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Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations and Shortened Organizational Names -- 1 INTRODUCTION: THE ROOTS OF REFORM -- 2 Conceptualizing Political Opposition and Reform -- 3 Political Development in the Colonial Era -- 4 Expansion and Maturation of Civil and Political Society, 1957-1997 -- 5 The Reformasi Movement and the 1999 Elections -- 6 The Significance of the Reformasi Movement -- 7 The Other Reformasi: Malaysia and Indonesia Compared -- 8 Conclusion: Insights, Implications, and Extensions -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Terms and Acronyms -- 1. Parties, Machines, and Personalities -- 2. Regimes and Resilience Reconceptualized -- 3. The Convoluted Political Path to Malaysia -- 4. Edging toward Sovereign Singapore -- 5. Competitive Authoritarianism in Malaysia: Consolidated but Challenged -- 6. Hegemonic Electoral Authoritarianism in Singapore: Firmly Entrenched -- 7. Drivers of Stasis and Change: Will the Pattern Hold? -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Electoral dynamics in malaysia : findings from the grassroots -- Table of Contents -- Chapter 1. Introduction: Patterns and Puzzles in Malaysian Electoral Dynamics by Meredith L. Weiss -- Chapter 2. Arau, Perlis: The Irresistible Charm of Warlords, Women and Rewards? by Chiok Phaik Fern -- Chapter 3. Padang Serai, Kedah: Between the 'Personal Touch' and the Generous Hand by Marcus Cheng -- Chapter 4. Kuala Nerus, Terengganu: New Malay Politics? by Che Hamdan Che Mohd Razali -- Chapter 5. Balik Pulau, Penang: Home Run for the Home Boys by Teo Sue Ann -- Chapter 6. Lumut, Perak: Patronage, Clientelism, and the Post-Coup Order by Reema B. Jagtiani -- Chapter 7. Kuantan, Pahang: Revealing the Ordinary by Nazreen Mohamad -- Chapter 8. Pandan, Selangor: New Electoral Dynamics inUrban Malaysia? Wong Pui Yi -- Chapter 9. Kepong and Titiwangsa, Kuala Lumpur: Messages or Money? by Choong Pui Yee -- Chapter 10. Rembau, Negeri Sembilan: Personalities and Promises by Goh Teck Fann -- Chapter 11. Pulai, Johor: A Tale of Two Coalitions by Koh Chien Aun -- Chapter 12. Gelang Patah, Johor: Did Lim Kit Siang Truly Win His Last Gamble? by Ho Yi Jian -- Chapter 13. Kota Marudu and Keningau, Sabah: Personality, Patronage and Parochial Politics by Arnold Puyok -- Chapter 14. Tuaran, Sabah: Party Loyalty and Rational Voting by Haijon Gunggut -- Chapter 15. Kota Kinabalu, Sabah: BN Loses Its 'Fixed Deposit' by Anantha Raman Govindasamy and Lai Yew Meng -- Chapter 16. Beaufort, Sabah: Whither Lajim's Popularity? by Tony Paridi Bagang -- Chapter 17. Sibu and Lanang, Sarawak: Defeat of the Bosses by Ngu Ik Tien -- Contributors.

Prime minister Anwar Ibrahim steered his cobbled-together government through economic and sociocultural challenges in 2023, emerging stable but spooked. State-level elections in August sustained each party's roster of states, but with declining margins for Anwar's coalition. Fiscal pressures—high debt, declining revenues, rising cost of living, and a persistently weak currency—constrained room for maneuver, while state-level and societal cultural contests tested Malaysia's multiracial, multireligious tolerance.

Predating but intensifying with the public health and economic crises COVID-19 sparked has been a political one, of democratic decline or autocratic consolidation, across much of Southeast Asia. Concerned actors and organisations from civil society have acted as firewalls against democratic decline or autocratisation, even as fellow civil society organisations (CSOs) have exerted countervailing, anti-democratic pressure. Indeed, CSOs may be no more progressive than the state, nor fully autonomous from it, and may be debilitatingly fragmented or polarised. And yet across the region, CSOs still disrupt regimes' would-be panoptic scrutiny and authority, by presenting alternative spaces and premises for mobilisation and voice, through a range of modalities. Regardless of their ideological stance, CSOs' political engagement represents the promise or exercise of diagonal accountability. This check interacts with vertical and horizontal dimensions and retains the potential for meaningful intervention – but need not pull in a liberal direction. (JCSA/GIGA)

Paralleling dramatic shifts in Malaysian politics since the 1980s have been the twists and turns in the life of Anwar Ibrahim, who became prime minister after decades of striving in November 2022. From student firebrand to wily political strategist, Anwar has been both insider and outsider, balancing principles and ambition, from the streets to prison to parliament, and back around again. Throughout, he has done surely more than anyone else to coax Malaysia along new sociopolitical paths, helping to elevate both conservative Islamism and progressive political liberalism, in novel combinations. His critics are fierce; his fans at least as much so—but his legacy is undeniable.

Observers proclaimed Malaysia's first-ever transfer of federal power through elections in 2018 as marking a democratic transition, only to see in the reversal of that change two years later evidence of backsliding. I argue instead that these concepts lack nuance: we should not read too much into a change of leadership. At best, the electoral-authoritarian regime wobbled; it neither transitioned convincingly in 2018 nor qualified as backsliding per se in 2020. That said, the regime has been edging toward liberalization, but less in the electoral sphere than in civil society and prevailing norms.

A tumultuous year brought Indonesia from a polarizing general election to disparate waves of mass protests that tested the state's tether and revealed frailties in democratic consolidation. Granted a second term, President Joko Widodo ratcheted up plans for infrastructure and human resource development, wooing foreign capital despite a challenging global environment.

Politics in Malaysia seems ripe for a populist upsurge. Parties assume fairly exclusive, ethnic boundaries, inviting insider–outsider pandering. Personalities loom large. Economic inequality is among the highest in the region. Regardless, the extent to which Malaysian politics might be understood as "populist" rather than merely polarised, illiberal, and prone to particularism is dubious. I argue that Malaysian politics is neither populist nor likely to veer that way. However, the case offers a useful test of the boundaries between populism and personalisation of politics, the extent to which appeals designed to maximise popular support suffice to code a polity as populist, and which specific illiberal features facilitate or preclude populism. This examination thus clarifies a messy concept by exploring how populism might develop or falter in a multi-party, parliamentary, and hybrid rather than democratic regime – suggesting the relative reach of institutional rather than personalistic or zeitgeist-related explanations. (JCSA/GIGA)

Politics in Malaysia seems ripe for a populist upsurge. Parties assume fairly exclusive, ethnic boundaries, inviting insider–outsider pandering. Personalities loom large. Economic inequality is among the highest in the region. Regardless, the extent to which Malaysian politics might be understood as "populist" rather than merely polarised, illiberal, and prone to particularism is dubious. I argue that Malaysian politics is neither populist nor likely to veer that way. However, the case offers a useful test of the boundaries between populism and personalisation of politics, the extent to which appeals designed to maximise popular support suffice to code a polity as populist, and which specific illiberal features facilitate or preclude populism. This examination thus clarifies a messy concept by exploring how populism might develop or falter in a multi-party, parliamentary, and hybrid rather than democratic regime – suggesting the relative reach of institutional rather than personalistic or zeitgeist-related explanations.