Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-2020
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/1868103420935555
Abstract
Politics in Malaysia seems ripe for a populist upsurge. Parties assume fairly exclusive, ethnic boundaries, inviting insider–outsider pandering. Personalities loom large. Economic inequality is among the highest in the region. Regardless, the extent to which Malaysian politics might be understood as “populist” rather than merely polarised, illiberal, and prone to particularism is dubious. I argue that Malaysian politics is neither populist nor likely to veer that way. However, the case offers a useful test of the boundaries between populism and personalisation of politics, the extent to which appeals designed to maximise popular support suffice to code a polity as populist, and which specific illiberal features facilitate or preclude populism. This examination thus clarifies a messy concept by exploring how populism might develop or falter in a multi-party, parliamentary, and hybrid rather than democratic regime – suggesting the relative reach of institutional rather than personalistic or zeitgeist-related explanations.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Weiss, Meredith L., "The Limits of “Populism”: How Malaysia Misses the Mark and Why That Matters" (2020). Political Science Faculty Scholarship. 4.
https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/rockefeller_pos_scholar/4
Terms of Use
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Comments
This is the Publisher’s PDF of the following article made available by the German Institute for Global and Area Studies Institute for Asian Studies: Weiss ML. The Limits of “Populism”: How Malaysia Misses the Mark and Why That Matters. Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs. 2020;39(2):207-226. doi:10.1177/1868103420935555