Cyber-networks, physical coalitions and missing links : imagining and realizing dissent in Malaysia 1998-2008

From September 1998 to March 2008, dissident cyber-networks in Malaysia developed connections with physical coalitions that contributed to the Opposition’s historic gains in the 12th General Election of March 2008. To succeed in entrenching a ‘two-coalition system’, however, the component parties of the Opposition coalition (Pakatan Rakyat) must establish its ‘missing links’, namely, extensive and deep organizational networks in society that would permit the coalition to move from imagining and realizing dissent to institutionalizing it meaningfully.Malaysia, Internal politics, Elections, Network, Internet, Malaysian politics, 2008 General Election, Opposition coalitions, Malaysiakini, Malaysia Today, Raja Petra Kamaruddin, Anwar Ibrahim, Cyber-networks

Social movements and the crisis of neoliberalism in Malaysia and Thailand

Of the Southeast Asian countries most badly affected by the 1997 financial crisis, Malaysia and Thailand remain the most unsettled by its political fallout. Their present political situations are not akin to 'politics as usual'. Instead, they capture the unpredicted outcomes of post-crisis struggles to reorganize structures of economic and political power. Comparing the situations in Malaysia and Thailand, this paper focuses on their differing state and civil society engagements with neoliberalism. It is suggested that the post-crisis contestations, sometimes tied to pre-crisis conflicts in political economy, left something of a stalemate: neither neoliberalism nor the social movements satisfactorily fulfilled their agendas in either country.Southeast Asia, Malaysia, Thailand, Social movements, Economic policy, Financial crises, Neoliberalism, East Asian financial crisis

Technocracy and Politics in a Trajectory of Conflict

Technocracy often holds out the promise of rational, professional, and politically disinterested decision-making particularly in economic planning and management. Yet states and regimes frequently turn to technocracy not just to obtain expert inputs and calculated outcomes but to embed the exercise of power in many agendas, policies, and programs. Thus, technocracy operates as an appendage of politically constructed structures and configurations of power, and highly placed technocrats cannot be mere backroom experts who supply disinterested rational-technical solutions in economic planning, resource allocation, and social distribution since they are engaged in inherently political exercises. Using examples of technocratic interventions in a variety of developing countries, this article traces the trajectories of technocracy that were marked by conflict, especially in conditions of rapid social transformation, severe economic restructuring, or political crises when the technocratic was unavoidably political

Cyber-networks, physical coalitions and missing links : imagining and realizing dissent in Malaysia 1998-2008

From September 1998 to March 2008, dissident cyber-networks in Malaysia developed connections with physical coalitions that contributed to the Opposition’s historic gains in the 12th General Election of March 2008. To succeed in entrenching a ‘two-coalition system’, however, the component parties of the Opposition coalition (Pakatan Rakyat) must establish its ‘missing links’, namely, extensive and deep organizational networks in society that would permit the coalition to move from imagining and realizing dissent to institutionalizing it meaningfully

Social movements and the crisis of neoliberalism in Malaysia and Thailand

Of the Southeast Asian countries most badly affected by the 1997 financial crisis, Malaysia and Thailand remain the most unsettled by its political fallout. Their present political situations are not akin to \u27politics as usual\u27. Instead, they capture the unpredicted outcomes of post-crisis struggles to reorganize structures of economic and political power. Comparing the situations in Malaysia and Thailand, this paper focuses on their differing state and civil society engagements with neoliberalism. It is suggested that the post-crisis contestations, sometimes tied to pre-crisis conflicts in political economy, left something of a stalemate: neither neoliberalism nor the social movements satisfactorily fulfilled their agendas in either country

No insulation : politics and technocracy's troubled trajectory

Technocracy often holds out the promise of rational, disinterested decision-making. Yet states look to technocracy not just for expert inputs and calculated outcomes but to embed the exercise of power in many agendas, policies and programs. Thus, technocracy operates as an appendage of politically constructed structures and configurations of power, and highly placed technocrats cannot be 'mere' backroom experts who supply disinterested rational-technical solutions in economic planning, resource allocation and social distribution, which are inherently political. This paper traces the trajectories of technocracy in conditions of rapid social transformation, severe economic restructuring, or political crises - when the technocratic was unavoidably political.Developing countries, Internal politics, Economic policy, Public officers, Ruling classes, Technocracy, Technocrats, Economic crises, Structural adjustment, Politics in Chile, Indonesia, The Philippines, Neoliberalism, Populism

Critical connections : Islamic politics and political economy in Indonesia and Malaysia

This article explores Islamic politics in two Muslim-majority countries in Southeast Asia, Indonesia and Malaysia, by linking their trajectories, from late colonial emergence to recent upsurge, to broad concerns of political economy, including changing social bases, capitalist transformation, state policies, and economic crises. The Indonesian and Malaysian trajectories of Islamic politics are tracked in a comparative exercise that goes beyond the case studies to suggest that much of contemporary Islamic politics cannot be explained by reference to Islam alone, but to how Islamic identities and agendas are forged in contexts of modern and profane social contestation.Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Internal politics, Islam, Islamization, State, Economic transformation, Economic crises, Populism

The housing market and the housing crisis in urban penninsular Malaysia.

Thesis. 1979. M.C.P.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH.Bibliography: leaves 141-148.M.C.P