Alluring narratives: what do Estonia, Bhutan and Singapore have in common?
In an exclusive enrichment lecture for IIPP MPA students, Professor Wolfgang Drechsler outlined how the countries’ narratives were shaped to transform them in digitality, happiness and capacity cases.
By IIPP MPA student Giulia Lanzuolo
Sirens are half-human and half-animal creatures from Greek mythology that were known for attracting sailors using their enchanted singing, with the final goal of taking them to death. They are a frequent metaphor to describe the duality of situations that are not actually what they appear to be. This was the allusion that Wolfgang Drechsler — Honorary Professor at University College London Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) — used to picture three well-known cases for those who study public administration: Estonia, Bhutan and Singapore.
“If you want to learn from policy success, you have to know both the context and what the story really is,” said Professor Drechsler in the introduction to his enrichment lecture held on 2 February.
During the talk, Drechsler explored what underlies Estonia being portrayed as a prosperous digital republic, Bhutan standing as a global happiness model, and Singapore holding the position of the most effective and efficient state in the world. But where does the success of the cases end and the alluring narrative start?
Estonia — the standard for digitality
In 2001, the Estonian government introduced two initiatives that are the foundations of the country’s recognition as a digital republic. One is the X-Road data infrastructure, and the other is a compulsory national digital ID. For those unfamiliar, X-Road is a platform for decentralised databases and a data exchange layer available both for the public and private sector actors, which provides interoperability for data exchanges. The digital ID allows citizens to be identified digitally and to use digital signatures.
Combined X-Road and digital ID allow public services to be accessed digitally and contracts to be signed in the same way. More than 2,300 public and private services use X-Road, and the digital signature has been used almost 350 million times by the 1.3 million Estonian citizens for processes such as income tax declarations.
Despite the beginning of digitalisation in the 2000s, the eastern European country was propagated as the paradise of governmental digital transformation, such as in a The New Yorker article “Estonia, the digital republic”.
“Estonia is the big country that tells the little countries that you can be a digital success and that this can happen immediately. If you want to upgrade to a digital country, you can learn from Estonia how to do it,” said Professor Drechser, with irony.
Despite having globally known initiatives for digitalisation, the country doesn’t currently figure at the top positions from the main digitalisation indexes (Waseda-IAC, EU eGB, DESI and UN-EGDI). In addition to that, their COVID-19 tracing app was widely described as a failure.
Professor Drechsler explored the idea that Estonia’s digitality was a case of modernist positioning, leaving the Soviet legacy behind to be replaced by a new Western look, the ideal bait for western ‘digi guys’ and journalists. He also brought up that an actual digital transformation must encompass organisational change alongside creating new structures, services and products.
“There is no digital transformation at all almost anywhere if digital transformation means a change in organisations. What you can learn from Estonia is that digitalisation is like MSG, it enhances the flavour, but it depends on what is already there. Democracies can become more bureaucratic with e-governance, but totalitarian regimes can become more totalitarian”, stated Professor Drechsler.
Bhutan — the model for happiness
Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness (GNH) is claimed as a conscious alternative to the GDP (Gross National Product), born with Buddhist economics. It was institutionalised in 2008 as the official and policy-relevant development programme. The south Asian country also holds the trophy of being the only carbon-neutral country on earth, as showcased by former Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay in his TED Talk, which reached more than 3.4 million views on YouTube.
Professor Drechsler examined how GNH was adapted to mainstream development thinking throughout time, leaning on the argument that modernisation and economic growth can engender GNH rather than get in its way. According to him, this also impacted reframing Bhutan from the disadvantageous position of a developing country to an advantageous position with monitoring assets.
“You have people from Harvard Business School and IT experts from Stanford who come to Bhutan and spend a lot of money in startups that otherwise they wouldn’t spend, because it’s cool to do this in Bhutan with the clean air, and the Himalayas, the egos, the mindfulness and all this stuff that tech billionaires love,” said Professor Drechsler.
Despite the public sector capacity working well in Bhutan, the moral and economic panic brought by the pandemic pushed the country to seek other alternatives. The GNH commission was dissolved following a set of reforms brought by the government.
Singapore — the ideal of capacity
“It is true, if you believe in indicators, that the big problems in the world today are basically solved in Singapore,” said Professor Drechsler.
Older people care, healthcare, transportation and public safety — everything seems figured out by the Southeast Asian country. According to a recent government survey, 70% of Singapore residents responded that their life was the same or better compared to 2019, before the pandemic. Moreover, 71% said they trust the government in what to do if a future pandemic hits.
This data is a symptom of the country’s strong parliamentary democratic system, which isn’t aligned with the prevailing western concept of democracy.
“It is a formal democracy, but there is no way to replace the current party, which is the PAP (People’s Action Party),” explained the professor.
On top of that, Singapore also experiences drawbacks in freedom of speech. This landscape is ruled by a mix of Westminster and Confucian public administration models, which puts the civil service in a position of more relevance than the Parliament and the President, right below the Prime Minister and his Cabinet.
“If Singapore is the benchmark, you really need to carefully understand what it is about. What is needed for its success, and what the drawbacks are about,” said Professor Drechsler while exploring the attempt of other countries’ attempts to use it as a replicable model. “Part of the mystique of Singapore is not to tell you. That is why you don’t have Singapore advisories telling you what to do.”
To sum up
As an MPA student from Latin America, I find it particularly fascinating to learn about cases from countries such as Estonia, Bhutan, and Singapore — places that are vastly different from my own reality. Prior to studying at a global university, I had never even met citizens from Estonia or Singapore (and I have yet to meet anyone from Bhutan). It would have been easy for me to accept the successes of the policies showcased in these countries without question. However, delving deeper into the underlying factors of these cases — aided by Wolfgang Drechler’s insightful wit — has been an enlightening experience. It has made me reconsider the power of narratives in framing countrywide initiatives and has reminded me that while we often hear about the front-facing aspects of public policy, the behind-the-scenes context and events are just as important.
