This essay outlines an intellectual portrait of Chua Beng Huat and offers a critical appreciation of his contributions as an academic, a scholar, and an intellectual. I highlight key biographical details: his family upbringing in Bukit Ho Swee, schooling in the Chinese and English mediums, higher education and academic experience in Canada, his return to Singapore, and serving as a sociology faculty at the National University of Singapore, which he made a home base for inter-Asia studies. I discuss his pedagogical approach, which extends to his research and public engagement. In reviewing his works, I focus on the theme of communitarianism as a basis of political legitimacy in East Asia, with housing provision in Singapore as a prime example. His project presents an alternative to Western liberal democracy taken as the universal bedrock of political modernity. I characterize it as the recuperation of the social in the face of capitalist modernity, which is conducive to atomization and corrosive of solidarity. Yet, he projects the possibilities of a more politically liberalized communitarianism. What he offers is not a set of ready answers that reconcile Marx's "realm of necessity" and "realm of freedom," but a lucid exposition of the tensions between the two realms under contemporary conditions.

This article assesses the Singapore state's approach towards multiracialism by focusing on the hijab issue. I argue that a combination of elite ideology and regime type can explain the state's overall stances on religion, including the hijab issue. Previously, when the state was hegemonic, its policies were determined solely by the ideologies held by its key elites. However, as the state moves towards competitive authoritarianism with increased electoral competition, the dominant party will no longer be able to act solely based on its ideological predispositions. This explains why a staunch no-hijab stand was held by the state in the past, whereas in recent years, there appears to be a softening of this stance.