Toward Democracy? An Examination of Malaysia's "Democratization", 2008- 2014

• Main Authors: GAN SIN TIONG, 顏聖錝
• Other Authors: MEI-HSIEN LEE
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/67036691235139706660

碩士 === 國立暨南國際大學 === 東南亞學系 === 103 === Since the coming of independence to Malaysia there has been a long period of one-party dominance by an authoritarian regime. Malaysia has been described variously as an “ethnic-authoritarian-democratic state”, a “pseudo-democracy”, an “illiberal democracy”, or even a “semi-democracy”. At the general elections on 8th March 2008, the primary opposition parties, namely, the People’s Justice Party (PKR), the Democratic Action Party (DAP), and the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), formed an alliance called Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Alliance) and won its first ever “victory”. For the first time the ruling National Front (BN) coalition lost the two-thirds parliamentary majority. This breakthrough took Malaysia into a heyday of social movements, in which many scholars and political observers commented freely on the democratization process resulting from the 2008 election results. By examining the Malaysian general elections and state elections in 1999 and 2003, and by conducting in-depth interviews with the Social Movements activists through a purposive sampling method, this study challenges the mainstream annotation of the 2008 Malaysia General election in 2013 as being emblematic of democratization. Previous studies customarily focus merely on “The State” as a unit of analysis to examine the process of democratization in Malaysia, misrepresenting Malaysia as a homogenous society. In fact, in view of the historical process of political changes in Malaysia, this study discloses the fact that the 2008 Malaysia General Election did not instigate a enormous change in the political climate in many states, some states have even remained unchanged since Malaysia’s independence. Therefore, the political change of the Malaysia 2008 General Elections does not necessary reflect the democratization process in Malaysian society as a whole. Consolidation of democracy can become a way of life and, generally, developing a strong sense of democracy is crucial for such development. The “passive” and “alienation” attitudes of Malaysian nations towards civic movements and political affairs showed their lack of democratic consciousness. It would be erroneous to consider that the frequent emergence and mobilization of social movements in society equate with high democratic consciousness and practices among the Malaysian nations. Further to this, this study thus concludes that the political participation of the Malaysian nations, as well as the emergence of social movements since the 2008 Malaysian General Elections should not be overly marked as the development of a democratization process in Malaysian society.