The fact that the Malaysian state has managed to maintain a relatively democratic regime, while an authoritarian regime came to power in Indonesia has never been the focus of historical and comparative analyses despite certain cultural, social, and historical affinities between these two countries. This book takes a look at contrasting class structures and alliances, elite cohesion, state strength, as well as differences in political challenges to the state in order to understand two different paths to post-colonial state formation.

The fact that the Malaysian state has managed to maintain a relatively democratic regime, while an authoritarian regime came to power in Indonesia has never been the focus of historical and comparative analysis despite certain cultural, social, and historical affinities between these two countries. This study looks at how the interplay of three factors, that is, elite cohesion, internal state strength and armed resistance, led to two different outcomes: authoritarian and democratic post-colonial states in Indonesia and Malaysia respectively. The historical background is presented to assess the impact of colonialism on pre-capitalist society in these two colonies. This provides the context in which to understand the development of the Indonesian and Malaysian states in terms of differences in the degree of elite cohesion, state strength, and the nature of urban and rural resistance against the state. In this way two different paths to state forms can be mapped.

Challenging Authoritarianism in Southeast Asia is one of the first substantial comparative studies of contemporary Indonesia and Malaysia, homes to the world's largest Muslim population. Following the collapse of New Order rule in Indonesia in 1998, this book provides an in-depth examination of anti-authoritarian forces in contemporary Indonesia and Malaysia, assessing their problems and prospects. The authors discuss the roles played by women, public intellectuals, arts workers, industrial workers as well as environmental and Islamic activists. They explore how different forms of authoritarianism in the two countries affect the prospects of democratization, and examine the impact and legacy of the diverse social and political protests in Indonesia and Malaysia in the late 1990s.

Illustrated most dramatically by the events of 9/11 and the subsequent ‘war on terror’, violence represents a challenge to democratic politics and to the establishment of liberal-democratic regimes. Liberal-democracies have themselves not hesitated to use violence and restrict civil liberties as a response to such challenges. These issues are at the centre of global politics and figure prominently in political debates today concerning multiculturalism, political exclusion and the politics of gender. This book takes up these topics with reference to a wide range of case-studies, covering Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe. It provides a theoretical framework clarifying the relationship between democracy and violence and presents original research surveying current hot-spots of violent conflict and the ways in which violence affects the prospects for democratic politics and for gender equality. Based on field-work carried out by specialists in the areas covered, this volume will be of high interest to students of democratic politics and to all those concerned with ways in which the recourse to violence could be reduced in a global context. This book has significant implications for policy-makers involved in attempts to develop safer and more peaceful ways of handling political and social conflict. This book was published as a special issue of Democratizations.

This book focuses on constitutional reform in Indonesia (1999-2002) from the perspective of shari'a. The study reveals one possible picture of how Islam and constitutionalism can co-exist in the same vision, not without risk of tension, but with the possibility of success.

A contest is afoot in Muslim discourses around the world in the twenty-first century. Prevalent norms and acts are subject to competing motivations, trends and forces. The image of a monolithic Islam is thus wholly inadequate to identify and interpret the different expressions of Muslim thought and practice in their specific yet connected contexts. This book proposes competing and persuasive perspectives for interpreting what Muslims say, do and think in collective settings or in the light of common frames of reference. The chapters contained in this book reflect a diversity of disciplines and interests. Nonetheless, a common thread of the preoccupation with meanings in context unites the contributors and the approaches to their chosen examples. Islam is not a discrete category that is taken for granted. Instead, the cacophony of voices in the Muslim world situated in specific contexts, variously national, regional or global, is allowed to inform each chapter. Here one encounters contemporary Muslims participating in discourses with a contested character that create opportunities to augment or question orthodox dictates or transmit or alter existing beliefs and practices. What emerges are nuanced portraits of contemporary Muslim thought and practice that reveal a far from monolithic Islam to which all things Islamic can be reduced.

Covers the period since 1945 with a focus on the 1990s.

Thomas B. Pepinsky examines how coalitions and capital mobility in Indonesia and Malaysia shape the links between financial crises and regime change.

This handbook explores the significance of the Indo-Pacific in world politics. It shows how the re-emergence of the Indo-Pacific in international relations has fundamentally changed the approach to politics, economics and security. The volume: explores the themes related to trade, politics and security for better understanding of the Indo-Pacific and the repercussions of the region's emergence studies different security and political issues in the region: military competition, maritime governance, strategic alliances and rivalries, and international conflicts analyses various socio-economic dimensions of the Indo-Pacific, such as political systems, cultural and religious contexts, and trade and financial systems examines the strategies of various states, such as the United States, Japan, India and China, and their approaches towards the Indo-Pacific covers the role of middle powers and small states in detail Interdisciplinary in approach and with essays from authors from around the world, this volume will be indispensable to scholars, researchers and students in the fields of international relations, politics and Asian studies.