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This paper looks at the intersections between gender, ethnicity and culture in framing the forms of resistance to globalisation that take place within the workplace of the multinational firm. In studies of globalisation, labour is often regarded as the passive victim of corporate restructuring as MNCs play states off against one another in the search for ever cheaper sources of labour. Resistance to this form of corporate power is often viewed as taking the form of globalised networks of activists committed to worker rights or the struggles of trade unions in states committed to attracting foreign direct investment (FDI). The argument presented in this paper, is that resistances to corporate globalisation are often much more locally specific and more complex than the global resistances literature would have us believe. By taking a perspective that identifies the dynamics of gender relations in the strategies of resistance that workers engage in, we are confronted with everyday forms of resistance that are embedded in workers’ identities. In order to illustrate this claim, case study research is presented from a TNC operating in Malaysia in which it was found that young female Malay workers are involved in spirit possession incidents which may lead to the closure of the factory - a trend that was first noted in the literature on Malaysian women workers in the 1980s. Within this case study firm, implicit assumptions amongst managers regarding the suitability of specific gender and ethnic groups to certain jobs have created a deeply segmented workforce in which Malay women are overwhelming constructed as a source of low cost, docile labour suited to repetitive assembly line production. Thus, in order to view spirit possession as a form of resistance to transnational capital we need to recognise that Malay women have few other avenues through which to voice their frustrations with the pressures of factory work and thus turn to a culturally-specific form of resistance. These forms of resistance amongst a largely powerless group demonstrate how specific identities based upon an intersection between gender, ethnicity, age, culture and religion are articulated in the development of localised forms of resistance. Such insights therefore, demonstrate the value of looking to women’s unique experiences of resistance in developing a gendered political economy approach to the politics of resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racial discourse and representations have always been an integral part of the socio-political landscape of archipelagic Southeast Asia. Much has been written about the racialization of identities and politics in the Indo-Malay World, where the invention of Malayness can be traced to conceptualisations of race in colonial sociological and economic enterprise. (Consider, for example, the case of British Malaya, where this phenomenon was expressed in the association of racial groups with specific roles in the colonial economy). However, significantly less attention has been given to localised conceptions of race. Focusing primarily on Indonesia and Malaysia (and to a lesser extent Singapore), this paper hopes to contribute to this literature by exploring the representations and discourses of race, and in particular the notion of Malayness, which have emanated from within the Indo-Malay World. The paper looks at how Malayness has been represented in Indo-Malay historiography through a study of local and colonial histories and historical texts in order to identify different understandings of race and racialisation in the Indo-Malay World. From there, it explores the politicisation of race in anti-colonial discourse, through which proponents of pan-Malay nationalism (Ibrahim Yaacob, and Burhanuddin Al-Helmy) attempt to invent tradition and locate Malayness as an inherent part of this tradition. In the main, this paper argues that in the ideological struggle in Colonial Malaya proponents of pan-Malayism in effect appropriated notions of race and identity from the colonial sociological enterprise, and fashioned conceptual tools of the anti-colonial struggle by mobilising and politicising this knowledge in a manner that distinguished itself from the biological determinism that governed European conceptions of race. The concept of race or Bangsa then, became a powerful component of the conceptual armoury of Malay nationalism as it later translated into the notion of nation (Kebangsaan). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper compares the Malaysia's and South Korea's efforts to restore financial stability and to restructure the banking system since the onset of the financial crisis in July 1997. Bank reform and restructuring have been undertaken to address weaknesses in the sector that had rendered them vulnerable following huge currency depreciation sparked by sudden and massive international capital outflows. As a consequence of its reduced exposure to private bank borrowings from abroad, Malaysia was not in a situation of having to go cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or to others for emergency international credit facilities. Unlike South Korea, where state capacities were often undermined by neo-liberal reforms and policy conditionalities imposed by the IMF, Malaysia enjoyed the freedom to prescribe its own recovery plans, hence avoiding some of the problems associated with the IMF rescue packages. This has motivated the paper to examine what lessons can be drawn from Malaysia's and South Korea's experience with bank restructuring in the wake of the 1997 financial crisis. Most importantly, the preceding study of the circumstances prior to the introduction of the bank restructuring measures as well as the specific nature of the measures and their apparent consequences suggest caution in making gross generalizations. Instead, their different experience urges greater attention to context and detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper will analyse how culture and formal political institutions interact in shaping more or less violent styles of conflict management. With reference to Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia it will be shown, how cultural predispositions and social practices amalgamate with different variants of (more or less) democratic institutions to produce fundamentally different perceptions of nation, state and inter-ethnic as well as inter-cultural conflict and, correspondingly, different practices of conflict-resolution. It is argued that any policy of democratization aiming at the reduction of collective violence has to sharpen the focus on the fit between type of political institution and cultural framings of social relations. Taking the wrong path of democratization will kindle instead of mitigate collective violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional Western literature on counterinsurgency has tended to emphasize the importance of providing good governance in order to "win hearts and minds" among the population. However, ethnic and religious identities also clearly play important roles in determining the dynamics of popular support for insurgents and counterinsurgents. Which of these factors, if either, is more important in determining the outcomes of insurgent and counterinsurgent competition? This paper proposes a simple framework for comparative analysis of this question and applies that framework to three "classic" counterinsurgencies from the 20th century: Malaya, Algeria, and South Vietnam. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Paper will explore the factors contributing to the ultimate repeal of these laws in the United States and Australiaâ€"as well as the factors militating against the repeal of such laws in Malaysia. The repeal of such laws in the US and Australia is ref ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I explain Malaysia's response to the diffusion of maritime security norms and rules since 9/11. Over that period, the maritime powers, led by the US, have advanced a broad agenda. On some occasions, where it was in their interests, Malaysian elites have been content to comply with rules. But in doing so, they were prudent in avoiding the socializing effects of compliant norm talk and they characterized their responses in terms of local prerogatives. On other occasions, Malaysian elites have exercised their role as "gatekeepers" to resist emerging norms from abroad. Here, they called upon a series of alternative arguments, using norms familiar to the hegemon in a counter-hegemonic way. Some modest gains to elites have accrued from these strategies. I explain these developments by analyzing the dynamics between "norm-makers" and "norm-takers," suggesting that the latter use norms strategically. In this way, contrary to existing constructivist arguments about norm diffusion, the spread of norms is contingent upon interests of norm-taking elites. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a conference paper titled "The Persistence of Ethnicity: Civil Society, State and Social Mobilisation in Malaysia." According to the article, constructivist accounts of ethnicity have proved effective in explaining why and how ethnicity becomes politically salient. It argues that the process of political mobilization remains rooted in ethnicity despite the decreasing ethnicity of political discourse in both civil society and the state.

Southeast Asia embraces an all-encompassing approach to security. Comprehensive security deals with all facets of threats to the state, and not just the military. Security, therefore, is conceptualised in economic and social terms as well, since these two realms are regarded as potential sources of threats to the security of the state and its governing regime. Malaysia, like other Southeast Asian states, therefore does not privilege military defence in its attempts to secure the state. Nevertheless, little effort was made by the Malaysian ruling elite in the past to involve citizens in securing the state, unlike the case of Singapore with its concept of total defence that involves all the people of a country in the defence of the nation at the normative and operational levels. In Malaysia, by contrast, the concept of comprehensive security and total defence remain the domain of the elites, and are hardly articulated publicly let alone operationalised at the level of society. The discourse remains within the Ministry of Defence, security officials and other public officials. Of late, the Malaysian government has attempted to introduce a limited form of national service, a policy it rejected in the past. One reason for this shift is that like other governments in the region, the Malaysian authorities realise that non-state actors are posing serious threats to regimes. The threat posed by Muslim militants is especially real for Malaysia, with a majority Muslim population. The defence of the realm can no longer be the sole domain and responsibility of the elites and the armed forces. It has to involve the masses if it is to be effective against non-state actors seeking grass-root support. This, the paper argues, has led to the notion of total defence being taken seriously amongst policy-making elites. The government is, however, facing serious difficulties in persuading the masses that the regime’s battle is also their own battle, while there are considerable hurdles to operationalising the concept. There are three interrelated reasons for this: (a) inherent contradictions within the concept of total defence; (b) ethnic divisions in Malaysian society; and (c) the growing fragility of elite-mass relations, particularly within the Muslim population. This paper thus uses the Malaysian case to probe deeper into questions about the conditions under which shared dominant discourses at the elite level can be successfully extended to society more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the possibility of dissent under conditions of extreme hegemony. Specifically, the essay examines practices of dissent in detention camps in Australia and Malaysia. The detention camp is seen as a facet of the variegated nature of modern sovereignty where the camp exists as a space of exception which defines the norm. The existence of spaces of exception or exemption, where the normal law is exempt from operating, is a consequence of a form of biopolitics where a politicized, i.e. governable, form of life is constituted. As a by-product of this constitution, an excess or waste is produced; this is that depoliticised form of life which cannot fit into the norms of a (territorial) politics. Bare or depoliticised life is in a strange position of being simultaneously excluded and included within the sovereign law of (territorial) politics. Being differentiated as the integral stranger to the norm, being the negative element which outlines the borders of the positive, requires that that stranger remain within the ambit of the norm insofar as her meaning and identity may be contained and controlled and become so much fodder for demarcating the normal politicized form of life. The camp is a receptacle that effects a physical containment of the stranger thereby also allowing for a discursive containment. The placing of the stranger in zones incommunicado and where the normal sovereign law does not apply allows for the exercise of extreme control. And yet the extra-territorial identity of the refugee, bearing the imprint of a quite different network of responsibility, kinship, community and identification, poses an inherent challenge to the givenness of the territorial order of things. Within this conceptual orientation, the paper will try to do two things. First, to explore what forms of dissent may be effective within such a condition of physical and discursive stasis. Second, to examine what forms of dissent may effectively and challengingly represent the extra-territorial nature of refugee (political or economic) identity. The paper will suggest that forms of storytelling, which specifically question the assumptions of the linearity of time and the boundedness of space (which are fundamental building blocks of a territorial account of human affairs), both represent dissent under conditions of extreme hegemony and account for identity, community and responsibility in ways that challenge the territorial norm. As such, the paper will explore poetry by asylum-seekers in detention in Australia, song and lyrics by Bangladeshi detainees in Malaysia and film as means of doing these. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MALAYSIA-US RELATIONS IN THE POST SEPTEMBER 11, 2001: THE DILEMMA OF A MODERATE ISLAMIC STATE FOREIGN POLICY IN A HEGEMONIC WORLD Nor Azizan Idris Faculty of Social Science and Humanities National University of Malaysia The ascendancy of George W. Bush as US President and the post September 11, 2001 terrorists attacks in US, initially indicates a clear warming of relations between Malaysia and the United States culminating in the first face-to-face meeting between Malaysian Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir and the US President. US largely accepted the fact that Malaysia and US might differ on certain issues but saw eye-to-eye on the important issues of terrorism and indicated that Malaysia has a role to play in the Islamic world. This is evident when Malaysia and the US co-chaired the ASEAN regional Forum Inter-Sessional Meeting (ARF-ISM) on counter-terrorism and transnational crime in March 2003. The warming of Malaysia-US relations suddenly turned cold with the increasing hegemonic tendency of US and Malaysia’s opposition to the military action and invasion of Iraq. Malaysia has also been critical of Washington’s policies in the Middle East. Thus this paper will discuss the dilemma of Malaysia (as a moderate Islamic state) foreign policy towards United States as a dominant and hegemonic power in world politics.This paper will show that at a time when there is an increasing public feeling in the Islamic world against the US for its bombing of Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq, the understanding and support of moderate Islamic countries such as Malaysia in its widening ant-terrorism war is crucial to prevent Islamic public opinion being swayed mainly by the extremist domestically and the world at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial relations and unions busting in MalaysiaByBalakrishnan Parasuraman,Senior Lecturer in Industrial Relations, University Malaysia Sabah, Email: drrusia@gmail.com or bala@ums.edu.my Balakrishnan Muniapan, Lecturer in Human Resource Management, Curtin University of Technology, Malaysia, Email: bala.m@curtin.edu.my Industrial relations are the relations between employer, employees and trade union. In the Malaysian context; Wu (1995), Ayadurai (1996), Anantaraman (1996), Gomez (1997), D’Cruz (1999), Aminuddin (2003), Parasuraman (2004) are among the authors who have done several studies in the area of industrial relation and trade unionism. However none of the studies have specifically explored the cases and tactics used by Malaysian employers in union busting. Union busting is an unethical practice, undertaken by an employer when workers are attempting to form and join a union, this also includes employers’ activities to break and weaken the existing unions. Union busting is one of the key industrial relations issue not only in Malaysia but also in other countries irrespective of the economic development. The Industrial Relation Act (IRA) 1967, Section 4, 5 and 7 protects every right of the workmen to join or not to join a trade union, and also protects workmen from being victimized by employer for forming or joining a trade union. However Section 13 (3) of the IRA 1967 states explicitly that an employer may dismiss, terminate, employ, and assign work, transfer or refuse to promote a worker on other grounds. In this paper the authors examines the IRA 1967 and the Trade Unions Act (TUA) 1959; the two important piece of employment legislation in Malaysia to explain the trade unionism which involve the right organize and bargain collectively. Besides some of the union busting cases, which have taken place over the last five years are also discussed in this paper. The discussions are based on several sources of information collected from secondary sources and informal discussions with trade union leaders, members and workers from both West and East Malaysia. Findings from the discussion revealed several cases and tactics used by the employer in union busting activities. In this paper the authors also provide effective strategies to create and maintain for harmonious industrial relations in the context of Malaysia. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the high cost of medical care at home, western patients are increasingly going to developing countries for medical care. The sale of high-tech medical care to foreigners is currently a reality in numerous developing countries and has come to be called medical tourism. It is an economic activity that entails trade in services and represents the splicing of two of the largest world industries: medicine and tourism. This paper focuses on the growth implications of medical tourism in ten countries that are actively catering to international patients (including India, Philippines, Thailand, South Africa, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Chile, Cuba, Argentina and Jordan). It starts off by assessing the size of the medical tourism phenomenon in these countries by compiling data on the numbers of foreign patients and the income they generate.There are two objective of this study. First, it aims to understand how revenue from international patients translates into output, jobs, income, etc. in the host countries. Second, this study strives to understand why some developing countries are more successful in promoting medical tourism than others. In other words, what are the advantages they possess that enable them to overcome domestic and international obstacles to trade in healthcare services.By way of conclusion, this paper will present the following reasons why Malaysia, for example, attracts foreign patients while Mauritania does not: competitive prices for high-tech medical services, abundant human capital, domestic research and development, developed physical infrastructure, developed legal and political institutions and a market economy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the political economy of political unrest in Indonesia and Malaysia during the financial crisis. It also looks at the relationship between analytical-narrative explanation and econometric modelling. In particular it is a conversation with Mosley's writing on the social efficiency wage (also available in the paper archive). It follow the basic intuition of Mosley's model - that insufficient attentiont to distribution in crisis resolution strategies can create political conflict, which radically sabotages even the best-laid plans of economists. However, narrative accounts can provide more sophisticated analysis of the causal relationships between polciy, welfare changes, institutional quality and political conflict. In particular, policy choices and welfare acquire political meaning against actor perceptions formed by a historical background. This cannot be modelled but attempts to find proxies may be helpful in sharpening econometric models ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political participation in developing countries often happens along ethnic lines. Existing theoretical approaches have argued that political participation happens in this manner either because of pre-existing colonial political institutions or either because of the inherent ability of ethnicity to mobilize individual ethnic group members. In the case studies of Sri Lanka, Bulgaria and Malaysia, I combine primary source data (party manifestos and parliamentary debates) with an extensive longitudinal historical analysis to show that this is not the case. Analytically, I synthesize collective action approaches with resource mobilization theories. I argue that political entrepreneurs attempt to politicize ethnicity and transform it into a reliable and efficient basis for ethnic group cohesion and collective behavior. Yet, they are faced with the ?free rider? problem. Consequently, political entrepreneurs will turn to the usage of selective incentives, often in the form of discrete state economic policies, in order to match their followers? demands. Accordingly, a solution to the ?free rider? problem arises. However, the need for organization forces political entrepreneurs to tap into existing social mobilization resources in order to accelerate the organization of their groups and minimize their costs. As such, organization precedes mobilization. Successful collective mobilization requires not only ethnic group coherence and organizational efficacy, but also a readiness to act, increasing group member consensus, and institutionalization. Hence, political entrepreneurs begin to increasingly rely upon a ?critical mass? of ethnic group members. This ?critical mass? sub-group is aware of the political entrepreneurs? needs and extracts ever increasing selective incentives from them. Selective incentives that are increasingly asymmetrically become concentrated upon these ?critical mass? members. However, the provision of these selective incentives has two effects: (i) it increases the chances that political entrepreneur will support the use of the state in the allocation of economic resources so that they can credibly provide their followers with the selective incentives that they demand, and (ii) it institutionalizes this commitment to the appropriation of the selective incentives within the ethnic group, increasing the chances that it will emerge as a dominant ethnic group. The successes of the original political entrepreneurs resonate in elite settings with a powerful demonstration effect. Counter-mobilization emerges from political entrepreneurs, both from within the dominant ethnic group members as well as from the dissident ethnic group. Competition among political entrepreneurs leads to competitive intra-ethnic and inter-ethnic bidding by political entrepreneurs for more support among ethnic group members. Economic policy-making assumes an increasing level of zero-sum decisions and the boundaries among ethnic groups become rigid and exclusionary. This paper increases our substantive knowledge about the dynamics that lead to the emergence of ethnic parties in nascent democracies while testing competing hypotheses. Its policy relevance lies in its ability to generate a predictive analytical framework that shows how the interaction between the strategic interests of ethnic political entrepreneurs and the selective incentives that the ethnic group members demand affects the routinization of politics in newly-established multiethnic democracies. Accordingly, this paper allows us to better understand the interaction between democratization and the propensity for violent ethnic conflict in newly established multiethnic democracies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2004, Malaysia celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of its normalization of ties with the Peoples' Republic of China with much fanfare. Thailand followed suite in 2005. Indeed, Malaysian and Thai relations with China have come a long way since Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok were driven by shifting geo-strategic conditions in the mid-1970s to establish diplomatic ties with Beijing despite the fact that their respective policymakers continued to view China with grave apprehension. Taken at surface level, the move by these two small Southeast Asian states to establish ties with China not long after the Sino-U.S. rapprochement appeared to vindicate neorealist structural theories of International Relations, which contend that the policy choices of small states are severely constrained by the international system that in turn permits only balancing or bandwagoning behaviour. This paper contends however, that a careful investigation of how policymakers in Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok viewed China over the fifty years or so since the Pacific War, and subsequently how they calibrated their respective foreign policies accordingly, is instructive of the complications that define how small states live with large neighbours in a geopolitical climate characterised by complexity and ambiguity. The investigation undertaken here will proceed in the following manner. The paper first begins by looking at relations during the Cold War, focusing particularly on the content of Thai and Malaysian threat perceptions vis-à-vis China and their respective responses. The section also attempts to unpack the nature and specific constituents of this threat perception. From there, the paper moves on to discuss the post-Cold War "turn", the strategic ambiguity that was born out of this shift, the emergence of China as a major power of consequence in the international politics of East Asia, and how the policies of the two states under scrutiny here adjusted to these new geostrategic realities. The paper then concludes with an assessment of the possible trajectory(s) of Malaysian and Thai relations with China based on the trends that have gone before, and considers the potential input these cases may have to the broader theoretical study of the international politics of East Asia. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will explore the concept of media framing from an intercultural perspective that considers the impact of global media on the emphasis of news about developing countries in media of developing countries. The paper will specifically analyze the content of local elite newspapers in Malaysia in search of their coverage of news of two Muslim countries, and will compare that coverage to the coverage of the same news in western media as represented by prominent news agencies. The two incidents are the 1999 Egyptair crash over New York and the Darfur crisis in Western Sudan. The issue is vitally important when the current negative atmosphere of relations between the Muslim world and the west is taken into account. The paper hopes to underline the sustained impact of western media on developing world's media coverage of the third world issues, despite the continued debates on the issue since the 70s. The paper will therefore, attempt to underline the necessity of more potent regional media cooperation institutions to override the impact of global western media dominance. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the cases of specifically Malaysia and South Africa, this paper argues that Joseph Nye's concept of soft power, whilst analytically useful, remains a part of an essentially top-down, hegemon centric discourse which largely fails to account for the many ways in which states in the developing world seek to enhance their appeal albeit on a register which often goes unnoticed/unrecognised in mainstream IR/IPE debates. I attempt to broaden the concept, by introducing additional analytical categories within the concept and seek to show how soft power signaling in the developing world is driven by other motives or agendas as in conventional/North American understandings of the concept. The paper seeks to show how the projection of soft power in the developing world is intimately connected to the celebration of notions of national identity (i.e. that external signaling also serves a domestic political project). Although efforts to expand states? soft power are usually tied to expectations of prestige and international recognition, both in the usual diplomatic sense and in more instrumental/economic terms, rival norms (i.e. ?Asian values?) also constitute forms of soft power, given that these play to agendas that are not necessarily seen as being ?Western? in orientation. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at examining the historical and current situations of Spratly dispute and explaining the strategies of several major actors involved in the dispute, including China, Vietnam, Philippine, Malaysia, and Brunei. Characterized by a multi-dimensional concern, the Spratly dispute is a scenario where conflict exists among several economically interdependent states. Under such situation, the traditional strategies such as balancing and bandwagoning are not enough. In order to ensure survival and get maximal interests, states adopt pragmatic policies toward each other. Therefore, in the area of South China Sea, both cooperation and confrontation exist; and balancing and bandwagoning can be detected and understood. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the growing literature of counterinsurgency (COIN), winning hearts and minds (WHAM) of the civilian population occupies an honorable place as one of the most promising strategies. Insurgency's center of gravity lies, the argument goes, in the hold and manipulation of civilian support for lodging, supply, intelligence, and legitimacy, all necessary ingredients for victory. It follows thatsuccessful COIN operations must center on political efforts to mobilize the noncombatants, rather than killing the rebels or otherswho support them. From the Philippines to Malaya to Kenya, this strategy has been widely applied and touted as a main component of anti-rebellion policies and may be the only sensible strategy to adopt in Iraq now that all others appear to havefailed. This paper offers caution against such optimism. Contrary to its perceived cure-all function, I point out one overlooked defect. That is, efforts to attain civilian support trade off with those of achieving war ends. This problem gets acute when the strategy works through the rise of third party whose political agenda undermines the counterinsurgents' intent. Using the Malayan Emergency (1948-60) as an example, I show that Britain's success in winning Malay hearts and minds came at the expense of concessions that all but contradicted its interests. Britain won the military aspects of the war rather cleanly, but politically it had to make substantial concession over sovereignty and defense issues against will. This sheds light on an important but often ignored dilemma inherent in the strategy: when negotiations require the provision of incentives to civilian representatives, the political strategy causes compromise that contradicts policy aims. Implications for the use of this strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq are thus dire and profound. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

East Asia anticipates two important political transitions: Chinese democratization, and Korean unification under a democratic regime. This paper draws upon international relations theory in order to shed light on the effects of these transitions on regional stability. Whereas democratization and war theory would expect instability, theories of economic interdependence predict the opposite. This article tests these theories in the cases of three democratizing states: Malaysia, Taiwan, and South Korea. Like the future cases, these countries were pursuing export-led growth strategies, and faced potentially high costs from bellicose behavior. Although war did not occur in any of these cases, I test for lesser increases in hostility. Through process tracing, I also test for the occurrence of the theories’ expected mechanisms: nationalism and “logrolling” by political coalitions, orâ€"converselyâ€"pressure from the business community for foreign policy restraint. I find little evidence that supports the democratization and war thesis; instead, evidence from all three cases supports the theory of economic interdependence and peace. The study thus contributes to two prominent literatures within international relations theory. It provides a valuable test of largely quantitative literatures that have focused on demonstrating correlation, instead of substantiating their causal claims through process tracing. It argues for greater specification of the conditions under which democratic transitions will promote international instability. Findings from this study also provide support for foreign policy strategies of engagement, and suggest optimism for the stability of the future Korean and Chinese transitions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why are some states able to encourage peaceful Islamic mobilization and discourage violent mobilization while other states seemingly cannot? I contend that when states provide institutionalized channels for political participation, this will encourage Islamic groups to react strategically and mobilize peacefully through those channels, such as: elections, political parties and alliances, and local and national legislatures. I further argue that when states possess a high degree of effectiveness, as defined by their ability to provide law and order and a measure of education and welfare, they can actively discourage Islamic groups from pursuing violent strategies. States with a high degree of effective capacity gain legitimacy from their ability to provide for the needs of the people and ensure their security. Furthermore, when a state is effective in providing security, education and welfare, this deprives radical groups of their ability to make gains in popularity at the state?s expense and exploit weaknesses in the system for their own ends. This paper uses the comparative case study methodology to examine Indonesia under Suharto, Indonesia post-Suharto and Malaysia ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In March 2006, a government minister was reported as stating that "Suhakam was never meant to have any teeth". Since its conception and establishment by statute in 1999, the Malaysian National Human Rights Commission may be said to have exceeded and fallen short of expectations. In its conception, it was presented as an appropriate method of promoting human rights in the semi-authoritarian state of Malaysia, whose political leaders have at various times criticized the universalist pretensions of human rights. Their flows from the view expressed in the 1993 Bangkok Declaration that appropriate national mechanisms should be established to promote human rights, evincing a suspicion for international mechanisms of review and the politicisation of human rights by the imposition of conditionalities development-related aid. Even as a 'panacea', detractors thought the plan was doomed to failure, given the narrow terms of its mandate, which qualified the type of human rights it could review. Since its inception, Suhakam has assumed a broader mandate, examining socio-economic rights, for instance and borrowing from human rights norms in defining the parameters of its mandate. This paper examines the manner and extent to which Suhakam has been able to practically contribute to the exercise and enjoyment of human rights in Malaysia, bearing in mind that Malaysia has only signed 3 human rights treaties and subjected itself to the minimalist obligation of state reporting, without making available to its citizens any complaints procedure to an international supervisory body. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feminist scholars have usefully offered explanations for why women?s social movements emerge, but rarely have they explored why the goals of these movements often remain out of reach. Building on a detailed analysis of Malaysia?s anti-gender violence movement, I pose the question why, in spite of decades of activism against gender violence, has gender violence not abated? The typical response of feminists is to focus on the embeddedness of masculinism ? where masculinist attitudes and behaviors that sanction and sustain gender-based violations such as rape and domestic violence are approached as intractable and potentially unchangeable. In the present study, I instead raise the possibility that feminist practices may have unintentionally contributed to the undermining of transformative change.Feminist analyses that explore a politics of inclusion and exclusion associated with women?s movements have had a tendency to center on criticizing the essentialization of ?women? and ?women?s interests? that often forms the basis of these movements, which has served to obscure attention to how gender intersects with other identity signifiers, such as ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, and geographic location. In the course of two cycles of field research in Malaysia in 1997 and 2002, I confirmed that identity-based divisions among women in Malaysia persist, undermining the cohesiveness of activists within the anti-gender violence movement while also limiting how representative the movement is with respect to women within Malaysian society. But I also identified other lines of fracture that are associated with the movement that haven?t been adequately problematized to date ? including issue-based, resource-based, and gender-based divisions.In my proposed paper, while approaching these lines of fracture as inter-related, my analysis of Malaysia?s anti-gender violence movement will concentrate on problematizing gender-based divisions, in light of my contention that the most far reaching fault-line across feminist theories and feminist-inspired practices is that between ?women? and ?men.? Building on extensive interviews with Malaysian activists, I explore why the exclusion of men from the practices of women?s activists persists and the implications this exclusion has had for the (in)ability of activists to achieve their broad objective of ending men?s violence against women. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People in much of the world are struggling to balance the seemingly conflicting developments in technology and globalization with traditional cultural values and religious fundamentalism.Malaysia is a rapidly developing, technologically sophisticated Mu ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determining the impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on economic growth is part of a process of understanding the relationship of technological change and economic growth more generally. Like the several technological revolutions before it, the ICT revolution generates economic growth through increasing investment and productivity generated by large changes in relative prices and the resulting positive feedback, autocatalytic effects, and increasing returns on products, processes, and institutions throughout the economy. The ICT revolution is distinctive because of the knowledge intensity of the technology, which generates exceptionally high levels of externalities, spillovers and positive feedback on a global scale. Economic growth is a result of the ability of national and local institutions repeatedly to generate and/or capture the resources from the processes of positive feedback produced by technological change. Technology and institutions co-evolve as new resources are captured and used strategically in economic and political relationships. The most successful institutional form (to this point) for developing nations is a partnership of states and firms, able repeatedly to capture and use knowledge resources to amplify the productive and competitive capabilities of nation and firms. These ideas are demonstrated through a brief review of the processes of increasing returns in previous technological revolutions, a detailed examination of the successes of Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, and Malaysia in the electronics industries, and a discussion of new opportunities in business process outsourcing, especially in India. The conclusion is that ICTs offer significant opportunities for states ready to create institutions able to utilize the resources now flowing from global production and outsourcing networks. NB: This version contains case studies only of Korea and Malaysia. The remaining cases of Singapore, Taiwan, and India are forthcoming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last two decades have seen the rapid expansion of Islamic finance in both Malaysia and, over a shorter period, Britain. In Malaysia, with a Muslim population of about 60 per cent, a dual financial system has evolved where Islamic banks operate alongsi ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Malaysia counter-terrorism program and experience is a direct result from the counter-insurgency policies of the Malaya Emergency. In the highly securitized post-9/ll world, a central focus for most nations is to establish policies on countering terr ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malaysia's perennial powerhouse United Malays National Organization(UMNO) and Thailand's short-lived Thai Rak Thai both dominated theirrespective political systems, and both used overwhelming legislativemajorities to advance social reforms that bene ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the 11 September attacks, significant numbers of youth from Malaysia to Nepal to Cambodia donned Osama bin Laden t-shirts. It was clear that the Saudi-born terrorist had become an international brand, signifying (among other things): violen ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the post 9/11 world, migrants are considered potential threats topublic safety and security of many labour-receiving countries. From NorthAmerica and Western Europe to Asia, there continue to be heated publicdebates on the presence and activities ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, Malaysia has largely embraced neoliberal economic policies, lowering national barriers to trade and capital. This development strategy has fueled economic growth that heavily relies on migrant labor. Despite these trends, the Malaysian go ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the developed and developing world, states are increasingly subcontracting security and other services traditionally associated with state sovereignty to private companies and private voluntary organizations (Singer 2003; Avant 2005). These private actors are playing emerging roles in situations where states and even multinational organizations are unable or unwilling to govern or perform particular public functions (Keohane and Nye 2000). This subcontracting of security is a particularly puzzling phenomenon in Southeast Asia, where states traditionally have been reluctant to compromise sovereignty and have been hesitant to privatize certain industries. To explain the dependent variable, the privatization of particular security functions in Indonesia and Malaysia, I broadly draw on new institutionalism and treat security as an institution. I then test two competing approaches, one reflecting a rationalist (principal-agent) explanation and another drawing on sociological institutionalism. I find that principal-agent approaches are better able to explain the initial steps to privatize certain state functions. But importantly, I note that such approaches miss important symbolic and social aspects to privatizing security that sociological institutionalism highlights. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I examine young women’s use of technology as part of their activist tool kit. I argue that the inequalities within mainstream political and culture have caused young women varying in ages from 14-35 to seek a space of their own to discuss political activism, political participation, and different forms of art. One avenue that has been incredibly rich for these discussions has been the advent of Ladyfests and its predecessor, Riot Grrrl. Ladyfests are politically oriented activist, art, and music festivals. The first Ladyfest was in Olympia, Washington in 2000. Since this first one there have been more than 30 others mostly in the US; however, some have taken place in Canada, Australia, and Malaysia. Another way that these girls and young women, and men have been active is in on-line environments. What makes the Ladyfest an intriguing case study is the steeping of feminist typology and more so Third Wave feminism methodologies that permeate the mission of many of the festivals. The girls and women involved in Ladyfests enthusiastically refer to themselves as feminists and understand feminist politics; however, they infuse their politics with a cultural and communicative spin. With these young activists we have an international movement beset by groups familiar with their political rights and attempting to reclaim their own forms of power to educate and instigate political action among girls and women. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the theories of immigration and citizenship, states will monitor, control, and restrict illegal immigration and other unwanted flows from another country, as has been the experience of most countries in the developed world. The success of most immigration policies is based on these examples. Yet, my research shows that many illegal immigrants and displaced populations gain access to citizenship and voting without going through institutionalized processes that safeguard citizenship: a phenomenon that contradicts everything the leading immigration and citizenship theories would have us expect. Using my research on Indonesian illegal immigration to Malaysia and Bangladeshi illegal immigration to India I show how illegal immigrants and other displaced populations gain access to citizenship in developing states. In both India and Malaysia, illegal immigration is a national security issue. Illegal immigrants and displaced populations are conferred citizenship, and therefore, play an electoral role due to the widespread use of documents, a variable of critical importance to the settlement of such populations. A focus on the role of documents in the post-September 9/11 world arose due to the challenges posed by terrorist networks to traditional immigration policies. By showing the enabling role that documents play in the global mobility of labor, legal or illegal, my comparative cases in India and Malaysia question traditional scholarship on immigration and citizenship. I conclude by highlighting the generalizability of my cases and what they tell us about illegal immigrant participation in the international system. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades the financial market structure in Malaysia and Taiwan has undergone a dramatic shift away from a bank-based system towards a capital market-oriented one. These trends were well underway prior to the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s but they were consolidated and accelerated by that event and its aftermath. Capital markets have played such a dominant role in transferring funds and mobilizing industrial financing in the two economies that their overall financial structures have now become more market-oriented than those in the UK and the US. Challenging both the hyper-globalization and the neo-statist theses, this article contends that the growing market-orientation of the Malaysian and Taiwanese financial architectures reflects neither the inevitable process of convergence on neo-liberal practices nor the helping hands of the developmental state. It attempts to advance an institutional explanation that locates the political sources of financial market changes within the national configuration of interest and policy alliances between state economic agencies and private financial communities. Such alliances, which create policy and regulatory environments conducive to the development of capital markets, have exerted shaping influence over the market-oriented transformation of the financial system in Malaysia and Taiwan. This research fills in an important analytical gap in the existing literature that tends to pay scant attention to divergent institutional responses, particularly in the area of financial sector governance, to the constraining effects of global capitalism in developing and emerging market economies. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little has been written about how coalitions influence micro-economic outcomes. Using income equality to measure coalitional breadth and participation, I find that broader and more participative coalitions lead to increased capacity of education and training systems to produce technical intellectual capital in the form of engineers, scientists, and technicians. Then, using Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore as case studies, I examine the political and economic mechanisms through which coalitions influence institutional capacity and subsequent micro-economic outcomes in education and training. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]