OPPOSITION PRESENCE AND GOVERNMENT POLICY RESPONSIVENESS IN HYBRID REGIMES

Abstract

Within the extant literature, scholars have minimised the significance of electoral competition in Electoral Authoritarian (EA) regimes, especially on a policy level. This thesis attempts to value-add to the scholarly discourse of opposition politics and policymaking in EA regimes, by proposing and examining a novel theory of opposition presence and policy responsiveness. Chiefly, I argue that that political opposition may positively promote policy responsiveness of the regime– specifically, through the mechanisms of credible signalling and direct representation of policy preferences or disapproval. I hypothesise that increase in opposition presence, as represented by an increase in their popular vote and parliamentary seat shares, will result in an increase in policy responsiveness of the Singapore government. Through a quantitative study, I collected data from a variety of sources, and discovered a statistically significant relationship between the opposition’s representation mechanism, as measured by their seat shares, and policy responsiveness, as measured by social expenditure (% of GDP).