Past or Future? Temporal Gap, Legitimacy Crisis and Performing Time

Lyusen Wang, University of Chicago

How do political actors mobilize different temporal orientations to enhance their legitimacy in moments of crisis? Drawing on a computational textual analysis of speeches over 40 years and a comparative-historical analysis, this article traces variation in performing time—a practice that mobilizes particular temporal orientations to frame political action—in post-independence Singapore. The article shows that strategies of performing time are shaped by legitimacy crises produced by temporal gaps. While the past-present gap in the 1960s generated a legitimacy crisis that resulted in a strategy of performing the future, the present–future gap in the 1980s instead produced a strategy of performing the past. By illuminating the relationship between temporal gaps, legitimacy crises, and performing time, the article contributes empirical insights into performativity and legitimacy in post-independence politics and advances theoretical discussions of temporality and crisis.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 76. Reading the Modern: Computational Methods and the Historical Genealogy of Social Meaning