Society-State Collaboration in Singapore: The Necessary Stage and the Arts Education Programme
Terence Chong

As we have seen, society-state collaboration is not necessarily a doomed relationship. As the case of The Necessary Stage and the AEP reveals, it is a complex one with multiple politics playing out on different levels that may either implode on one level and disrupt the entire collaborative process or be accepted as part and parcel of a difficult but possible working strategy of civil activism... Intra-state collaboration is an often-ignored feature of society-state collaborations, the consequence of which is misdiagnosis of the success and failure of society-state collaborations. Furthermore, society-state collaborations do not necessarily promise, nor should they necessarily promise the absence of interest conflict between NGO and state. Instead, collaborations should be seen as a specific platform on which negotiations, even resistance can play out.