Abstract   The fostering of a critically engaged citizenry and robust civil society are championed as cornerstones of democratisation and development, particularly in partially free or unfree democracies. The role, dispositions and practices expected of both citizens and civil society organisations are often contested, demonstrating differing approaches towards and understandings of public participation in political life and the public sphere. This paper explores the social and normative construction of civility as a tool of governmentality. Drawing upon evidence regarding the role, functioning, and challenges facing civil society in efforts to entrench an open public sphere and engaged citizenry in two partial democracies, Uganda and Singapore, we reflect upon the ways in which such efforts respond to – and are shaped by – the developmental state model, and how discourses of in/civility are deployed to constrain more critical interventions and enactments of citizenship and civil society.