Malaysian politics has been turbulent over the past two decades, as seen in the damaged tradition of leadership transition, non-violent revolts against successive regimes, and unstable realignments of opposing forces. Two startling symptoms point to disorder. One is the heavy electoral losses and loss of legitimacy suffered by the post-Mahathir regimes. The other is the political re-entry of Anwar Ibrahim and Mahathir Mohamad. The persisting turbulence raises certain questions. Why has the ruling party, the United Malays National Organization, been susceptible to internal fighting, being at once a source of hegemonic stability and systemic instability? Why has the apex of the United Malays National Organization repeatedly jeopardised its traditions of leadership succession? Why has one leader, Mahathir Mohamad, been involved in all the disputes? How did the crisis of the party, not just the regime, become intimately tied to economic crisis? Conventional paradigmatic explanations of Malaysian politics – inter-ethnic rivalry in a plural society, elite solidarity, and regime type (semi-democratic, hybrid, or competitive authoritarian) – are of little help even if ethnicity, elite conduct, and authoritarian rule are relevant. Instead, this essay suggests that the turbulence is part of a long trajectory of oligarchic reconstitution bound to a peculiar nexus of state, ethnicity, and class. The paper does not construct a theory of Malaysian politics. It offers a historically informed exploration of a leitmotif of an unfinished project that runs through much of the past 20 years of political conflict and struggle.
Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohamad stands in a delicate position vis-à-vis China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI’s Silk Road-like scenarios of transcontinental rail links to extend market-facilitated trade and investment have a place within a ‘Mahathirist imaginary’ that opposes inequities in a western-ruled global order and sees hope for the ‘rise of Asia’. In vision he shares the ‘Chinese Dream’ of resurrecting ancient land and maritime trade routes as an ‘imperative of globalization’ despite attempts by others to entangle the BRI in narratives of geopolitics long repugnant to his deep non-aligned convictions. His unprecedented resumption of premiership in May 2018 gave Mahathir a dream-like chance to engage with the BRI but he has been jolted by some Malaysian-China projects contracted in the name of the BRI by the Najib Razak-headed regime (2009–2018). Concerned that those projects could strain Malaysia’s debt burden and undermine its sovereignty Mahathir must balance his support for BRI with undoing some of its local manifestations without jeopardizing long-term Malaysia-China trade, investment and diplomatic relations.
This series brings together theoretical and empirical studies on the transformation of economic systems and their economic development. The transition from planned to market economies is one of the main areas of applied theory because in this field the most dramatic examples of change and economic dynamics can be found. It is aimed to contribute to the understanding of specific major economic changes as well as to advance the theory of economic development. The implications of economic policy will be a major point of focus.
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