With Alfian Sa’at and Ng Kah Gay, we have a thoroughly enjoyable and enlightening conversation about the arts and publishing vis-à-vis civic engagement and political participation in Singapore. What does it mean to be challenged with the unfamiliar? How do we provoke more conversation and action through artistic modalities? And how do we make sense of censorship, self-censorship, and pushback, while accounting for the interdependence of individuals, society, and the state?
In this wide-ranging conversation on community and community-based governance with Aaron Maniam, we cover many diverse but related topics. First, we discuss the global state of democratic governance in the context of community-based governance as well as truth and misinformation. We then learn more about his Ph.D. dissertation comparing public sector digital transformation efforts, before a segue into his evaluation of other tools – deliberative polling, panels, and citizen assemblies – to facilitate community-based governance. Finally, Aaron shares his perspectives on web3 platforms and dealing with diversity.
Today, we have a broad conversation on PE2023 with veteran journalist Bertha Henson. She reflects on Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam’s landslide win, shares how she got involved in Mr. George Goh’s campaign, and discusses and evaluates the office of the elected presidency in Singapore. In particular, we highlight two bodies: the Presidential Elections Committee, or the PEC, as well as the Council of Presidential Advisors, or the CPA.
What are the experiences of Singaporean academics who have spent time abroad, before returning home and working to reintegrate, both as academics, and as Singapore citizens. Together with her collaborators, in the article – “International academic or citizen scholar?: Singaporean returnees in the global city” (which we’ll link in the show notes) – lead author Yasmin Ortiga focused on this notion of reintegration as well as the conflicting demands associated with it. Like many others, I enjoyed reading the article, and the conversation I had with her, as you’ll hear, was a delight.
In 2023, as part of the “Civic Engagement and Action” series of the podcast’s sixth season, we published five episodes focused on the 2023 Singaporean presidential election. Here are the episodes.
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