Malaysia : Mahathirism, hegemony and the new opposition / John Hilley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hilley, John, 1958-

Series:

Politics in contemporary Asia

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Malaysia--Politics and government.

Malaysia.

Politics and government.

Mahathir bin Mohamad, 1925-.

Mahathir bin Mohamad.

Political parties--Malaysia.

Political parties.

Physical Description:

xiii, 305 pages ; 22 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Zed Books, 2001.

Summary:

Malaysia is an increasingly important international player in large part because of its Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad who, in a snap election at the end of 1999, won a fifth successive term, making him Asia's longest-serving leader. This major new book on Malaysian politics offers a profound and up-to-date analysis of the Mahathir project, examining the central issue of how far Mahathir has, during some 20 years in power, translated the basis of the ruling bloc's legitimacy from one of coercive domination and ethnic card-playing into a more consensual form of hegemonic support.

The book argues that he has made considerable strides in building consent. This has involved developmentalist strategies based around the millennial symbols of Vision 2020. However, this rapid development has also created complex class identities, social dislocations and civil pressures. With the 1997 economic debacle and purging of his former deputy Anwar lbrahim, new problems have appeared within the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition and its leading party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). As Mahathir seeks to rebuild ideological support for the Vision, the opposition Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) and nascent reformasi have mounted a counter-hegemonic alternative to the prevailing project. This major work provides an insightful and detailed understanding of these contending forces and the new engagement of ideas taking place within Malaysia's changing political landscape.

Contents:

Introduction: The New Orientalism 1

The power bloc, hegemony and the intellectual 9

Towards an application 14

1 The Construction of Legitimacy: Vision 2020 and the Language of Control 19

Vision 2020: Development, society and post-ethnicity 19

Class, state and the ideology of ethnicity 20

The colonial phase 23

The alliance phase 29

The NEP phase 32

Democracy, Asian values and the ideology of growth 35

2 Constructing the Vision: State-Class Relations, the Power Bloc and the Origins of Crisis 47

The Malay dilemma and the challenge of modernity 47

The NEP: class formation and contradictions 50

Shaping the NEP society: ethnicity, poverty and the new middle class 56

Privatisation: the new hegemonic opportunity 58

The emerging crisis: 1997 65

Anwar's interventions 69

The 'IMF debate' 72

Managing the crisis: policy schism and the Anwar factor 74

3 Mahathirism and the Politics of the Power Bloc 83

Politics, conflicts and institutions: building the new consensus 83

Internal conflict and the UMNO split 87

Consolidating the bloc after 1990 90

Holding the coalition: Chinese politics and the wider party alliance 90

Consolidation and the succession issue 94

Addressing corruption 97

Playing the international stage: politics and diplomacy 99

Political pressures and crisis management: 1997 100

The purge 106

4 Organic Intellectuals: Ideological Production and the UMNO Network 117

Civil society, organicity and the UMNO network 117

Networks of influence: the media in Malaysia 119

Vision discourse and national culture 129

Vision 2020: the new context of communication 131

'Oh IT ... guna IT' 132

Managing the crisis: the UMNO network and media coverage 136

TV news and current affairs 136

The Sun: pushing the boundaries? 141

5 The Anwar Crisis and the Media 151

The Malaysian press: 'Let's work together' 157

Reporting the media: foreign coverage and competing ideologies 162

Dateline Malaysia: 'Seizing the moment' 168

The media and the net 170

The crisis of containment 172

6 Traditional Intellectuals: PAS, Islam and the Countervision 178

Vision Islam and the management of traditional consciousness 178

Islam and nationalism 181

PAS, nationalism and the Islamic resurgence 183

Contesting the vision 186

Terengganu and Wawasan Sihat 187

Civil development in Kelantan 188

Contesting Kelantan: UMNO enterprise at work 189

Confronting hudud 191

PAS-Islam, party politics and the crisis (1) 193

Nik Aziz and the view from Kelantan 193

Fadzil Noor and the PAS leadership 196

PAS, Anwar and the reformasi: setting the scenario 199

7 PAS, the Anwar Crisis and Counter-hegemony 205

PAS, the reformasi and Malay discontent 206

PAS, the reformasi and Harakah 209

PAS, the opposition bloc and national

popular support 213

PAS

Islam, party politics and the crisis (2) 219

Fadzil Noor and Anwar's fall 219

Planting the seed: party cooperation and PAS influence by mid-1999 220

8 Counter-hegemony: Reformasi, Left Politics and the Conditions of Dissent 226

The emerging bloc and Anwar's denouement 226

Situating the left: conditions and legacies 232

Left intellectuals and the Islamic condition 236

Left intellectuals: ethnic and cultural conditions 239

Insiderism: the conditions of dissent 242

Hegemonic crisis, new conditions: situating the left and the reformasi 245

Reformasi, the left and Mahathirism: the dialectics of change 247

9 Fin de siecle: Mahathirism, Election '99 and the New Political Landscape 254

The project reviewed 254

Implications of the 1999 general election 260

The new political landscape: 2000 265

Appendix Theoretical Approach, a Gramscian Perspectivism 270

The historical bloc, hegemony and the intellectual 270

The power bloc, hegemony and the intellectual: the global

domestic dialectic 276.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [285]-294) and index.

ISBN:

1856499170

1856499189

OCLC:

45791384