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Why do some authoritarian regimes topple during financial crises, while others steer through financial crises relatively unscathed? In this book, Thomas B. Pepinsky uses the experiences of Indonesia and Malaysia and the analytical tools of open economy macroeconomics to answer this question. Focusing on the economic interests of authoritarian regimes' supporters, Pepinsky shows that differences in cross-border asset specificity produce dramatically different outcomes in regimes facing financial crises. When asset specificity divides supporters, as in Indonesia, they desire mutually incompatible adjustment policies, yielding incoherent adjustment policy followed by regime collapse. When coalitions are not divided by asset specificity, as in Malaysia, regimes adopt radical adjustment measures that enable them to survive financial crises. Combining rich qualitative evidence from Southeast Asia with cross-national time-series data and comparative case studies of Latin American autocracies, Pepinsky reveals the power of coalitions and capital mobility to explain how financial crises produce regime change.

This is the unfinished autobiography of Tun Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman, the medical doctor who held key government positions in the first two decades of Malaysian nation building, and who was an important early player within UMNO, the country's dominant political party. Drifting into Politics was found among the private papers that were handed over to the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) in 2005 by Tun Dr Ismail's eldest son, Mohd Tawfik.The family has asked for it to be published in 2015, this year being the 100th anniversary of Tun Dr Ismail's birth. This is an apt time indeed to make his reflections on his own life available to the world. This is also the third book to come out of the Tun Dr Ismail papers which are kept at ISEAS Library.The Reluctant Politician: Tun Dr Ismail and His Time, the biography written by Ooi Kee Beng and published in 2006 is ISEAS's all-time bestseller, and it brought Tun Dr Ismail back with great impact into Malaysian political analysis and discourse. It has been translated into Malay and Chinese. The second book – Malaya's First Year in the United Nations – has also been welcomed by scholars of Malaysia's foreign affairs and diplomacy. This present volume continues Malaysia's rediscovery of Tun Dr Ismail.

In 1995, then Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim introduced 'Masyarakat Madani' as his proposed economic framework for Malaysia. The term was heavily debated among scholars and politicians across all parties and ideologies. It was often argued that Madani was an effort to limit the rise of political Islam. Following Anwar Ibrahim's dismissal from government in 1998, Madani came to be more narrowly redefined as 'civil society' However, Anwar's supporters, known as the 'Anwarinas', strove to keep the spirit of Madani alive and continued to promote its ideals of social justice, democratic values and inclusivity. They were encouraged further by the fall of Barisan Nasional from federal power in the fourteenth General Election in 2018. After Anwar Ibrahim became Malaysia's tenth Prime Minister in 2022, he reintroduced Madani as a framework for the country, to be implemented in various sectors. Anwar Ibrahim likely received help from scholars such as Ziauddin Sardar, as reflected in his election manifesto, Script for a Better Malaysia. This time around, the core component of Madani is Maqasid Al-Shariah, or the higher objectives of sharia. In that sense, Madani is now arguably more an expression of what may be called post-Islamism. For it to succeed, however, it will have to counteract the growing power of the conservatives and Islamists. This may be an uphill battle, given that a key component party of the unity government - UMNO - is facing several allegations of corruption.

A new evaluation of the history of the Malayan Communist Party. By 1946, the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) had become one of the most successful communist parties in Asia. From its foundation in 1930, it had built up a membership in the thousands, mainly among Chinese and Indian workers in Malaya. When the Japanese arrived, the MCP organized the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), the only effective resistance force. After the War, when the British returned, the Party launched a legal campaign for independence, but by 1948, the MCP had surrendered its achievements and taken many members underground to launch a disastrous, failed insurrection against the British.  To understand these momentous turns of history, a fresh view is required of the Malayan Communist Party as a political actor. The Politics of the Malayan Communist Party from 1930 to 1948 gives a political history of the Party and explains why the MCP self-destructed in 1948. In particular, David Lockwood questions assumptions that post-war politics led inevitably to armed struggle and questions the accepted narrative of Party Chairman Lai Tek's treachery. This is a revisionist history of a period, and political force, that has left a lasting mark on the politics of Malaya and Singapore.

Dr Comber's account of General Templer's administration in Malaya as High Commissioner and Director of Operations (1952–54) during the Malayan Emergency departs from the usually accepted orthodox assessment of his time in Malaya by focusing on the political and socioeconomic aspects of his governance rather than the military. In doing so, Dr Comber has relied mainly on primary and other first-hand sources, including the confidential reports sent from Malaya by the Australian Commission to the Australian government in Canberra, and the private papers of some of the leading Malayan politicians of the time with whom Templer had dealings which have been deposited in the ISEAS Library, Singapore, many of which have not been used before.The evidence and facts that Dr Comber marshals in this study reflect well the reservations that were often felt about General Templer's authoritarian form of government. While he was a good general and had an impressive military record, his administration in Malaya was marred by a lack of understanding of the background to Malaya's history and the subtleties that are inherent in its culture and way of life which would have enabled him to come to terms more easily with the aspirations of the Malayan people for self-government and independence.

After the 13th general election (GE13) in May 2013, Malaysians hoped that the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition would respond humbly and positively to the public cry for change and reform, especially since it lost the popular vote. But instead, the BN Government has continued to be arrogant, autocratic and bent on further politicising the issues of race and religion. Despite paying lip service to the need for national reconciliation, it has launched policies, pushed through laws, and committed acts of persecution that have succeeded in dividing the people even more. Its own supporters continually talk of another racial riot breaking out, like the one of May 13, 1969. The political situation in Malaysia is thus now worse than it has ever been before. And the prospect of saving Malaysia from potential disaster seems all the more hopeless. No-bullshit writer Kee Thuan Chye asserts the urgent need for change by highlighting the events and issues that have arisen since GE13 - ranging from the ‘Allah’ controversy to the revival of preventive detention to the acquittal of the duo charged with the murder of Altantuya to the conviction of Anwar Ibrahim for Sodomy 2 to Malaysia’s embarrassing handling of the MH370 crisis. This is a book everyone should read to understand what is really happening in Malaysia - and, more importantly, to Malaysia.

The University Socialist Club and the Contest for Malaya The book, using a small group of left-wing student activists as a prism, explores the complex politics that underpinned the making of nation-states in Singapore and Malaysia after World War Two. While most works have viewed the period in terms of political contestation groups, the book demonstrates how it is better understood as involving a shared modernist project framed by British-planned decolonization. This pursuit of nationalist modernity was characterized by an optimism to replace the colonial system with a new state and mobilize the people into a new relationship with the state, according them new responsibilities as well as new rights. This book, based on student writings, official documents and oral history interviews, brings to life various modernist strands – liberal-democratic, ethnic-communal, and Fabian and Marxist socialist – seeking to determine the form of postcolonial Malaya. It uncovers a hitherto little-seen world where the meanings of loud slogans were fluid, vague and deeply contested. This world also comprised as much convergence between the groups as conflict, including collaboration between the Socialist Club and other political and student groups which were once its rivals, while its main ally eventually became its nemesis.

The past two and a half decades have seen major transformations in public sector management and governance across the globe. This book examines the ways public sector management and governance in Malaysia has changed and is changing under contemporary reform models. Chapters are written by well-established scholars and academics with intimate knowledge in their respective fields, and provide a thorough and insightful analysis of the reform trends and developments on a range of topics. These include performance management, compensation reforms, public budgeting, accounting and reporting, privatisation and public-private partnership, e-government, managing ethics and accountability, local government and inter-governmental relations. While the book surveys the topics that are central to public sector management and governance, it also focuses on the nature of reforms and changes that were introduced, as well as the forces that have shaped their design and implementation process, and the initial impacts and results. Overall, the book provides students and scholars of Politics and Southeast Asian Studies with a greater appreciation and deeper understanding of the recent developments and current trends of public sector management.

There is a struggle for the hearts and minds of Muslims unfolding across the Islamic world. The conflict pits Muslims who support pluralism and democracy against others who insist such institutions are antithetical to Islam. With some 1.3 billion people worldwide professing Islam, the outcome of this contest is sure to be one of the defining political events of the twenty-first century. Bringing together twelve engaging essays by leading specialists focusing on individual countries, this pioneering book examines the social origins of civil-democratic Islam, its long-term prospects, its implications for the West, and its lessons for our understanding of religion and politics in modern times. Although depicted by its opponents as the product of political ideas \"made in the West\" civil-democratic Islam represents an indigenous politics that seeks to build a distinctive Islamic modernity. In countries like Turkey, Iran, Malaysia, and Indonesia, it has become a major political force. Elsewhere its influence is apparent in efforts to devise Islamic grounds for women's rights, religious tolerance, and democratic citizenship. Everywhere it has generated fierce resistance from religious conservatives. Examining this high-stakes clash,Remaking Muslim Politicsbreaks new ground in the comparative study of Islam and democracy. The contributors are Bahman Baktiari, Thomas Barfield, John R. Bowen, Dale F. Eickelman, Robert W. Hefner, Peter Mandaville, Augustus Richard Norton, Gwenn Okruhlik, Michael G. Peletz, Diane Singerman, Jenny B. White, and Muhammad Qasim Zaman.

In Transparency and Authoritarian Rule in Southeast Asia , Rodan rejects the notion that the 1997-98 Asian economic crisis was further evidence that ultimately capitalism can only develop within liberal social and political institutions, and that new technology necessarily undermines authoritarian control. Instead, Rodan argues that in Singapore and Malaysia external pressures for transparency reform were, and are, in many respects, being met without serious compromise to authoritarian rule or the sanctioning of media freedom. 1. Information Control and Authoritarian Rule in East and Southeast Asia: Under Challenge? 2. Bedding Down Media and Information Control in Singapore and Malaysia 3. Bureaucratic Authoritarianism and Transparency Reform in Singapore 4. Keeping Civil Society at Bay: Media in Singapore After the Crisis 5. Crony Capitalism and Transparency Reform in Malaysia 6. Challenges to Media Control in Malaysia Conclusion: Advanced Market Systems, Information Flows and Political Regimes Garry Rodan is Director of the Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University, Australia. 'Readers committed to press freedom, justice and democracy will find Rodan's analysis compelling.' Mustafa K. Anuar, Aliran Monthly , Vol. 24 (6). 'Rodan has written an enlightening, challenging and provocative book in which he questions the assertion that greater financial and economic transparency leads to a more open society.' - Far Eastern Economic Review