“Closed by Default”: Authoritarian Data Governance and Civil Society in Singapore

Abstract

Despite growing scholarship recognizing data as a site of contestation, research on authoritarian data governance predominantly focuses on state actors, leaving underexamined how such governance is experienced and contested by civil society. Through a case study of Singapore, this article addresses this gap by examining civil society’s data practices through semistructured interviews with 21 activists, journalists, and academics. It identifies two key contributions. First, this study reveals how authoritarian data governance is experienced as a hierarchical structure: Support for illiberal policies is datafied as technocratic evidence through selective data disclosures, while civil society expertise is marginalized through technical disaffordances and opaque administrative mechanisms. Second, this article finds that civil society’s responses to data control involve not only tactical shifts but also epistemological ones. Facing dilemmas about whether and how to engage with data shaped by technocracy and illiberalism, civil society actors develop alternative data practices that both challenge and co-opt the language of technocracy.