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New Modes of Political Participation and Singapore's Nominated Members of Parliament1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2013

Garry Rodan
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Abstract

Despite growing recognition that authoritarianism can be far more durable than transition theorists previously expected, transition theory assumptions continue to constrain attempts to understand authoritarian regimes. In particular, alternative avenues of political participation to opposition political parties and electoral contests are under examined. Singapore's authoritarian regime involves a range of such innovative institutional and ideological initiatives, one of the most significant being the Nominated Members of Parliament scheme. This promotes notions of representation different from democratic parliamentary representation that are not without appeal to targeted, emerging social forces. Singapore's political economy dynamics contribute to this responsiveness by obstructing independent power bases.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 44 , Issue 4 , 2009 , pp. 438 - 462
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2009.

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Footnotes

1

Research for this essay was supported by the Australian Research Council through Discovery Project DP0557290, for which the author is grateful. The author also thanks Kanishka Jayasuriya and two anonymous referees for constructive criticisms on an earlier draft as well as interviewees involved in the project for their cooperation. This work was first presented at the ‘Contemporary Authoritarianism in Southeast Asia: Structures, Institutions and Agency’ workshop, organized and funded by the Southeast Asia Research Centre, City University of Hong Kong.

References

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3 Jennifer Gandhi, Political Institutions Under Dictatorship, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2008; Ghandi, Jennifer and Przeworski, Adam, ‘Authoritarian Institutions and the Survival of Autocrats’, Comparative Political Studies, 40: 11 (2007), pp. 1279–301;Google Scholar Barbara Geddes, ‘Stages of Development in Authoritarian Regimes’, in Vladimir Tismaneanu, Mac Morjé Howard and Rudra Sil (eds), World Order After Leninism, Seattle, Washington University Press, 2006, pp. 149–70.

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8 Literature on new forms of political participation is rapidly expanding, although much of it reflects the transition theory emphasis on, and optimism about, possible openings for democracy that these initiatives might in time unleash. See, for example, Ethan J. Leib and Baogang He (eds), The Search for Deliberative Democracy in China,New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006; Jamie P. Horsley, ‘Public Participation and the Democratization of Chinese Governance’, in Yang Zhong and Shiping Hua (eds), Political Civilization and Modernization: The Political Context of China's Reform, Singapore, World Scientific Press, 2006, pp. 207–50; Elizabeth J. Perry and Merle Goldman (eds), Grassroots Political Reform in Contemporary China, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2007.Google Scholar

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20 Terms can be shorter, depending on when general elections are held. For example, the 2004 appointments served for only one and a half years. Terms are also potentially renewable.Google Scholar

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22 As quoted in Leong, Ho Khai, The Politics of Policy-Making in Singapore, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 90.Google Scholar

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40 Thio Li-Ann, interview, Singapore, 16 May 2006.Google Scholar

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47 Goh Chong Chia, interview, Singapore, 6 November 2006.Google Scholar

48 Siew Kum Hong, interview, Singapore, 17 May 2007.Google Scholar

49 Mr Brown is a popular blog site and pseudonym of Lee Kin Mun, who provides satirical social and political commentaries on Singapore. See http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/.Google Scholar

50 Eunice Olsen, interview, Singapore, 14 May 2007.Google Scholar

51 Interview, Singapore, 7 November 2007. The interviewee expressed preference for anonymity on this particular view.Google Scholar

52 Thio Li-Ann, interview, Singapore, 16 May 2007.Google Scholar

53 Lee Hsien Loong, in Parliamentary Debates, Singapore, 83: 15 (23 October 2007), col. 2469–72.Google Scholar

54 Goh, interview.Google Scholar

55 Geddes, ‘Stages of Development in Authoritarian Regimes’, p. 161.Google Scholar