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Introduction
Governance is the collective settlement of social affairs in a polity (Knill and Tosun, 2012, p. 201). The modes of governance range from hierarchical intervention to non-hierarchical steering, based on different patterns of cooperation between public and private actors. The concept of governance is not new. Yet, the quality of governance has become one of the central focusses for research in political science. While the traditionally hierarchical modes of governance emphasize the strong interventionist role of the state in bringing private actors into compliance with public policy, the new trend stresses the positive effects of non-hierarchical patterns of political steering – such as markets and networks – that emerge from broad societal participation in policy making (Knill and Tosun, 2012, pp. 201-202). Thus, good governance, according to the UN’s definition, is participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive, and it follows the rule of law. It assures that the government is selected and monitored by all citizens, that the government is able to minimize corruption as well as effectively formulate and implement sound policies for the present and future needs of society, that the views of minorities are taken into account, and that the voices of the most vulnerable in society are heard in decision making (UNESCAP, 2009).
Similarly, the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) compiled by the World Bank have reported aggregate and individual governance indicators for 215 economies between 1996 and 2013. The six indicators are: voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption. As shown in Table I, Singapore is ranked very highly on all but one indicator. Except for voice and accountability, the scores for the other five indicators have exceeded the 95 percentile rank. Of the 27 Asian economies selected from the WGI database, Singapore ranks first for political stability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption. However, on voice and accountability, Singapore only ranks seventh, after Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, India, and Mongolia.
According to the World Bank, voice and accountability refers to the extent to which a country’s citizens are able to participate in selecting their government, as well as freedom of expression, freedom of...