27 March 2023
WP339 | Malaysia’s Changed Electoral Landscape
Abstract
Malaysia’s partisan landscape has been shifting, especially since 2008. The hung parliament that the 15th general election produced in November 2022 was both widely expected and in line with that longer-term trend. Yet the unity government that formed among until-then arch-rivals signals a turn. The new administration’s policy record and staying power may both be subjected to new legitimacy challenges in state elections and by-elections before the next general election, as a rival, unabashedly communal coalition, which presents itself as less corrupt, claims the ground the previously dominant United Malays National Organisation once commanded. Meanwhile, the fact of a broad unity government blurs the programmatic and ideological boundaries among political parties, even as party leaders’ personal ambitions shape strategic decision-making and risk suppressing (or actively do suppress) rising talent.
About the Author
Meredith Weiss is Professor of Political Science at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She has published widely on social mobilization and civil society, the politics of identity and development, electoral politics and parties, institutional reform, and subnational governance in Southeast Asia, with particular focus on Malaysia and Singapore. Her books include Protest and Possibilities: Civil Society and Coalitions for Political Change in Malaysia (Stanford, 2006); Student Activism in Malaysia: Crucible, Mirror, Sideshow (Cornell SEAP, 2011); The Roots of Resilience: Party Machines and Grassroots Politics in Southeast Asia (Cornell, 2020); and the co-authored Mobilizing for Elections: Patronage and Political Machines in Southeast Asia (Cambridge, 2022). She has also edited or co-edited twelve volumes, most recently, The Routledge Handbook of Civil and Uncivil Society in Southeast Asia (Routledge, 2023). Her articles appear in Asian Studies Review, Asian Survey, Critical Asian Studies, Democratization, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Journal of Democracy, Journal of Human Rights, Taiwan Journal of Democracy, and other journals. Current projects include collaborative studies of urban governance and public-goods delivery, of civil society in Southeast Asia, and of contemporary youth activism in Asia; and a monograph on Malaysian sociopolitical development.
Abstract
Malaysia’s partisan landscape has been shifting, especially since 2008. The hung parliament that the 15th general election produced in November 2022 was both widely expected and in line with that longer-term trend. Yet the unity government that formed among until-then arch-rivals signals a turn. The new administration’s policy record and staying power may both be subjected to new legitimacy challenges in state elections and by-elections before the next general election, as a rival, unabashedly communal coalition, which presents itself as less corrupt, claims the ground the previously dominant United Malays National Organisation once commanded. Meanwhile, the fact of a broad unity government blurs the programmatic and ideological boundaries among political parties, even as party leaders’ personal ambitions shape strategic decision-making and risk suppressing (or actively do suppress) rising talent.
About the Author
Meredith Weiss is Professor of Political Science at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She has published widely on social mobilization and civil society, the politics of identity and development, electoral politics and parties, institutional reform, and subnational governance in Southeast Asia, with particular focus on Malaysia and Singapore. Her books include Protest and Possibilities: Civil Society and Coalitions for Political Change in Malaysia (Stanford, 2006); Student Activism in Malaysia: Crucible, Mirror, Sideshow (Cornell SEAP, 2011); The Roots of Resilience: Party Machines and Grassroots Politics in Southeast Asia (Cornell, 2020); and the co-authored Mobilizing for Elections: Patronage and Political Machines in Southeast Asia (Cambridge, 2022). She has also edited or co-edited twelve volumes, most recently, The Routledge Handbook of Civil and Uncivil Society in Southeast Asia (Routledge, 2023). Her articles appear in Asian Studies Review, Asian Survey, Critical Asian Studies, Democratization, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Journal of Democracy, Journal of Human Rights, Taiwan Journal of Democracy, and other journals. Current projects include collaborative studies of urban governance and public-goods delivery, of civil society in Southeast Asia, and of contemporary youth activism in Asia; and a monograph on Malaysian sociopolitical development.
