Session 4 of the SG50+ conference on 3 July saw The Rt Hon Sir John Major KG CH, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and Mr Goh Chok Tong, Emeritus Senior Minister and Patron at the Institute of Policy Studies discuss new challenges in governance. The session was chaired by Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy Kishore Mahbubani.

Summary: In the diverse polities that are emerging in societies like Singapore, traditional notions of authority and hierarchy are changing. The ability of those in positions of authority to set the agenda and the terms of the debate is diminishing. Developments in communications technology are enabling citizens to put their governments under greater scrutiny. But the same technologies also offer citizens opportunities to collaborate and find collective solutions to public problems. Even as governments find themselves under greater pressures to account to their citizens, their ability to harness the intelligence of their citizens has never been greater.

This session examines the potentially disruptive forces in democratic governance that are emerging today, especially as a result of advances in communications technology and the growth of social media. It will explore whether the diminution of statecentred authority reduces the quality of governance and of public goods, or if this might be offset by new forms of governance such as citizen cocreation and coproduction. The session also looks at how Singapore’s system of governance and its statesociety relations would have to evolve such that citizens’ expectations of good government are met alongside rising demands for representation, accountability and transparency.