Search

Ballot secrecy is a cornerstone of electoral democracy, since its real or perceived absence can make voters reluctant to express their true preferences. Through survey data from Singapore, we show that doubts over ballot secrecy can alter voting behaviour even when the vote is secret and there are no individually-targeted punishments or incentives; specifically, they lead a small subset of Singaporean voters to support the dominant party, despite a preference for the opposition. We also examine individual-level correlates of doubting ballot secrecy: a tendency towards belief in conspiracies and distrust of the mass media are the strongest predictors. Finally, a counterfactual exercise demonstrates the sensitivity of election outcomes to marginal vote swings; it suggests that doubting ballot secrecy can secure the dominant party a small number of additional parliamentary seats, thereby buttressing dominant party rule without requiring any concerted action or overtly repressive measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malaysia held a general election in 2022 that was expected to resolve ongoing political instability. Instead, it produced a hung parliament, reflecting a deeply divided electorate and growing support for Islamist politics. Following a royal intervention, Anwar Ibrahim's progressive coalition formed a unity government with the long-dominant UMNO and East Malaysian parties; this unprecedented arrangement faces evolving social, political, and economic challenges that will test its stability and the very nature of Malaysian politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malaysia remained firmly in the grip of both the COVID-19 pandemic and economic turmoil in 2021. Ongoing political instability led to an emergency proclamation that suspended Parliament for the first time since 1969, followed by an unprecedented public rebuke of political leaders by the Malaysian king, and the third new government in as many years. This returned the longdominant UMNO to power. An unexpected political ceasefire promised extensive reforms, but their implementation was uncertain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary Malaysia is an amalgamation of regions with distinct historical origins and features that provide the raw material for strong regional identities. The Malay‐Muslim nature of the nation‐building project led by the dominant United Malays Nasional Organisation (UMNO) has reified regional identities by sharpening the contrast between them and Malaysia's political center. Yet while regional identities are often pronounced, Malaysian politics are highly centralized, and neither deep fragmentation along regional lines nor meaningful secessionist movements have materialized. That results from Malaysia's institutional features and the primacy of highly essentialized, trans‐regional ethno‐religious identities. This article examines the process of regional and ethnic identity formation, which has occurred in an endogenous manner that draws from and reinforces the dominance of UMNO and its political heartland. It argues that the embrace of the ethno‐religious identities has enabled the primacy of Malay‐Muslim considerations in national political discourse and consequently crowded out particularistic regional demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Singapore's 2020 general election was held amidst the most serious public health and economic crises in the country's history. Despite expectations that these parallel crises would precipitate a flight to safety and result in a strong performance by the dominant People's Action Party (PAP), the ruling party received its third-lowest popular vote share (61.2 percent) and lowest-ever seat share (89.2 percent) since independence. This article engages explanations for the unexpected results and argues that the vote swing against the PAP was enabled by a hitherto largely overlooked factor: the 2020 election included two opposition parties that could credibly compete with the PAP on the valence considerations that drive voting behaviour in Singapore, giving voters a perceived safe alternative to the PAP at the constituency level. Quantitative tests support the notion that party credibility--rather than demographic factors, incumbency advantages, Group Representation Constituencies, or assessments of the PAP's fourthgeneration leaders--best explains variation in the vote swing against the PAP. Ultimately, the results suggest that the PAP's monopoly on party credibility is no longer assured, thus portending greater opposition competitiveness and pressure against the PAP in future elections. Nonetheless, the PAP's dominance remains intact and there is little evidence of a general appetite among the electorate for a non-PAP government, suggesting the likelihood of smaller course corrections rather than major steps towards democratization in the coming years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Myanmar’s use of colonial-era administrative boundaries as the basis for electoral constituencies creates a staggering degree of malapportionment that meets or exceeds the world’s highest levels. This article systematically assesses malapportionment and its implications for Myanmar’s democratization and broader political development. Myanmar’s malapportionment significantly over-represents ethnic minority and rural areas, even after controlling for other factors. This challenges the prevalent notion that the political system is decisively stacked in favour of the majority Bamar. Few practical effects of malapportionment have manifested thus far, since political actors have generally not incorporated it into their electoral strategies. As they do, non-Bamar will be well positioned to play a more decisive role in the country’s politics, adding to the broader challenge of Bamar centrality. But strategic responses to malapportionment may also trigger serious problems that harm governance and reduce the legitimacy of elections. Furthermore, malapportionment risks exacerbating ethnic tensions by fuelling a narrative of Bamar precarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malaysia's 2018 election ended more than six decades of dominant party rule by the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). Three questions are paramount. How did the opposition finally achieve victory? What did voters who rejected UMNO actually vote for? Finally, what do the answers imply for reform and democratization? We argue that Malaysia is comprised of four distinct identity-based polities, each with a unique electoral dynamic and vision for the country's political future. Using this framework provides valuable insights into UMNO's defeat, which was achieved by making inroads, largely through elite splits, into two arenas that were previously impenetrable for the opposition. One arena remains electorally pivotal and thus exerts a disproportionately large influence on the new government's reform agenda, entrenching the primacy of identity politics and ensuring the continuity of many policies that address ethnic relations. The case illustrates the extensive impact of divided polities and regionalism on democratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indonesia's 2019 presidential election brings a rematch between incumbent Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subianto, though against a backdrop of increasingly active conservative Islamic movements. Analyses of this contest – as well as of contemporary Indonesian politics more generally – are often based on assumptions around which constituencies matter and which political factions they support. This paper examines those assumptions using an original dataset of fine-grained returns and census data, including a latent variable to capture the independent effect of Islamic conservatism. We find that conservative Muslim areas overwhelmingly supported Prabowo in 2014, but turned out in relatively low numbers. By contrast, rural poor areas turned out heavily for Widodo. This suggests that the conservative vote was under-mobilised and has a greater electoral potential than previously demonstrated. Given the recent mobilisation by conservative segments in society, observers should be prepared for significant shifts in the Indonesian electorate in 2019 and beyond.Abbreviations: NU: Nahdlatul Ulama; FPI: Islamic Defenders Front [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The People's Action Party (PAP) of Singapore is one of the world's longest ruling dominant parties, having won every general election since the country's independence in 1965. Why do Singaporeans consistently vote for the PAP, contrary to the expectations of democratization theories? We argue that valence considerations—specifically, perceptions of party credibility—are the main factor in the voting behavior of Singapore's electorate, and are critical to explaining the PAP's resilience. Furthermore, we argue that the primacy of valence politics arose in part by design, as the PAP has used its control of Singapore's high-capacity state to reshape society and thereby reshape voter preferences towards its comparative advantages. We use a multi-methods approach to substantiate this argument, including a comprehensive quantitative analysis of recent elections. Ultimately, our findings suggest that a focus on valence politics can increase the resilience of dominant parties, but that such a strategy also faces natural limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent Pacific Affairs a pedal issue explores key dimensions of the discipline/ area studies divide in the context of Southeast Asia. It asks whether it is possible to use the comparative methods favoured by disciplines while doing justice to the rich nuance of individual cases. We offer a practical perspective on this debate. We argue that the demands of discipline audiences and area-studies audiences can vary significantly, making it difficult to effectively address both within a given project. Furthermore, while individual scholars retain agency over the nature of their research, structural factors like the job market and tenure requirements nudge junior scholars towards disciplinary audiences. We support this claim with an analysis of several academic job markets across the social sciences and humanities. We also interview several junior scholars who focus on Southeast Asia to examine the channels that link structural factors with scholarly orientations, finding both direct and backchannel connections. We conclude that in the absence of structural changes to the hiring and promotion practices at major universities, the question of an ideal balance between comparative approaches and deep area nuance will be answered by practical--rather than ontological or normative--concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Allegations of electoral irregularities loomed large prior to and following Malaysia’s 13th general election in May 2013. Yet while these irregularities elicited strong reactions domestically and internationally, they are unlikely to have played a significant role in shaping the election’s outcome. Rather than how the game was played, it was the very rules of the game itself that were responsible for returning the United Malays National Organization and its Barisan Nasional coalition to power for the 13th consecutive time, as Malaysia’s electoral institutions quietly transformed the incumbent coalition’s 4% deficit in the popular vote into a 20% winning margin of parliamentary seats. This is largely the result of substantial variation in the size of electoral districts, which had the effect of delivering parliamentary seats to Barisan Nasional with significantly fewer votes than were required by the opposition to secure its seats. This article has two primary aims. First, it seeks to understand better malapportionment in Malaysia by examining the degree of distortions at multiple institutional levels. It demonstrates these distortions to be exceptionally high from a comparative perspective. Second, it seeks to understand better the factors responsible for the size variation of electoral districts, specifically the extent to which the non-partisan factors stipulated in the constitution can explain the variation. Several tests are conducted using new data on the density of voters in electoral districts. The results strongly indicate a partisan element to malapportionment. This creates an institutionalized bias against the opposition and risks increasing polarization in the Malaysian polity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article contributes to the study of ethnic diversity and public goods provision by assessing the role of the spatial distribution of ethnic groups. Through a new theory that we call spatial interdependence , we argue that the segregation of ethnic groups can reduce or even neutralize the “diversity penalty” in public goods provision that results from ethnic fractionalization. This is because local segregation allows communities to use disparities in the level of public goods compared with other communities as leverage when advocating for more public goods for themselves, thereby ratcheting up the level of public goods across communities. We test this prediction on highly disaggregated data from Indonesia and find strong support that, controlling for ethnic fractionalization, segregated communities have higher levels of public goods. This has an important and underexplored implication: decentralization disadvantages integrated communities vis-à-vis their more segregated counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the study of ethnic diversity and public goods provision by assessing the role of the spatial distribution of ethnic groups. Through a new theory that we call spatial interdependence, we argue that the segregation of ethnic groups can reduce or even neutralize the “diversity penalty” in public goods provision that results from ethnic fractionalization. This is because local segregation allows communities to use disparities in the level of public goods compared with other communities as leverage when advocating for more public goods for themselves, thereby ratcheting up the level of public goods across communities. We test this prediction on highly disaggregated data from Indonesia and find strong support that, controlling for ethnic fractionalization, segregated communities have higher levels of public goods. This has an important and underexplored implication: decentralization disadvantages integrated communities vis-à-vis their more segregated counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]