Scholars question whether good governance is possible without democracy or vice versa. To answer this question, we develop a clear conceptual framework to distinguish between government that is a) inclusive (“by the people”) from that which is b) effective (“for the people”). If the former refers to democracy, and the latter to good governance, we can say that Singapore has good governance without democracy. But why is this so? We argue that the Singaporean governance model rests on three pillars which provide a degree of procedural and outcome legitimacy rare among non-democracies. Firstly, its political leadership maintains a centrist political orientation distinguishing Singapore from oppressive right-wing and left-wing authoritarian regimes. Secondly, the state actively deploys a consultative approach to governance that some would label as a non-Western from of democracy. Thirdly, policy implementation and enforcement are taken more seriously than in many democracies. The study is based on historical analysis and recent fieldwork in Singapore including dozens of interviews with officials working at different levels of government.
