Q: Since gaining independence in 1957, which social cleavages have been important in shaping the identities of political parties in Malaysia?
As is the case for many (relatively) new democracies, Malaysia’s electoral backdrop has been influenced by competing social cleavages since gaining its independence in 1957. But which social cleavages have been important in shaping the identities of political parties in Malaysia? This essay highlights which social cleavages have played an instrumental part in maintaining the identities of each of the major parties within Malaysia, and which cleavage dimension has been politicised to create the strongest electoral division. It will first assess to what extent social cleavages in Malaysia have been politicised by understanding what social cleavages are and how they are translated into political cleavages by employing the Lipset and Rokkan model of cleavage structures. Secondly, it assesses how the effective politicisation of certain social cleavages in Malaysia has been important in shaping the country’s party system. Thirdly, the essay analyses why such certain cleavages in Malaysia are more nuanced than others before outlining the challenges they face in maintaining their salience.
Social cleavages are understood to be the division of voters into certain voting blocs – ‘forces which both shape and contain electoral behaviour, their relative strength and hold being shown by the scope to which they afford a degree of elasticity of electoral choice’ (Bartolini and Mair, 1990). In an effort to explain how social cleavages are structured in general, Lipset and Rokkan (1967) used a territorial/functional dimension to explain their emergence in democracies. They saw that cleavages generally arise f...
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...espite having moderated their position in recent years through the party’s younger, more progressive and well-connected leaders. If PAS decide to leave the coalition, this could have an adverse impact on the opposition coalition as they will stand to lose a sizeable amount of votes which could be important in mounting the necessary challenge to the National Front – signalling the depoliticisation of the Reformasi movement. Hence, it remains to be seen if the People’s Alliance, as well as the Government-Reformasi cleavage, will be able to sustain themselves in future elections. Also, it shows that although Malaysia’s party system seemed to have ‘frozen’ on the ethnic divide, the movement managed to bring forth a new set of social issues which were salient enough to be effectively translated into the political arena – showing that the party system is now more fluid.
Every individual can stand for a race, gender, income, education, age, or a combination of countless categories. Another criticism of Pomper is the complication of “critical elections” and “temporary peculiarities.” Pomper defines a critical election as “not usually part of (these) stable periods, but serve as breaking points, ending one era and leading to the next” (Pomper 547). A “temporary peculiarity” marks surprising changes in party electorate, but does not mark the end of one era and the beginning of another. This makes elections hard to accurately classify until after the long-term effects have been realized.
One of the most interesting indigenous groups in the world is the Batek of Malaysia, this is a group of people that live in the oldest rain forest of peninsular Malaysia. Orang ASli means “Original people” in the native Malay Language, and they truly are the original people of the land. Being a nomadic group of hunters and gatherers, means that they are at the mercy of the land and the elements for survival. Batek beliefs note that, the rainforest was created by “superhuman” beings for the Batek to use and will destroy the world and everything on it if the Batek were ever to leave the rainforest ( K.M. Endcott 1979a; Lye 2004). The Batek believe that the “superhuman” beings created the forest for the Batek to harvest, build houses in, and provide also to decorations for their ceremonial rituals.
Selb, Peter and Lachat, Romain. 2009. “The more, the better? Counterfactual Evidence on The Effect of Compulsory Voting on The Consistency of Party Choice.” European Journal of Political Research 5: 573-79.
Party is an inevitable feature of the democracy and it is defined as ‘an autonomous group of citizens having the purpose of making nominations and contesting elections in the hope of gaining control over governmental power through the capture of public offices and the organization of the government’ (Caramani, 2011, p.220). Parties are ubiquitous in modern political systems and they perform a number of functions, they are: coordination, contesting elections, recruitment, and representation (Caramani, 2011). Political parties are the product of the parliamentary and electoral game, and party systems reflect the social oppositions that characterize society when parties first appear (Coxall et al., 2011).
The spread of democracy has been one of the largest and most widely heralded trends in government worldwide – its prevalence and impact has been the subject of much political discussion and debate. In many cases, however, fewer observers focus on the electoral system used by the democratic governments themselves, which are in many cases equally important to the ultimate shape of the government formed. In general, the First Past the Post (FPTP) electoral system that is used in Canadian Federal Elections has excluded and prevented third parties from having a large impact on the national stage post-WWII, forcing a bipartisan system of government. Central to this paper is an analysis on how third parties, in this case minor broad-based parties
Karp, Jeffrey A., and Susan A. Banducci. " Political Efficacy and Participation in Twenty-Seven Democracies: How Electoral Systems Shape Political Behaviour." British Journal of Political Science 38 (2008): 311-334. Cambridge Journals. Web. 16 Mar. 2012.
Political science first emerged as an academic discipline towards the end of the 19th century and mainly focused on formal institutions, structures and organizations within government (Theodore Rosenhof, 1). However, at the end of the 1920’s this approach towards institutions began to be revised. Soon a behavioral approach towards government surfaced which focused on electoral patterns and voting behavior (Theodore Rosenhof, 1). In using this approach, many academics recognized an alarming amount of movements and change across the state resulting in a dynamic, rather than a stagnant, political network. These establishments and generalizations made by academics eventually culminated in what is presently known as the realignment theory (Theodore Rosenhof, 1).
...s vote for a party instead for an individual, and when the votes are tallied for the region the regional representative seats for that region are divided among the parties in proportion to the share of the vote that each party received.
During the second half of the past century the notion that, political science should be treated as a science became extremely popular among academics specially in the United States. One of the most prominent exposers of this school of thought was Anthony Downs, who developed a theorem to explain in a rather economic sense, how and why voters behave in a certain way when it comes to voting. Downs did not only applied his theory to the way voters behave, he also used it to explain the way political parties align themselves when it comes to elections in a two and a multiparty system nevertheless this essay will analyze Downs’ claims about a two party system only. This essay argues that the Downs’ model has proven to be accurate in many cases throughout history, nevertheless it makes a series of assumptions about voters and parties that can not be considered realistic neither in 1957, when he published his paper An Economic Theory of Political Action in Democracy in 1957 nor in 2013. This essay also acknowledges that fact that this theory might help to explain how parties behave but it is by no means the only explanation. Furthermore this essay will prove that it is a multiplicity of factors rather than an economic theory what can help us understand why parties behave the way they do. In order to support the argument previously stated this essay will state and critically analyze a number of Downs assumptions, then his theory will be outlined. Then it will carefully consider how effective it has been at predicting the way in which parties align themselves by examining the behavior of political parties during general elections in different countries.
Shapiro, Ian, Rogers M. Smith, and Tarek E. Masoud, eds. Problems and Methods in the Study of Politics. Cambridge ; Cambridge University Press, 2004.
While electoral systems do have an impact on the proportionality of electoral outcomes and to a lesser degree on the shape of party systems, it is not realistic to expect a change in electoral system to transform the style of politics in a country. For example, PR-STV was not responsible for the economic boom in Ireland and neither is it responsible for the economic crisis. In their cross-national study of the impact of a number of political reforms, including change to an electoral system, Shaun Bowler and Todd Donovan (The Limits of Electoral Reform, Oxford University Press, 2013) strike a cautionary note, arguing that such reforms tend to have minimal or zero impact. Expecting an electoral change to result in a transformation in the style of politics in a country is completely unrealistic. It is far too easy to blame PR-STV for the happenings in our country, the power is with the people and, therefore, it is down to us to try to create the best possible government that we can. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr. “and so we shall have to decide to do more than register and more than vote; we shall have to create leaders who embody virtues that we can respect, who have moral and ethical principles we can applaud with enthusiasm.” (Martin Luther King, Jr. Quote,
Reed, S. R. (2011). The Liberal Democratic Party: An Explanation of Its Successes and Failures . In A. Gaunder (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of Japanese Politics (pp. 14-23). London, United Kingdom: Routledge .
In the 1999 elections for the first time in Malaysia’s history opposition parties united under Barisan Alternatif (Alternative Front or BA). Party Keadilan is a small multi-ethnic party formed in 1999 by activists in the reformation movement. Besides, PAS (Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party) had provided strong competition for UMNO. Another major ...
Janus Corporate Solutions. (2011). Introduction to Singapore’s political system. Guide me Singapore. Retrieved April 4, 2011 from http://www.guidemesingapore.com/relocation/introduction/singapores-political-system
Jali, N.H.M., M. Redzuan, A.A. Saman, and I.H.M. Rashid. 2010. Malaysian Studies: Nationhood and Citizenship. Petaling Jaya: Prentice Hall.