The PAP’s Lee Kuan Yew’s advocacy for a “Malaysian Malaysia” stood in direct opposition to UMNO’s vision of a “Malay Malaysia” (Barr, 1997: 16). ¹ Nonetheless, in 1963, Singapore joined the Federation together with other crown territories of Sabah and Sarawak to form Malaysia. These conflicting positions, compounded by economic disagreements and ethnic unrest before and during merger, such as the 1964 racial riots that killed 22 and injured hundreds (Cheng, 2001), led to Singapore’s separation from Malaysia and the former’s independence in 1965.

The experience of the short-lived merger and racial riots shaped the PAP’s understanding of ethnoreligious differences as a potential faultline, requiring careful management by the state (Vasu, 2012: 736). This perspective led to the development of a state-led multiculturalism (termed “multiracialism” due to the reliance on racial categories inherited from the British which will be subsequently discussed) that sought to recognise ethnic difference and mould a national identity that transcends ethnic diversity. Singapore’s model of “governance through difference” (Vasu, 2012) is unique in a wide variety of ways, but three stand out in particular when considering the relationship between multiculturalism and nationalism in the Singaporean context: geopolitical context, historical timing and state control.

First, multiculturalism was adopted in response to a critical geopolitical moment, which shaped the particular form it took as a founding ideology. In a 2017 speech, then Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong articulated two reasons for its foundational importance. It was the core ideal behind Singapore’s split from Malaysia and a strategic move to distinguish Singapore, a Chinese-majority country, from being seen as a proxy for China in a Malay-majority region (TODAY, 2017). A policy of multiculturalism which stressed the equal treatment of all races through a public commitment to meritocracy thus served both domestic cohesion and regional legitimacy, a logic that continues today. It is important to point out that a commitment to the equality of all races and meritocracy does not mean “race blindedness” since there exist state-subsidised race-based self-help groups precisely to address socio-economic disadvantages faced by minorities in Singapore (Saat, 2021). Nonetheless, this recognition of inequalities between different groups is driven by a desire not to “leave any community behind” rather than a prioritisation of one group over another in the “Malay Malaysia” approach to ethnic diversity. Malaysia’s ongoing Bumiputera policies that favour the majority Malays on the basis of their claims to indigeneity as well as their relative socio-economic disadvantage vis-à-vis non-Malays (Lee, 2022) and Singapore’s regional position ensure that a commitment to the equality of all races remains politically salient. In a 2024 interview, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong affirmed multiracialism as a “core” and “sacrosanct” value (Lim and Koh, 2024).

Second, and distinct from the geopolitical pressures that necessitated it, multiculturalism was embedded at the very moment of nationhood, fusing it with national identity in ways that have proven remarkably durable. The principles of multiracialism have been enshrined into key founding artifacts, from the Constitution that explicitly sets out that there should be “no discrimination against citizens of Singapore on the ground only of religion, race, descent or place of birth” (Singapore Statutes Online, n.d.) to the national pledge which is recited every day in all Singaporean schools in which citizens of Singapore pledge themselves as “one united people, regardless of race, language or religion” (National Pledge, n.d.). Joppke and Morawska highlight that this form of “official multiculturalism” is particularly resilient due to its linkage to national self-understanding, especially for countries lacking independent founding myths (2003: 10–12). This model contrasts with alternative settings where multiculturalism was introduced in response to demographic shifts which were not adequately reflected in the established national identity. For instance, Winter highlights how the twin realities of a separatist Quebec and rising immigration challenged the “monocultural” expression of national identity influenced heavily by English Canadians in the 1990s and increased public support for multiculturalism (excepting in Quebec) (2014: 139). In contrast, Singapore’s model formed the ideological backbone of its national identity from the outset. This identity is reaffirmed annually in National Day Parades (NDPs) where ethnic diversity is a prominent motif (Kong and Yeoh, 1997: 231). The 2025 NDP theme song, for instance, celebrates Singaporeans as “threads of a tapestry” whose “differences will make us whole” (NDP 2025 Theme Song - Here We Are [Official Music Video], 2025). This belief in racial harmony is widely internalised as part of the Singaporean “DNA”, finding expression in everyday interactions within shared spaces such as schools, through annual Racial Harmony Day rituals, and in ubiquitous hawker centres which house a smorgasbord of multi-ethnic cuisines (Chua, 2009: 243; Mathews, 2013).

Third, the state has taken an assertive role in crafting a multicultural national identity. Like many states, Singapore has used institutions such as the military and education to forge national cohesion (Hobsbawm, 1983; Keeney, 1947; Weber, 1976). Yet, Singapore’s brand of multiculturalism is distinctly postcolonial. The government retained the colonial-era CMIO (Chinese, Malay, Indian, Other) framework to categorise citizens and craft policies accordingly. This model, a legacy of British census practices, assigns racial identity patrilineally and is recorded on official documents (Rocha, 2011: 98–100), although this prescriptive approach was loosened in 2011 with a shift to allow double-barrelled racial categories for individuals with mixed-race backgrounds (Tay, 2010). The continued use of the British racialised model explains why Singapore uses the terms “multiculturalism” and “multiracialism” interchangeably. While the two terms are not strictly synonymous — “multiculturalism” in the BSM tradition carries a stronger normative commitment to countering misrecognition through the bottom-up struggle for inclusion, whereas “multiracialism” reflects a more top-down, state-managed framework built on racialised categories — this paper treats Singapore’s multiracialism as a form of multiculturalism in practice. As argued elsewhere (Tan, 2023), Singapore’s model shares the core multicultural commitment to recognising and institutionalising ethnic difference as a legitimate basis for public policy and national identity. More importantly for this paper’s purposes, treating it as a species of multiculturalism rather than a wholly distinct phenomenon is what allows us to assess what the BSM’s vision of multicultural nationalism might look like when institutionalised over the long run, including the structural tensions that such institutionalisation tends to produce.

From Singapore’s CMIO model which forms the basis of multiracialism, the state has ascribed identities to individuals and groups, and in turn, seeks to protect those identities. Policies are built upon these categories. Bilingual education, for instance, pairs English instruction with compulsory “mother tongue” education based on racial classification. Malays study Malay, Chinese students learn Mandarin, and Indians mostly take Tamil (Xie and Cavallaro, 2016). Race also structures political representation, such as the Group Representation Constituencies system ensuring minority participation (Mutalib, 2002) and ethnic-based self-help groups offering targeted welfare services (Moore, 2000). Lian points out that this ethno-racialisation is so well institutionalised by the state and internalised by citizens that to be Singaporean, citizens must lay claim to membership of one of the four races (2016: 15). Clammer notes that Singapore’s policies of multiracialism have resulted in the intensification of ethnic identity rather than its diminution (2018: 41). Such a thick form of multicultural nation-building is facilitated by centralised state rule, particularly since Singapore is a competitive authoritarian state (Ortmann, 2011) with the PAP in power since 1963. While Singapore does hold regular elections free from fraud, the PAP has used its hegemonic position to engage in “electoral manipulation” to ensure the durability and centralisation of its rule (Tan, 2013). Such hegemonic power allows the government to enact controversial measures, such as regulating public housing sales to prevent ethnic enclaves, that would likely be contested in more liberal political contexts. Thus, Singapore’s multicultural project is one that is facilitated in large part by the significant power that the government wields to implement its vision of multiculturalism.

Together, these three factors have produced a postcolonial multicultural nation in which ethnic diversity is not simply accommodated but celebrated as a foundational component of national identity. The state has actively shaped institutions and policies that both protect ethnic difference and use it to define what it means to be Singaporean.

Reciprocal dialogue: Lessons from and for Singapore and the BSM

Singapore’s history of official multiculturalism is one of the longest in the world, predating Canada’s 1971 adoption of multiculturalism (Berry, 2013) and Australia’s policy shift in the early 1970s (Moran, 2011: 2159). Yet, as highlighted earlier in this paper, Singapore is rarely discussed in scholarship on multiculturalism and nationalism. Some might attribute this to its illiberal political context, which complicates comparisons with liberal states like Canada or the UK. But, as has been argued elsewhere (Tan, 2023), fruitful comparison can still be had on the practice and real-life outcomes of multicultural policies especially since the boundary between purportedly liberal and non-liberal contexts is more porous in reality than it appears in theory. This paper treats Singapore’s multiracialism as a form of multiculturalism in practice, not because the two are identical; Singapore’s model differs from the BSM’s normative vision in important ways that are precisely the subject of this analysis, but because doing so allows us to ask what the BSM’s propositions regarding multicultural nationalism would actually look like when institutionalised over a sixty-year period. The tensions that emerge from Singapore’s experience, including the rigidification of identities, the gap between procedural and substantive equality, and the pull of national triumphalism, are not simply artefacts of its competitive authoritarian context. They are, this paper suggests, structural pressures that any state-led multicultural nationalism would be likely to face, and which the BSM’s relatively recent and still nascent theorising has not yet had to confront. Moreover, given the BSM’s efforts to decentre liberalism as the basis for multiculturalism (Levey, 2019), it stands to reason that models of multicultural nationalism forwarded by BSM scholars like Modood can and should be examined in the light of alternative political contexts such as Singapore.

The Singaporean multicultural nation comprises two key elements. First is its self-image as a multicultural society represented through the CMIO framework, reinforced in state discourse, public imagery, and everyday life (Babcock, 2023; Geetha, 2016; Tan, 2025: 155–169). For example, history education in Singapore highlights its multicultural heritage, tracing influences from India, China, and Southeast Asia. Second is what Tan terms an “ethos of multiculturalism” (2025: 169), a normative expectation that citizens will express positive attitudes toward diversity. Failure to do so can result in public and even official sanction. In 2012, an assistant director with the national trade union congress was dismissed and widely criticised for making derogatory remarks about Malay weddings held in public housing estates. This ethos is codified through laws such as the Maintenance of Racial Harmony Act passed in 2025, which prohibits “unacceptable conduct regarding race relations” (Goh, 2025). Thus, we see in practice some of the calls that scholars of multicultural nationalism, such as Modood, have made for the pluralisation and thickening of the national identity through mechanisms such as public education (2024: 98). But to achieve public support for this thickening, there must be a commitment to the ethos of multiculturalism among citizens – that Singapore’s cultural diversity is valued and valuable.

While Singapore offers a compelling case of a multicultural nation in action, it is far from without flaws. Two challenges stand out: the risks of excessive state control and the problem of superficial multiculturalism.

State involvement has always been central to nation-building, and multiculturalism in Singapore is no different. As discussed earlier, the state’s dominance in shaping the national identity is epitomised in the CMIO model, a colonial legacy repurposed for modern governance (Lim, 2025). Benedict Anderson, in his seminal book Imagined Communities, makes two important observations about the use of colonial categorisation. First, it relied on an “imagined” set of identities by an outsider, such that most of the individuals categorised would not have recognised themselves under their prescribed labels. Second, he observes the “census-makers’ passion for completeness and unambiguity. Hence their intolerance of multiple, political ‘transvestite,’ blurred, or changing identification… The fiction of the census is that everyone is in it, and that everyone has one – and only one – extremely clear place. No fractions” (2006: 165–166). This logic continues to inflict symbolic violence through misrecognition. First, the CMIO model flattens diversity and ascribes characteristics to all members of an ethnic group as if they were a homogenous bloc. For instance, the Chinese in Singapore used to identify according to their spoken dialect group, shown by their membership in specific clan associations (Kuah-Pearce, 2006). However, in a bid to boost intra-Chinese solidarity through reducing inter-dialect differences, the Singaporean government lumped them all together, requiring them to all learn Mandarin in schools and prohibiting the public broadcasting in any Chinese dialect apart from Mandarin in 1979 (Chan, 2017). Similarly, all Malays are assumed to be Muslim, and all South Asians are grouped as “Indians,” regardless of their self-identification with alternate linguistic, religious, or regional identities (Chua, 2009: 240). This reduces complex lived realities to monolithic state-defined categories and erases those who do not conform. This essentialisation also presents the racial categories as fixed and impermeable, rendering invisible significant numbers of individuals whose mixed lineage is not recognised. Mixed-race individuals were long classified by patrilineal heritage until 2011, when double-barrelled racial identifications were permitted on identity cards (Wee, 2014: 653–654). Even now, those who do not fit neatly into “Chinese,” “Malay,” or “Indian” are placed in the residual “Others” category, which many perceive as marginalising (Lam, 2017; Rocha, 2011: 110). Ironically, while “CMI” categories are treated as rigid, the “O” category is expected to be infinitely flexible which results in anyone not fitting the state’s “CMI” categories to be perpetually othered.

This rigid framework underpins key state policies, including public celebrations and education. Events like National Day routinely feature one representative each from the CMIO categories, but such representational logic raises questions: What does an archetypal representative of each category look like? Whose histories are told in a multicultural national narrative? These questions become more urgent as immigration continues to diversify the population. Ethnic categories are increasingly entangled with nationality, as seen in the tensions between local-born Chinese and “PRC Chinese” immigrants (Ong and Yeoh, 2013: 91). This echoes other work on co-ethnic migration and the animosities that it produces between nominal co-ethnics (See Joppke, 2005; Morita, 2016; Tsuda, 2009). If a multicultural image is perpetuated by the state through official policies, discourse and in everyday settings of a CMIO imagination, what happens when newcomers who do not fit this imagination enter? Is there a limit to the elasticity of state multicultural nationalism and when does the Singaporean multiculture simply become an indistinguishable morass of cultures that looks like any other cosmopolitan nation? Is there a unique brand of “diversity” that the Singaporean nation is represented by and what happens if that diversity becomes so mixed that it is no longer recognisable to Singaporeans?

Singapore is not alone in facing such questions. The UK grapples with how Polish migrants fit into its multicultural fabric (Rzepnikowska, 2019), just as Canada considers whether Muslim migrants’ identities align with the Canadian multicultural nation (Mahmut, 2021). One might argue that the dangers of state overreach are confined to an illiberal setting or one in which the state exercises significant power over the definition of identities, and therefore in societies where ethnic groups and individuals are given far more autonomy for self-identification this is less of an issue. However, state involvement always comes with strings attached. For instance, Canada funds grassroots community groups to support ethnic minorities through disseminating both material and non-material support (Bloemraad, 2006). One major funder is the Department of Canadian Heritage which, in response to a shrinking budget, changed its funding programme in 2006 to focus on antiracism, removing the preservation of cultural heritage as one of its stated goals. This shift made community groups feel that they were “forced to compete, not on locally derived criteria, but on the basis of nationally derived criteria, i.e., the political needs and concerns of the ruling regime” (Yan et al., 2010: 66–67). Even in the most liberal of societies, state intervention in implementing a policy of multicultural nationalism will involve decisions about which groups are included and how they ought to be portrayed. For instance, Modood suggests that the Church of England share and possibly extend “constitutional privileges” with other faiths (2020: 311). But he does not specify which faiths, denominations or even interpretations of faiths. If Islam is represented, would the state represent Shia and Sunni interpretations equally, not to mention all the various intra-sectarian distinctions?

My point here is not to say that there should not be representation, but to highlight that the BSM proponents of multicultural nationalism should heed the Singaporean experience as a cautionary tale regarding state-led recognition. Singapore demonstrates that when the state becomes the primary architect of national recasting, even with the inclusive aim of expanding a previously monocultural image, it risks replacing fluid social identities with a strict equality of fixed, essentialised categories. By institutionalising multiculturalism through rigid frameworks like the CMIO model, the state may effectively manage diversity as an administrative category but does so at the cost of turning a dynamic process of multicultural nationalism into a static bureaucracy of identity. The Singaporean case therefore does not simply illustrate the pathologies of an illiberal context. Instead, it surfaces the structural pressures that the BSM’s own vision of state-facilitated multicultural nationalism would be likely to encounter, regardless of the political setting in which implementation is attempted.

Conversely, the BSM offers a possible solution for addressing this creeping rigidification within the Singaporean model through its proposal to recognise ethnic groups as having the autonomy and freedom to decide how they want to function and be represented in the multicultural nation. Modood argues that we should not require “symmetry” in the treatment of each group (like assigning two public holidays for each of the four main groups in the CMIO framework (Chua, 2003: 60)), but instead make space for some “variable geometry” (2013: 77). Some of these changes can already be seen in Singapore such as recognising mixed race identities on National Identity cards, albeit still reliant on state pre-set categories (Wee, 2014: 653–654). A fuller recognition of the need for groups and individuals to decide how they want to be identified and treated within the multicultural nation, would necessitate a more dynamic practice of citizenship which is “multilogical” in nature (Modood, 2008: 48), allowing a more porous national story. In this way, the Singapore state might transition from being the sole custodian of multiracialism to a facilitator of a more bottom-up struggle for inclusion. This would allow the Singaporean national identity to remain a dynamic work-in-progress, one that recognises the internal diversity of its ethnic blocks, rather than an essentialised project of statecraft. In this sense, the BSM provides the normative flexibility that Singapore’s highly institutionalised model currently lacks. Of course, whether this can be fully achieved within a tightly-managed political system in which the state seeks to maintain control over how race is defined, managed and experienced is yet to be seen. Some scholars have argued that the state has demonstrated pragmatic flexibility on issues related to identity politics, such as u-turning on its original position supporting Section 377A of the penal code which criminalised consensual sex between men (Abdullah, 2023).

The second challenge that needs to be considered by BSM proponents of multicultural nationalism is the triumphalist tendencies within nationalism itself. As Breuilly notes, “Nationalist intellectuals, including historians, frequently played a central role in the politics of forming a nation-state, not just as publicists and ideologues but as practical politicians” (2009: 14) and often this telling of history is done so as to inspire nationalistic pride. Even for countries with painful memories of war and conflict, the emergent nation-state is presented as new and victorious in throwing off the past shames (Lopez and Márquez, 2021).

Singapore exemplifies how multicultural nationalism can also lead to the glossing over of the failings of the nation. While Singapore does tell stories of racial and religious discord in its history education, this is used to justify current state intervention and discipline the population into supporting policies that are purported to prevent such racial animosity in the future (Cheng, 2001: 439). The PAP, while being careful to warn Singaporeans about the dangers of racial division, also seeks to sound a positive note in its public celebrations about the success of the multicultural nation. In 2017, the Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, in a speech on racial relations in Singapore, invoked Lee Kuan Yew’s vision of a society where difference would be embraced. Lee Hsien Loong spoke glowingly of Singapore’s multicultural nature:

I posted a picture on Instagram of myself, President Halimah and Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon. A Chinese, a Malay, and an Indian – only in Singapore. During the F1, one international visitor from Brazil saw the picture and commented on it. He said it was most amazing what we have in Singapore. He could not imagine it happening anywhere else.

Multiculturalism is embedded across Singaporean life. In schools, Racial Harmony Day encourages students to don ethnic costumes and learn about cultural traditions (Han, 2000). Various cultural and religious festivals are celebrated across the country, ranging from Chinese New Year to Hari Raya Puasa, with local grassroots leaders organising events publicised with posters depicting residents of various ethnic backgrounds. For many Singaporeans, the cultural diversity of the nation is a lived reality which they are proud of (Mathews, 2013). Yet, these celebrations risk becoming superficial. Cultural participation can be reduced to acts of consumption without deeper understanding or engagement. This mirrors critiques of “consumerist multiculturalism” seen elsewhere, where elites display openness by consuming the cultures of others, often without confronting structural inequalities (Blokland and Eijk, 2010; Martin, 1998; Parzer and Astleithner, 2018). In Singapore, this can take the form of frequenting hawker centres without deeper reflection on minority experiences. A study by the Institute of Policy Studies found that while Singaporeans claim to support multiculturalism, many prefer to interact with members of their own race. Moreover, two-thirds of Malay and Indian respondents reported experiencing racial discrimination (Mathews, 2016). The state has acknowledged these issues (Elangovan, 2021) and sought to remedy this through a variety of mechanisms, from heavy-handed legal mechanisms such as the Maintenance of Racial Harmony Act to promoting inter-cultural education in schools and civil society spaces (Ganesan, 2025).

When the multicultural project of recognising and protecting ethnic diversity is folded into the nation-building one, it faces an inherent tension between wanting to tell a positive story of national unity and acknowledging racial inequality and injustice. As we can see from the case of Singapore, striking a balance between these two tendencies is extremely difficult and can easily lean towards a triumphalist nationalism that presents the multicultural nation as success story of partaking in different cultures, glossing over uncomfortable realities that might suggest that things are far less rosy than they might appear on the surface. Nonetheless, BSM provides a vital normative corrective for such simplistic framings through its “sociological” focus on minorities’ struggle for inclusion and recognition (Levey, 2019: 202–205). By foregrounding the role of struggle, BSM tempers triumphalist tendencies, reminding us that the construction of a multicultural nation is not a finished project, but one that is a continuous “work-in-progress” subject to contestations and debate (Modood, 2008: 48).

Conclusion

In conclusion, Singapore’s unique “multiracialism” offers a clear example that both supports and adds to the ideas of the Bristol School of Multiculturalism (BSM). While the BSM has mainly focused on multicultural nationalism in Western liberal democracies, Singapore shows how a postcolonial nation, through its centralised mode of governance and foundational commitment to racial equality, can build a strong sense of national identity. This fits well with the BSM’s focus on understanding how people’s identities are recognised and included in the nation’s symbols and institutions. Singapore’s experience thus backs up the BSM’s idea that multiculturalism does not have to weaken national unity: instead, it can be a strong source of unity by bringing different identities into a shared national story.

However, this analysis also points out important nuances that can enrich BSM’s conceptual framework through a reciprocal dialogue. Singapore’s heavy reliance on top-down government control, while good for stability, highlights a key challenge for the BSM regarding how to balance state-led recognition with a bottom-up struggle for inclusion by minorities. Crucially, Singapore provides a longitudinal perspective that is often missing from more recent Western models. By observing the outcomes of multicultural statecraft over sixty years, we can see how a model of strict equality among fixed ethnic categories, such as the CMIO framework, warns of the danger of essentialising identities over time. In contrast, the BSM’s concept of “variable geometry” offers a normative corrective to this rigidity, suggesting that a national identity is most robust when it remains a dynamic “work-in-progress” rather than a finished bureaucratic product.

Future research within the BSM should therefore look closely at these postcolonial models to improve theories of multicultural nationalism, moving beyond the binary between purportedly liberal and non-liberal contexts which this article has shown to be porous. This means taking a more explicitly comparative approach to ground this analysis by considering how government actions, individual identity, and the need for a national story truly connect with the diverse realities of all citizens.