Complementary Institutions in Authoritarian Regimes: The Everyday Politics of Constituency Service in Singapore

Recent political science research has suggested that autocrats adopt a variety of institutions such as nominally democratic elections and ruling parties to buttress authoritarian durability. In this article I investigate the role of constituency service in an authoritarian regime. I argue that Singapore's Meet-the-People Sessions (MPS) is a complementary institution that can serve to mitigate the weaknesses of other authoritarian institutions, thereby entrenching authoritarianism, rather than serve as a form of democratic representation. First, it is a mechanism to gain valuable everyday information about grievances within the population, thereby allowing the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) to formulate policies and effectively target its response. Second, it is a convenient venue to recruit and socialize ordinary party members, thus helping the PAP forestall potential party decay. Symbolically, conducting MPS is a material performance of the hegemonic ideology of elitism between PAP politicians and ordinary Singaporeans.