Recent political science scholarship suggests that when opposition political parties are able to coalesce into a united coalition against an authoritarian regime, they will perform better in authoritarian elections, and can more credibly bargain with the regime for liberalising reforms. Yet, most of this literature pays little attention to the variety of ways in which opposition parties cooperate with each other. Drawing on the literature on the bargaining model of war, the author sketches out a theoretical framework to explain how opposition parties coordinate to develop non-competition agreements. Such agreements entail opposition parties bargaining over which political party should contest or withdraw in which constituencies to ensure straight fights against the dominant authoritarian incumbent in each electoral district. The author then applies this framework to explain opposition coordination in Singapore’s 2015 general elections, focusing on the conflict between the Workers’ Party and the National Solidarity Party.

Singapore’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic has largely been seen as timely and effective, with border lock-downs and contact tracing efforts by city-state’s policymakers serving to slow down the spread of the virus. Yet despite such efforts, there have been instances of panic and confusion among the Singaporean citizenry. These include “panic buying” of essential household items as well as the spread of fake news. In this article, I will discuss the Singapore government’s efforts to address and minimize such behavior. I argue that the Singapore government’s ability to maintain relative social stability is driven by its high level of political capacity. Two forms of political capacity are particularly relevant: coercive political capacity and legitimation capacity. In focusing on political capacity, this paper seeks to delineate the political systemic drivers of Singapore’s efforts to manage the Covid-19 crisis.

The 2020 General Election results have raised expectations that Singapore will transition to a more competitive democracy. But this is far from preordained. Nor is there a clear societal onsensus that the city-state needs this amid a pandemic and its deepest economic crisis since independence. For now, the People’s Action Party still controls all the levers of power. With the opposition still not ready to step up as an alternative government-in-waiting, Lee Kuan Yew’s prognosis still applies: the PAP’s internal dynamics will be the primary determinant of its continued viability. PAP v. PAP expands on one dimension of this inner struggle: between a conservative attachment to what worked in the past, and a boldly progressive vision for the future. Cherian George and Donald Low argue that a reformed PAP — comfortable with political competition and more committed to justice and equality — would be good for Singapore, and serve the long-term interests of the party. The anthology draws from the authors’ many years of commentary on Singapore government and politics, and also includes new essays responding to the exceptional events of 2020.