We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 August 2012
This article proposes an analysis of changes implemented during Malaysia's Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's administration (2003–09), using the theoretical framework commonplace in studies on conservatism. Based on the premise that transformations in conservative polities are prone to producing conflict, the dynamics of conflict situations during Abdullah's checkered Premiership is foregrounded. As we apply the main criteria defining conservatism to regime behaviour in Malaysia, it becomes clear that such criteria are stoutly held by the regime's elites in their quest for social harmony and political stability. Regime maintenance then finds justifications in such seemingly sublime ends, thereby self-perpetuating Malaysian conservatism. Such despondency prevailed during Mahathir Mohamad's administration (1981–2003), which displayed bias against changes and introduced schemes to justify the systems it upheld. Transmutations wrought during Abdullah's tenure may have been neither substantial nor totalizing, but within the conservative paradigm which had long gripped national politics, Abdullah's deviations were significant nevertheless.
1 Mahathir bin Mohamad, ‘The Official Dinner in Honour of the Rt. Honourable Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’, 5 April 1985, http://www.pmo.gov.my/ucapan/?m=p&p=mahathir&id=1385 (accessed 19 October 2010).
2 While BN assembles 14 race-based parties dominated by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO)-Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA)-Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) triumvirate of the original Perikatan (Alliance) coalition of 1955, PR claims to pursue multi-racial goals despite the expressly different ideologies of its main component parties, viz. the People's Justice Party (PKR: Parti Keadilan Rakyat), the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS: Parti Islam SeMalaysia).
3 Woon, Toh Kin, ‘Potential Departure from Race-Based Politics: The 12th General Election and Its Implications’, Aliran Monthly, 28 (2) (2008): 13Google Scholar.
4 Among labels that have been used to describe the Malaysian state are ‘quasi-democracy’, in Ahmad, Zakaria, ‘Malaysia: Quasi-Democracy in a Divided Society’, in Diamond, Larry, Linz, Juan J., and Lipset, Seymour Martin (eds.), Democracy in Developing Countries: Volume Three, Asia (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1989), pp. 347–81Google Scholar; ‘semi-democracy’, in Case, William, ‘Semi-Democracy in Malaysia: Withstanding the Pressures for Regime Change’, Pacific Affairs, 66 (2) (1993): 183–205CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘statist-democracy’, in Jesudason, James J., ‘Statist Democracy and the Limits to Civil Society in Malaysia’, Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 33 (3) (1995): 335–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘neither democratic nor authoritarian’, in Crouch, Harold, Government and Society in Malaysia (St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1996), pp. 12, 240Google Scholar; ‘soft authoritarianism’, in Means, Gordon P., ‘Soft Authoritarianism in Malaysia and Singapore’, Journal of Democracy, 7 (4) (1996): 103–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘restricted democracy’, in Munro-Kua, Anne, Authoritarian-Populism in Malaysia (London: Macmillan Press, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘pseudodemocracy’, in Case, William, ‘Malaysia's Resilient Pseudodemocracy’, Journal of Democracy, 12 (1) (2001): 43–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 In the 1999 elections, the BN government, while maintaining its two-thirds parliamentary majority, experienced a widespread erosion of support as a result of the Reformasi (reformation) movement led by the sacked Deputy Prime Minister-cum-UMNO Deputy President Anwar Ibrahim. So wholesale were post-election developments wrought by the entrée of the Anwar-led Alternative Front (BA: Barisan Alternatif) into Malaysia's political arena that scholars have termed them as heralding an era of ‘new politics’. See for example Wah, Francis Loh Kok and Saravanamuttu, Johan (eds.), New Politics in Malaysia (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2003)Google Scholar.
6 The concept of ‘dominant party’ is as outlined by Maurice Duverger: ‘it represents a whole epoch, when its ideas, its methods, its whole style are identical with those of an epoch. A ruling party is one that is believed to be one. Even the enemies of a dominant party, even citizens who do not vote for it, acknowledge its superior status and influence; they deplore it, but admit it’. See Duverger, Maurice, Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State (New York: Wiley, 1963), pp. 308–09Google Scholar. UMNO's role as the dominant single party in Malaysia is explored in Case, William, ‘New Uncertainties for an Old Pseudo-Democracy: The Case of Malaysia’, Comparative Politics, 37 (1) (2004): 83–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 Jost, John T., Glaser, Jack, Kruglanski, Arie W., and Sulloway, Frank J., ‘Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition’, Psychological Bulletin, 129 (3) (2003): 339–75CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Kathleen Maclay, ‘Researchers Help Define What Makes a Political Conservative’, 25 July 2003, http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/07/22_politics.shtml; Jay Dixit, ‘The Ideological Animal’, 1 January 2007, http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200612/the-ideological-animal (both accessed 26 October 2010).
8 Cf. Wilson, ‘A Theory of Conservatism’; Nisbet, Robert A., ‘Conservatism and Sociology’, The American Journal of Sociology, 58 (2) (1952): 167–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McClosky, Herbert, ‘Conservatism and Personality’, The American Political Science Review, 52 (1) (1958): 27–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schumann, Hans-Gerd, ‘The Problem of Conservatism: Some Notes on Methodology’, Journal of Contemporary History, 13 (4) (1978): 803–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 Russell Kirk, ‘Ten Conservative Principles’, http://www.kirkcenter.org/kirk/ten-principles.html (accessed 26 October 2010).
10 Oakeshott, Michael, Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (London: Methuen & Co., 1967), pp. 168–9Google Scholar.
11 Hampsher-Monk, Iain, The Political Philosophy of Edmund Burke (London: Longman, 1987), p. 32Google Scholar.
12 Cf. Puhle, Hans-Jurgen, ‘Conservatism in Modern German History’, Journal of Contemporary History, 13 (4) (1978): 692CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
13 See variants of this interpretation in the collection of essays in Festenstein, Matthew and Kenny, Michael (eds.), Political Ideologies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 119–74Google Scholar.
14 See for example three important works which establish a relationship between conservatism and Asian Values, viz. Rodan, Garry, ‘The Internationalization of Ideological Conflict: Asia's New Significance’, The Pacific Review, 9 (3) (1996): 328–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robison, Richard, ‘The Politics of “Asian Values”’, The Pacific Review, 9 (3) (1996): 309–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jayasuriya, Kanishka, ‘Understanding “Asian values” as a Form of Reactionary Modernization’, Contemporary Politics, 4 (1) (1998): 77–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
15 Sargent, Lyman Tower, Contemporary Political Ideologies, 10th edn (Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing, 1996), pp. 4–5Google Scholar; Jae Hyon Lee, ‘UMNO Factionalism and the Politics of Malaysian National Identity’, Ph.D. thesis (School of Politics and International Studies, Murdoch University, Australia, 2005), p. 10.
16 John Funston, MalayPolitics in Malaysia: A Study of the United Malays National Organisation and Party Islam (Kuala Lumpur: Heinemann, 1980), p. 134Google Scholar.
17 Means, Gordon P., Malaysian Politics (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1976), p. 98Google Scholar; Sani, Rustam A., Social Roots of the Malay Left (Petaling Jaya: Strategic Information and Research Development Centre, 2008), p. 19Google Scholar.
18 Cf. Roff, William R., The Origins of Malay Nationalism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967)Google Scholar; Kim, Khoo Kay, ‘The Malay Left 1945–1948: A Preliminary Discourse’, Sarjana, 1 (1) (1981): 167–92Google Scholar; Abdullah, Firdaus, Radical Malay Politics: Its Origin and Early Development (Petaling Jaya: Pelanduk Publications, 1985)Google Scholar.
19 Cf. Lamry, Mohamed Salleh, Gerakan Kiri Melayu dalam Perjuangan Kemerdekaan [The Malay Leftist Movement in the Struggle for Independence] (Bangi: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 2006)Google Scholar; Hamid, Ahmad Fauzi Abdul, ‘Malay Anti-Colonialism in British Malaya: A Re-appraisal of Independence Fighters of Peninsular Malaysia’, Journal of Asian and African Studies, 42 (5) (2007): 371–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
20 Heywood, Andrew, Political Ideologies: An Introduction (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1992), p. 54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski and Sulloway, ‘Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition’, 342–3.
21 Huntington, Samuel, ‘Conservatism as an Ideology’, American Political Science Review, 51 (2) (1957): 455CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Rabkin, Jeremy A., ‘Conservatism’, in Krieger, Joel et al. . (eds.), The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 184Google Scholar; Vincent, Andrew, Modern Political Ideologies (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), p. 57Google Scholar.
22 Cf. Abdullah, Abdul Rahman Haji, Pemikiran Islam di Malaysia: Sejarah dan Aliran [Islamic Thought in Malaysia: History and Streams] (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1998), chapter 2Google Scholar.
23 Cf. Liow, Joseph Chinyong, ‘Political Islam in Malaysia: Problematising Discourse and Practice in the UMNO–PAS “Islamisation Race”’, Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 42 (2) (2004): 184–205CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hamid, Ahmad Fauzi Abdul, The Islamic Opposition in Malaysia: New Trajectories and Directions?, RSIS Working Paper No. 151 (Singapore: S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, 2008)Google Scholar.
24 Cf. Sheridan Mahavera, ‘The conservative tide that simply isn't’, New Straits Times, 9 September 2008; Liow, Joseph Chinyong, ‘The Fluid Terrain of Islamism in Southeast Asia’, NBR Analysis, 19 (4) (2008): 29Google Scholar.
25 Cf. Crespo, Jose Antonio, ‘The Liberal Democratic Party in Japan: Conservative Domination’, International Political Science Review, 16 (2) (1995): 199–209CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pempel, T. J., Regime Shift: Comparative Dynamics of the Japanese Political Economy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998)Google Scholar.
26 Cf. Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, ‘Wawancara: Pemimpin Perlu Bersih’,Utusan Malaysia, 9 October 1993; ‘BN mungkin akan ditolak seperti LDP – Dr M’, Harakah Daily Net, 12 September 2009, http://www.harakahdaily.net/v2/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=22467:bn-mungkin-akan-ditolak-seperti-ldp-dr-m&catid=1:utama&Itemid=50; ‘Najib:Umno perlu sedar belum bebas “ancaman”’, The Malaysian Insider, 11 May 2010, http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/bahasa/article/najib-umno-perlu-sedar-belum-bebas-ancaman (both accessed 12 July 2010).
27 Cf. Russell Kirk, ‘Ten Conservative Principles’; Hall, Ian and Rengger, Nicholas, ‘The Right That Failed? The Ambiguities of Conservative Thought and the Dilemmas of Conservative Practice in International Affairs’, International Affairs, 81 (1) (2005): 71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
28 Cf. McClosky, ‘Conservatism and Personality’, 30–1; Vincent, Modern Political Ideologies, pp. 67–82; Rodan, ‘The Internationalization of Ideological Conflict’, 328–51; Singh, Hari, ‘Tradition, UMNO and Political Succession in Malaysia’, Third World Quarterly, 19 (2) (1998): 241–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
29 Cf. Burke, Edmund, Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. O'Brien, Conor Cruise (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1968), p. 184Google Scholar.
30 Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, and Sulloway, ‘Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition’, 342.
31 Bakar, Mohamad Abu, ‘Konservatisme dan Konflik: Isu “Kafir Mengkafir’ dalam Politik Kepartian Melayu 1955–2000’ [Conservatism and Conflict: The ‘Kafir Mengkafir’ Issue and Malay Party Politics 1955–2000], Pemikir, 21 (2000): 123Google Scholar.
32 Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 372.
33 Cf. Whitaker, Reg, ‘Neo-Conservatism and the State’, in Miliband, Ralph, Panitch, Leo, and Saville, John (eds.), Socialist Register 1987: Conservatism in Britain and America: Rhetoric and Reality (London: Merlin Press, 1987), pp. 1–31Google Scholar; Vincent, Modern Political Ideologies, p. 76.
34 Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, and Sulloway, ‘Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition’, p. 342.
35 Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, pp. 106, 153.
36 O'Sullivan, Noel, Conservatism (London: J.M. Dent, 1976), pp. 9, 12Google Scholar.
37 Pempel, T.J., Policy and Politics in Japan: Creative Conservatism (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982), chapter 1Google Scholar.
38 Mannheim, Karl, Essays on Sociology and Social Psychology (London: Routledge, 1966), pp. 95–6Google Scholar.
39 Poole, Lynne, ‘Germany: A Conservative Regime in Crisis?’, in Cochrane, Allan, Clarke, John, and Gewirtz, Sharon (eds.), Comparing Welfare States (Milton Keynes: The Open University, 2001), pp. 154–5Google Scholar.
40 Mohamad Abu Bakar, ‘Konservatisme dan Konflik’, pp. 122–3.
41 Scruton, Roger, A Dictionary of Political Thought (London: Pan Books, 1982), p. 91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Honderich, Ted, Conservatism (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990), p. 126Google Scholar.
42 Giddens, Anthony, Runaway World: How Globalisation Is Reshaping Our Lives (London: Profile Books, 2002), p. 42Google Scholar.
43 See articles in Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence (eds.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983)Google Scholar.
44 Robertson, David, The Penguin Dictionary of Politics (London: Penguin Books, 1993), p. 339Google Scholar.
45 Cf. Mughan, Anthony and Scully, Roger M., ‘The Triumph of Conservatism in the West’, The Brown Journal of World Affairs, 3 (1) (1996): 229–35Google Scholar; Balaam, David N. and Veseth, Michael, Introduction to International Political Economy (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1996), pp. 55–6Google Scholar; Brown, Wendy, ‘American Nightmare: Neoliberalism, Neoconservatism, and De-Democratization’, Political Theory, 34 (6) (2006): 690–714CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rodan, Garry, Hewison, Kevin, and Robison, Richard, ‘Theorising Markets in South-East Asia: Power and Contestation’, in Rodan, Garry, Hewison, Kevin, and Robison, Richard (eds.), The Political Economy of South-East Asia: Markets, Power and Contestation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 29–30Google Scholar.
46 Cf. Nevitte, Neil and Gibbins, Roger, ‘Neoconservatism: Canadian Variations on an Ideological Theme?’, Canadian Public Policy, 10 (4) (1984): 384–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schamis, Hector E., ‘Reconceptualizing Latin American Authoritarianism in the 1970s: From Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism to Neoconservatism’, Comparative Politics, 23 (2) (1991): 201–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
47 Fukuyama, Francis, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power and the Neoconservative Legacy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006)Google Scholar.
48 Minkenberg, Michael, ‘The New Right in Germany: The Transformation of Conservatism and the Extreme Right’, European Journal of Political Research, 22 (1) (1992): 55–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
49 Struve, Walter, ‘Hans Zehrer as a Neoconservative Elite Theorist’, The American Historical Review, 70 (4) (1965): 1035–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Braatz, Werner E., ‘Two Neo-Conservative Myths in Germany 1919–1932: The “Third Reich” and the “New State”’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 32 (4) (1971): 569–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
50 Masud, Muhammad Khalid, ‘Muslim Perspectives on Global Ethics’, in Sullivan, William M. and Kymlicka, Will (eds.), The Globalization of Ethics: Religious and Secular Perspectives (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 104–08Google Scholar.
51 Cf. Jomo, K. S., The Way Forward?: The Political Economy of Development Policy Reform in Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya, 1993)Google Scholar; Embong, Abdul Rahman, ‘Rethinking Development and Developmental Studies’, Akademika, 68 (2005): 91–4Google Scholar.
52 Cf. ‘Anwar Warns of New Islamic Clergy’, New Straits Times, 14 September 1985; Lemiere, Sophie, ‘Apostasy and Islamic Civil Society in Malaysia’, ISIM Review, 20 (Autumn 2007): 46–7Google Scholar.
53 Among Muslim countries, the closest parallel to Malaysia would be Iran. See the ‘Iranian Usage of “Neo-Conservatism”’, in Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Mahjoob Zweiri, Iran and the Rise of Its Neoconservatives: The Politics of Tehran's Silent Revolution (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007); and Bernard Gwertzman's interview with journalist Hossein Bastani, ‘The Fight between Iran's Neoconservatives and Conservatives’, 19 June 2008, http://www.cfr.org/publication/16598/fight_between_irans_neoconservatives_and_conservatives.html (accessed 28 October 2008).
54 For the case of Soviet Union in this section, see Cohen, Stephen F., ‘The Friends and Foes of Change: Reformism and Conservatism in the Soviet Union’, Slavic Review, 38 (2) (1979): 187–202CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nordlander, David, ‘Khrushchev's Image in the Light of Glasnost and Perestroika’, Russian Review, 52 (2) (1993): 248–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tompson, W.J., ‘Khrushchev and Gorbachev as Reformers: A Comparison’, British Journal of Political Science, 23 (1) (1993): 77–105CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
55 For the case of China in this section, see Fewsmith, Joseph, ‘Neoconservatism and the End of the Dengist Era’, Asian Survey, 35 (7) (1995): 635–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chan, Feng, ‘Order and Stability in Social Transition: Neoconservative Political Thought in Post-1989 China’, The China Quarterly, 151 (1997): 593–613Google Scholar; David Rolls, ‘The Emergence of the “Jiang Zemin Era”: Legitimacy and the Development of the Political Theory of “Neo-Conservatism” – 1989–1995’, Ph.D. dissertation (University of Southern Queensland, Australia, 2004).
56 For the case of Japan in this section, see Pyle, Kenneth B., The Japanese Question: Power and Purpose in a New Era (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute Press, 1996), pp. 71–4Google Scholar; Sakakibara, Eisuke, Structural Reform in Japan: Breaking the Iron Triangle (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2003), pp. xi–xiiiGoogle Scholar; Jim Frederick, ‘Standing Their Ground’, 25 April 2005, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1053688,00.html (accessed 29 October 2010); Kollner, Patrick, ‘The Liberal Democratic Party at 50: Sources of Dominance and Changes in the Koizumi Era’, Social Science Japan Journal, 9 (2) (2006): 243–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pempel, T.J., ‘Japanese Strategy Under Koizumi’, in Rozman, Gilbert, Togo, Kazuhiko, and Ferguson, Joseph P. (eds.), Japanese Strategic Thought toward Asia (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 109–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Li Xiushi, ‘Japanese Neo-conservative Foreign Strategy’, Global Review, (Winter 2007): 166–82.
57 For the case of Taiwan in this section, see Liao, Ping-hui, ‘Rewriting Taiwanese National History: The February 28 Incident as Spectacle’, Public Culture, 5 (2) (1993): 281–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kau, Michael Ying-mao, ‘The Power Structure in Taiwan's Political Economy’, Asian Survey, 36 (3) (1996): 287–305CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Milner, Anthony, ‘What Happened to “Asian Values”?’, in Segal, Gerald and Goodman, David S. G. (eds.), Towards Recovery in Pacific Asia (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 56–68Google Scholar; Hu, Ching-fen, ‘Taiwan's Geopolitics and Chiang Ching-Kuo's Decision to Democratize Taiwan’, Stanford Journal of East Asian Affairs, 5 (1) (2005): 26–44Google Scholar.
58 Cf. Singh, Hari, ‘Democratization or Oligarchic Restructuring? The Politics of Reform in Malaysia’, Government and Opposition, 35 (4) (2000): 545–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ganesan, N., ‘Malaysia in 2003: Leadership Transition with a Tall Shadow’, Asian Survey, 44 (1) (2004): 70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
59 Beng, Ooi Kee, Era of Transition: Malaysia after Mahathir (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2006), pp. xxii, 7–10, 17–20, 33–40Google Scholar; Hamid, Ahmad Fauzi Abdul, ‘The UMNO-PAS Struggle: Analysis of PAS's Defeat in 2004’, in Swee-Hock, Saw and Kesavapany, K. (eds.), Malaysia: Recent Trends and Challenges (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2006), p. 113Google Scholar.
60 Cf. Barraclough, Simon, ‘The Dynamics of Coercion in the Malaysian Political Process’, Modern Asian Studies, 19 (4) (1985): 797–822CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Crouch, Government and Society in Malaysia, chapters 3–8; Munro-Kuo, Authoritarian-Populism in Malaysia, chapters 4, 6–7.
61 Singh, Hari, ‘UMNO Leaders and Malay Rulers: The Erosion of a Special Relationship’, Pacific Affairs, 68 (2) (1995): 187–205CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kershaw, Roger, Monarchy in South-East Asia: The Faces of Tradition in Transition (London: Routledge, 2001)Google Scholar.
62 The most severe crises were the constitutional conflict between UMNO and Malay rulers in 1983 and 1992, the UMNO leadership tussle in 1997, the regional currency crisis of 1987, and the saga arising from the unceremonious dismissal of Anwar Ibrahim as Mahathir's deputy in 1998.
63 Teik, Khoo Boo, Paradoxes of Mahathirism: An Intellectual Biography of Mahathir Mohamad (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Hilley, John, Malaysia: Mahathirism, Hegemony and the New Opposition (London: Zed Books, 2001)Google Scholar.
64 Milne, R.S. and Mauzy, Diane K., Malaysian Politics under Mahathir (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 1Google Scholar.
65 Teik, Khoo Boo, Beyond Mahathir: Malaysian Politics and its Discontents (London: Zed Books, 2003), p. 188Google Scholar.
66 ‘Wawancara: Dr M menilai kepimpinan’, Mingguan Malaysia, 31 October 2004.
67 Cf. Funston, John, ‘Malaysia's Tenth Election: Status Quo, Reformasi or Islamization?’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 22 (1) (2000): 23–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Case, William, ‘Malaysia's General Elections in 1999: A Consolidated and High-Quality Semi-Democracy’, Asian Studies Review, 25 (1) (2001): 35–55Google Scholar.
68 ‘Pak Lah: No radical changes when I become PM’, Star, 8 July 2003.
69 ‘Abdullah steps out of Mahathir's shadow’, 30 November 2003, http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/17961 (accessed 22 October 2010).
70 Teik, Khoo Boo, ‘De-Mahathirising Malaysia’, Aliran Monthly, 23 (8) (2003): 2, 4–6Google Scholar.
71 ‘Pengaruh Tun Razak masih ada pada saya – PM’,Utusan Malaysia, 6 June 2007.
72 Kling, Zainal, ‘UMNO and the BN in the 2004 Election: The Political Culture of Complex Identities’, in Swee-Hock, Saw and Kesavapany, K. (eds.), Malaysia: Recent Trends and Challenges (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2006), p. 191Google Scholar.
73 Welsh, Bridget, ‘Malaysia in 2004: Out of Mahathir's Shadow’, Asian Survey, 45 (1) (2005): 153–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mely Caballero-Anthony, ‘Political Transitions in Southeast Asia’, Southeast Asian Affairs (2005), pp. 27–30.
74 For critical analyses of the eleventh general elections of 2004, see articles in Saw and Kesavapany (eds.), Malaysia: Recent Trends and Challenges.
75 Rustam Sani, ‘Siapa hina usahawan Melayu?’, Siasah, 28 April 2006.
76 Wilson, Francis G., ‘A Theory of Conservatism’, American Political Science Review, 35 (1) (1941): 29–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tompson, ‘Khrushchev and Gorbachev as Reformers: A Comparison’, 79; Mohamad Abu Bakar, ‘Konservatisme dan Konflik’, 124.
77 Welsh, ‘Malaysia in 2004: Out of Mahathir's Shadow’, p. 155.
78 K.S. Nathan, ‘Malaysia: The Challenge of Money Politics and Religious Activism’, Southeast Asian Affairs (2006), p. 168.
79 Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, ‘The Harvard Club of Malaysia Dinner’, 5 May 2005, http://www.pmo.gov.my/ucapan/?m=p&p=paklah&id=2945 (accessed 25 October 2010).
80 ‘Man on a Mission’, The Sun, 4 December 2008.
81 Lim Kit Siang, ‘Abdullah cannot rid the government of “Little Napoleons” when “full-blown Napoleons” like IGP Bakri is allowed scot-free to set the bad example of open insubordination subverting the civilian authority of the Prime Minister, Cabinet and Parliament by publicly opposing the IPCMC’, media statement, 16 April 2006, http://www.dapmalaysia.org/english/2006/april06/lks/lks3871.htm (accessed 20 March 2011).
82 During proceedings of the Assembly, UMNO Youth Information Chief, Azimi Daim, stressed that in tense situations, the blood of Malay warriors risked being spilled. A delegate from Malacca, Hasnoor Sidang Hussein, warned the audience that UMNO members were prepared to be soaked with blood in defending their nation and religion. Hashim Suboh, representing Perlis, rhetorically asked the Youth Chief, Hishamuddin Hussein, when would he resort to use the keris (Malay dagger), having waved it twice during successive UMNO Assemblies.
83 Khairy Jamaluddin, ‘Interview: Time for a makeover’, Off the Edge, 9 January 2009, 44.
84 Hamid, Ahmad Fauzi Abdul, ‘Democracy and the Growth of Civil Society in Post-Mahathir Malaysia: Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's Years in Power’, in AMGT 2010 Proceedings: 2010 UI-KAAS International Conference Asia in the Midst of Global Transformation (Depok: Universitas Indonesia (UI) and the Korean Association of Asian Studies (KAAS), 2010), pp. 4–32Google Scholar.
85 Lim Kit Siang, ‘Abdullah's warning against return of Mahathirism – Will Najib scotch talk of imminent ISA arrest of Anwar?’, 26 March 2009, http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2009/03/26/abdullah%E2%80%99s-warning-against-return-of-mahathirism-%E2%80%93-will-najib-scotch-talk-of-imminent-isa-arrest-of-anwar (accessed 13 January 2010).
86 Joseph Nye, ‘Soft Power, Hard Power and Leadership’, 27 October 2006, www.hks.harvard.edu/. . ./11_06_06_seminar_Nye_HP_SP_Leadership.pdf (accessed 17 November 2009).
87 Shamsul Amri Baharuddin (Professor of Social Anthropology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia), interview, Bangi, 12 March 2010.
88 Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, interview, Kuala Lumpur, 18 March 2010.
89 Shahrir Samad (former minister in Abdullah's cabinet, 2004–08), interview, Kuala Lumpur, 15 December 2009; Nazri Aziz (minister in both Abdullah's and Najib Razak's cabinet), interview, Kuala Lumpur, 15 April 2010.
90 Edmund Terence Gomez (Professor of Political Economy, University Malaya), interview, Kuala Lumpur, 26 May 2010; Saifuddin Abdullah (deputy minister in Najib Razak's cabinet), interview, Kuala Lumpur, 29 November 2010.
91 Edmund Terence Gomez, interview; Shahrir Samad, interview.
92 Ooi Kee Beng (Fellow, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies), interview, Singapore, 30 March 2010.
93 Brought into the cabinet by Abdullah following the March 2008 elections, Zaid Ibrahim was entrusted with the task of judicial reform, which was stridently attacked by conservative UMNO forces as embodying the voice of the opposition. Zaid eventually resigned from his ministerial position in September 2008 in protest against recent arrests under the Internal Security Act (ISA). He later joined Anwar Ibrahim's PKR, which he also quit in disillusionment in 2010, and now heads a new party, People's National Well-Being Party (KITA: Parti Kesejahteraan Insan Tanah Air). See an account of his experience in UMNO and Abdullah's cabinet in I, Too, Am Malay (Petaling Jaya: ZI Publications, 2009).
94 Ahmad Ismail earned notoriety in August 2008 for publicly calling the Chinese in Malaysia ‘migrants’. Ahmad Ismail's refusal to tender an apology for his statement caused a rift in Penang between UMNO and the Chinese-manjority GERAKAN party, which governed Penang from 1969 until 2008.
95 Tagline for the Conference of Conservatism Studies, ‘New Conservatisms and New Approaches’, Prague, 14–15 May 2010, see http://www.conservatismconference.org/call.html (accessed 29 October 2010).
