Malaysia S State Formation

"Tracing Malaysia's political economy since 1800, Abdillah Noh argues that it has been substantially path-dependant based on choices made by the British colonial administration. Focusing mainly on two major groupings in Malaysia's political economy - the Malays and Chinese Malaysians - Noh demonstrates that British policies engendered two processes. First, a less-than-full-retrenchment of Malay political dominance by preserving Malay de jure power and, second a less-than-full incorporation of new actors in Malaya's political economy. Such decisions to preserve Malay de jure power alongside half-hearted measures at incorporating non-Malays' economic and political presence created communities with mutually exclusive institutions that increasingly compete for access to political, social and economic resources. He thus reasons that Malaysia's state formation - and the consequent consociational logic - is not a contrived act that was hatched at the point of its independence. Rather, it is the result of deep institutional processes that are centred on the idea of path dependence, self- reinforcement mechanism, timing and sequence. A valuable read for scholars of Malaysian history and politics, as well as for scholars of postcolonial state formation and public policy more broadly"--

Tracing Malaysia’s political economy since 1800, Abdillah Noh argues that it has been substantially path-dependant based on choices made by the British colonial administration. Focusing mainly on two major groupings in Malaysia’s political economy – the Malays and Chinese Malaysians – Noh demonstrates that British policies engendered two processes. First, a less-than-full-retrenchment of Malay political dominance by preserving Malay de jure power and, second a less-than-full incorporation of new actors in Malaya’s political economy. Such decisions to preserve Malay de jure power alongside half-hearted measures at incorporating non-Malays’ economic and political presence created communities with mutually exclusive institutions that increasingly compete for access to political, social and economic resources. He thus reasons that Malaysia’s state formation - and the consequent consociational logic - is not a contrived act that was hatched at the point of its independence. Rather, it is the result of deep institutional processes that are centred on the idea of path dependence, self- reinforcement mechanism, timing and sequence. A valuable read for scholars of Malaysian history and politics, as well as for scholars of postcolonial state formation and public policy more broadly.

Disembedding autonomy : Asia after the developmental state / Toby Carroll and Darryl S.L. Jarvis -- The origins of East Asia's developmental states and the pressures for change / Richard Stubbs -- Globalization and development : the evolving idea of the developmental state / Shigeko Hayashi -- Late capitalism and the shift from the development state to the variegated market state / Toby Carroll -- Capitalist development in the 21st century : states and global competitiveness / Paul Cammack -- From Japan's Prussian path to China's Singapore model : learning authoritarian developmentalism / Mark Thompson -- What does China's rise mean for the developmental state paradigm? / Mark Beeson -- The state and development in Malaysia : race, class and markets / Darryl S.L. Jarvis -- Survival of the weakest? : the politics of independent regulatory agencies in Indonesia / Jamie Davidson -- The Pandora's box of neoliberalism : housing reforms in China and South Korea / Siu-yau Lee -- Health care and the state in China / M. Ramesh and Azad Bali -- Wither the developmental state? : adaptive state entrepreneurship and social policy expansion in China / Ka Ho Mok -- Public-private partnerships in the water sector in Southeast Asia : trends, issues and lessons / Schuyler House and Wu Xun -- Higher education and the developmental state : the view from East and Southeast Asia / Anthony Welch -- State, capital, and the politics of stratification : a comparative study of welfare regimes in marketizing Asia / Jonathan London -- Modifying recipes : insights on Japanese electricity sector reform and lessons for China / Scott Victor Valentine

This book examines state-state relations and new forms of state business relations that have emerged with an increase in China’s foreign direct investments in Malaysia. Focusing on investments in the industrial sector and through in-depth case studies, this book adopts a novel framework to analyse these different types of state-business relations. These new forms of state-business relations are created from the different modes of negotiations between different key actors in each of the cases. Diverse outcomes were found, reflecting the disparate forms of power relationships and state cohesiveness with unique institutional architectures formed in each case. The book identifies a major shift in structural power in these new forms of state-business relations as China’s large multinational state-owned enterprises increasingly invest in Malaysia. A well-constructed institutional architecture is needed, not just in Malaysia but for other Southeast Asian countries, if foreign investments are to be harnessed to promote effective industrial development.

Curtis discusses census making as a political project, investigating its place in and impact on party politics and ethnic, religious, and sectional struggles.

On 9 May 2018, Malaysia’s Barisan Nasional (BN) government lost the country’s 14th general election (GE14). Replacing it was the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition, made up of four parties, three of which had had experience cooperating with each other for a decade, namely Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah). The fourth was the new Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM) led by Dr Mahathir Mohamad. The election also saw equally significant changes at the state government level. PH now controlled seven states in total, up from two, while BN went from controlling ten states to retaining but two. PAS regained Terengganu and with its control over Kelantan now held the two East Coast states. The Sabah state government, held by Parti Warisan Sabah (Warisan) aligned itself with PH, while the Sarawak state government chose to stick with BN. As many as ten of the sixty promises listed in the PH 2018 election manifesto related to federalism and Sabah and Sarawak, an indication of the growing importance of these two states (and of state issues more generally). The PH administration’s two significant set-ups were the Special Select Committee on States and Federal Relations and the Special Cabinet Committee on the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63). Serious attempts were made to address concerns by both committees, with achievements being more visible in the Special Cabinet Committee on MA63, possibly due to the greater attention given on Sabah and Sarawak. Issues brought up within the Parliamentary Special Select Committee were not substantively addressed. PH’s time in power saw how states aligned to it maintained a smooth working relationship with the federal government. What was more interesting to note was that even non-PH aligned states such as Kelantan, Terengganu and Perlis also received favourable attention from the federal government. Federal-state relations were much more aggressively tackled under the PH government than under any other preceding administration.

Education has always been a key instrument of nation-building in new states. National education systems have typically been used to assimilate immigrants; to promote established religious doctrines; to spread the standard form of national languages; and to forge national identities and national cultures. They helped construct the very subjectivities of citizenship, justifying the ways of the state to the people and the duties of the people to the state. In this second edition of his seminal and widely-acclaimed book on the origins of public education in England, France, Prussia, and the USA, Andy Green shows how education has also been used as a tool of successful state formation in the developmental states of East Asia. While human capital theories have focused on how schools and colleges supply the skills for economic growth, Green shows how the forming of citizens and national identities through education has often provided the necessary condition for both economic and social development.

This book examines key questions and challenges the widely prevalent view that the Palestinian Authority collapsed because of its internal governance failures, its lack of commitment to democracy, and corruption. It argues that the analytical framework of 'good governance' is not appropriate for assessing state performance in developing countries, and that it is especially inappropriate in conflict and post-conflict situations. Instead, an alternative framework is proposed for assessing state performance in a context of economic and social transformation. This is then applied in detail to different aspects of state formation in Palestine, showing that the institutional architecture set up by the Oslo agreements was responsible for many of the serious failures.