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This paper examines how the concept of participation in planning has been constructed by state and nonstate actors in the politico-institutional context of Singapore. Our objective is to gain a deeper understanding of the political dynamics shaping ideas about participation, and the impact of these contested constructions on the perpetuation of the ruling party's political control. Drawing on strategic-relational institutionalist planning and cultural political economy theories, we analyze 312 documents including government and civil society periodicals, parliamentary debates, and academic publications, focusing on the planning and participatory practices of Singapore's national planning agency from the mid-1980s to 2020. The findings reveal that state-led coalitions continuously reframed participation as an instrument of economic growth, nation-building, and activism-management, while nonstate-led coalitions emerged to transform state-civil society relations through promoting and materializing alternative meanings of participation. These dynamics demonstrate the potentialities and limitations of democratizing urban planning and governance in Singapore's hybrid regime.

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This chapter reflects on the community-building potential of neighbourhood- based participatory planning processes, based on a non-profit organization’s experiences in Singapore’s Neighbourhood Renewal Programmes (NRPs). The NRP is a key government framework for resident participation in the revival of middle-aged public housing estates. Using a strategic-relational institutionalist approach, this chapter highlights how the capacity of the NRP to build relationships, and thereby enable local residents to take collective action and influence decision-making, is shaped by the dialectical interactions between various actors and institutions. It concludes that these actor-institution dynamics, as seen in four instances of the NRP, privilege the fostering of social cohesion and the observance of rules and procedures, over the empowerment of residents.

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