This book explains why the opposition party, Democratic Action Party (DAP), won several seats in the urban areas and why the Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) failed dismally in the Malaysian general election of 1986. It also discusses the performance of the various political parties in the election, the issues influencing the electorate, the significance of the revision of the electoral boundaries, and the influence of the mass media.

An analysis of the Malaysian 1978 general election through the focus of the racial framework of politics, it seeks to identify the main themes of the campaigning. Examines the election strategy of the participating political parties and analyses the results in terms of the stability of the country.

Malaysia's general election in October 1990 was of special significance. This was the first time since independence that a credible multi-ethnic coalition had emerged to challenge the ruling coalition that had been in power for thirty-three years. The election campaign turned into a "no-holds-barred" struggle, where ethnic and religious issues were thrown into the fray - with serious implications for the process of nation-building. The paper discusses the events and issues leading to the elections, the political parties involved, the alignments they made, the strategies and tactics that were deployed, and the manifestos and issues that were raised in the campaign. The author gives an analysis of the results and suggests that the Barisan Nasional's return to power is not unqualified, given the setbacks to the ethnic and federal-state relations in the course of the elections.

This book is an innovative analysis of regime maintenance and transformation in Malaysia. It goes beyond familiar approaches centred on communal politics, or the corporate workings of Malaysia Inc., to stress the importance of power maintenance - tracing a path from consociational bargaining to authoritarian UMNO dominance, to Dr Mahathir's personal dominance. The author has synthesized a diverse range of sources, and in particular made insightful use of interviews with nearly all the key actors. The analysis is up-to-date, including the dramatic challenge to Dr Mahathir's dominance associated with his sacking of deputy Anwar Ibrahim following the Asian economic crisis.

"e;This book makes an important contribution to understanding the ongoing political evolution of politics in Sarawak. It also provides a case study of the engagement of a dominant state with social forces in a multi-ethnic society."e; - Prof Harold Crouch, Emeritus Professor, Department of Political & Social Change, School of International, Political & Strategic Studies, Australian National University"e;Taking off from Joel Migdal's notions of 'the strongman-politician', 'strong society, weak state' and 'the state in society', the author discusses how the federal government accomodates Taib Mahmud's chief ministership over Sarawak, and how his long tenure is anchored in winning political support from the Sarawak Muslim Bumiputera community. An insightful book on contemporary Sarawak politics."e; - Prof Francis Loh Kok Wah, School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia."e;This volume will go a long way in explaining why a single Melanau family has been able to dominate Sarawak politics for the past four decades."e; - Prof James Chin, Head of School of Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University, Malaysia Campus

Malaysia, home to some twenty million Muslims, is often held up as a model of a pro-Western Islamic nation. The government of Malaysia, in search of Western investment, does its best to perpetuate this view. But this isn't the whole story. Over the last several decades, Joseph Liow shows, Malaysian politics has taken a strong turn toward Islamism. This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the growing role of Islam in the last quarter century of Malaysian politics. Conventional wisdom suggest that the ruling UMNO party has moved toward Islamism to fend off challenges from the more heavily Islamist opposition party, PAS. Liow argues, however, that UMNO has often taken the lead in moving toward Islamism, and that in fact PAS has often been forced to react. The result, Liow argues, is a game of "piety-trumping" that will be very difficult to reverse, and that has dire consequences not only for the ethnic and religious minorities of Malaysia, but for their democratic system as a whole.

This volume is about border landscapes, with emphasis on the varying impact that political decision-making and ideological differences can have on the environment at border locations, for example. This volume by political-geography experts from across the globe provides important insights specficially into border landscapes and so serves to further our understanding of aspects of cultural landscapes.

The results of Malaysia’s 14th General Elections of May 2018 were unexpected and transformative. Against conventional wisdom, the newly reconfigured opposition grouping Pakatan Harapan (PH) decisively defeated the incumbent Barisan Nasional (BN), ending six decades of uninterrupted dominant one-party rule. Despite a long-running financial scandal dogging the ruling coalition, pollsters and commentators predicted a solid BN victory or, at least, a narrow parliamentary majority. Yet, on the day, deeply rooted political dynamics and influential actors came together, sweeping aside many prevailing assumptions and reconfiguring the country’s political reality in the process. In order to understand the elections and their implications, this edited volume brings together contributions from ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute researchers and a group of selected collaborators to examine the elections from three angles: campaign dynamics; important trends among major interest groups; and local-level dynamics and developments in key states. This analytical work is complemented by personal narratives from a selection of GE-14 participants.

Opposing Power argues that perceptions of regime vulnerability and mutual dependency by opposition elites shape the building of opposition alliances. When electoral autocracies are consistently dominant, opposition parties eschew fully fledged alliances. At best, they allocate only one candidate to contest against the incumbent in each subnational electoral district to avoid splitting the opposition vote. However, when multiple regime-debilitating events strike within a short period of time, thus pushing an incumbent to the precipice of power, opposition elites expect victory, accepting costly compromises to build alliances and seize power. Opposing Power shows how oppositions build these alliances through case study comparisons in East and Southeast Asia—between the Philippines and South Korea in the late 1980s, and between Malaysia and Singapore from 1965 to 2020.

This edited volume provides a critical review of political communication research conducted in Asia over the past twenty years. Each chapter focuses on studies published in a specific Asian country, selected according to the level of contribution made to the field of political communication in Asia. Covering China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and India, the book’s primary objective is to review the unique theoretical accomplishments made by Asian communication scholars, thus contributing to a better awareness and understanding of political communication research in Asia. The contributors are well-respected Asian media scholars writing on political communication in their countries of origin. Each author reviews studies conducted and published in his/her native country and language(s). This book provides a first review of these studies, most of which have never been published in English, and makes them available to international scholars. The contributors discuss each country’s political background, and address the findings and conclusions of the political communication studies conducted in their respective countries during the past two decades. The chapters focus on insights that have been made by adapting Western media theories to the unique social, cultural, or political contexts that exist in each country. The authors also point out possible gaps in the current research within their respective countries and to make recommendations for future studies.