From vision to reality: unpacking the smart nation as a digital order

Abstract

As Singapore advances its Smart Nation vision, digital technologies are increasingly embedded in society. Through interviews with experts who have worked on the Smart Nation project and analysis of Smart Nation reports, speeches and information presented in the Smart Nation CityScape exhibition, this study examines how the state perceives digital technology and how this translates into the materialisation of smart urbanism and reinforcement of the digital order in Singapore, responding to the call for more smart urbanism scholarship in non-Western contexts and local studies which have yet to incorporate Smart Nation 2.0 data. Using the concepts of technological determinism by Smith and Marx (1994), technological frames from the social construction of technology and technology as social structure by Sclove (1995), our study finds that the state adopts a soft technological determinist stance which translates into a technology-driven and decentralised smart urbanism approach that reinforces the reconfiguration of Singapore through digital technology.