* In 1989, the military government changed the English translations of many names dating back to Burma's colonial period. Among others, Burma was changed into Myanmar, Arakan into Rakhine and so forth. The research note uses the name Myanmar in accordance with the practice of the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. For consistency, the research note refers to the country's name as Myanmar. For names of places, the new names are given first and the old names are in parentheses.

No abstract

The debates on Asian democracy began 30 years ago. Western countries have often promoted liberal democracy as being the genuine democracy, giving justice to the people and being able to meet the needs of their communities. However, at the same time, some Asian countries practice democracy that promotes Asian values, which are very different from Western values. Western countries describe Asian democracy as an excuse for some leaders to maintain power in their respective countries, for example Malaysia. Critics have pointed out that some Asian leaders have used authoritarianism or despotism in order to mitigate the weaknesses of their rule. Asian democracy is practiced in Kelantan where the PAS (Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party) continued to maintain power for 23 years, from 1990 to 2013. Factors that have contributed to the long rule of the PAS party include socio-political stability, including political parties who were clean and competent and leaders who are knowledgeable and pious.

The results of the 2018 General Election in Malaysia show interesting and varied political dynamics based on issues, leadership, campaign strategies, winning and defeat factors, polling patterns, and also location. Hence the purpose of writing this article is to analyze the trend of polling in GE 2018 based on urban and rural areas according to 222 parliamentary constituencies in the country. The writing of this article is produced through the analysis of the GE13 2018 decision-making data for the Parliamentary constituencies as well as the in-depth analysis of secondary information from mainstream media and social media directly involved in the GE 2018. The findings show that almost all urban areas were won by Pakatan Harapan (PH) and some were won by PAS, in urban areas in the East Coast region of Peninsular Malaysia. The rural areas in the majority of Malays areas are dominated by UMNO/BN and PAS in Kelantan, Terengganu, and also rural parts of Kedah. There are also rural areas won by either BN, PAS, and PH with a slight majority because of the split of the three-party blocks. This is due to the different demographic segments of the voters either by local voters, young voters, outsiders, and even higher educated voters. Hence, the pattern of voting by geographical location in the GE 2018 is very interesting and compositing to be studied and deserves to be taken into account by the concerned parties, especially political parties, governments, and political researchers in order to be a solution to produce rational political thinking and to follow the current trends to care for the well-being of the common people.

Despite official crime figures showing a continuous decline in the rate of crime, the perception of the high level of crime by many Malaysians suggests other factors are affecting their perception of safety from crime. The objective of this study is to identify and understand these factors through a qualitative study that employs online focus group discussions. This study argues that the perception of safety from crime is the result of interactions of a number of factors such as the experience of victimisation, crime information, neighbourhood conditions as well as the perception of law enforcement and government crime reduction policy. The sense of safety from crime is also contextual as it may fluctuate according to time, place, activities and situations. Analysis of the data from the focus group discussions found that participants generally have a high perception of safety from crime. However, participants felt less safe when they were in public places and when interacting with online services. In most circumstances, participants' sense of safety is affected by the pressure to be vigilant and to avoid criminal victimisation. This pressure is exacerbated by low-quality information on crime that is often received through social media. Crime information on social media has a significant impact on participants’ perceptions of crime. The overall analysis of the findings suggests that the most important factor which affects the perception of safety from crime among these selected Malaysians is their sense of safety in their homes and their neighbourhood.  Hence, efforts to increase the sense of safety among Malaysians should focus on this context.

No abstract

No abstract