ABSTRACT
Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) has been called a competitive authoritarian regime that uses repressive laws to maintain its grip on power. However, this characterization obscures that Singaporeans have not resisted the country’s system of governance. Most tellingly, voters have consistently returned the PAP to power in elections that are free from fraud, coercion, and violence. The PAP’s ascendancy is therefore a function of the decisions of voters, pointing to popular support for the ruling party. Why do Singaporeans acquiesce to PAP rule? How does Singapore demonstrate why citizens support an incumbent electoral autocracy? Using empirical data for Singapore from the Asian Barometer Survey, we demonstrate that when an authoritarian regime is effective in providing public goods, the more it is viewed as trustworthy, the more legitimacy that government is likely to attain, the more it can elicit support from its citizens. We also find that ethical reciprocity, or social trust, has a dampening effect on the perceptions of a government’s practice of procedural fairness. Our results demonstrate that a not fully democratic regime can still obtain support from its citizens—and therefore acquiescence—based on its performance in governance, procedural fairness, and ethical reciprocity.
