ABSTRACT
While the expectation is that electoral turnover spurred by change agents will translate to political reform and/or consolidation of reform, recent outcomes have been disappointing. Taking the example of Malaysia’s recent political change, we argue that carrying out political reform and consolidating them remain elusive because there are strong tendencies by all parties – change agents included – to stay invested to aspects of state’s institutional qualities. We explain that institutions ‘bite’; that change agents are not completely free agents because political reform remains highly dependent on existing institutional qualities, the so-called rules of the game. While new reform ideas hold promises of change, issues of path dependence, increasing returns, and dense institutional networks impose challenges to actors making them highly invested in existing institutional mixes resulting in a botched democratisation effort.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Prior to 1973, the dominant political coalition was called the Alliance (Parti Perikatan). This was made up of three parties. In 1973, this coalition was expanded to include several other political parties, giving birth to the Barisan Nasional.
2 Four coalitions contested in the election. Most seats had more than 3 candidates contesting with one parliamentary seat having nine candidates.
8 Money was embezzled from Malaysia’s government investment company (1 MDB) which then Prime Minister Najib Razak led its advisory board. The US Justice department found that about US$2.7 billion out of US$6.5 billion raised by investment bank Goldman Sachs was stolen by people connected to Najib. This theft involved a series of bribes, spending on luxury items (even a yacht), the funding of a Hollywood movie (The Wolf of Wall Street) and money being siphoned into personal accounts. Najib was found guilty of siphoning money related to a subsidiary of 1MDB when about US$681 million landed in his personal account.
47 This council includes Malaysia’s richest man Robert Kuok, Daim Zainuddin, a close aide of Mahathir, Zeti Akhtar Aziz, the former governor of Malaysia’s central bank and KS Jomo, a prominent academic.
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Notes on contributors
Abdillah Noh
Abdillah Noh is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and International Studies. He works in the area of institutions and institutional change. He is currently working on two book manuscripts. The first is on the unintended consequences of Malaysia's State formation, and the second is titled “Political Change in Southeast Asia: An Institutional Perspective.” Abdillah has a DPhil (Politics) from St Antony's College, University of Oxford.
Nadia H. Yashaiya
Nadia H. Yashaiya is a fellow at the Centre for Advanced Research (CaRE), Universiti Brunei Darussalam. Nadia works at the intersection of change management and public policy. Nadia obtained her PhD from the Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Western Australia.
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