Beyond Mahathir: Malaysian Politics and Its Discontents

by Khoo Boo Teik

Overview

A timely response to the retirement in October 2003 of Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Beyond Mahathir poses vital questions about Malaysian politics after Mahathir in judicious ways. The author examines Malaysia's long-term social transformation, the global disruptions of July 1997 and 'September 11', key leaders' calculations of power, and the pitfalls of succession that intersected to produce the political dramas of Mahathir's final decade in power. Organizing arguments around the critical but unstable fortunes of a 30-year nationalist-capitalist project, the author brings to life Mahathir's predicaments, contradictions in Anwar Ibrahim's career, Reformasi's creative dissent, Parti Islam's religious dissidence, and the cultural imperative behind the rainbow coalition of the Alternative Front.

Beyond Mahathir is an instructive guide to momentous events that revolved around competing conceptions of what the future portends or should portend for Malaysia, and the contested ways of getting there.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781842774649
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	11/01/2003
Pages:	219
Product dimensions:	5.68(w) x 8.54(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Khoo, Boo Teik is Associate Professor and Deputy Dean in the School of Social Sciences, University Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang, Malaysia. He is the author of Paradoxes of Mahathirism: An Intellectual Biography of Mahathir Mohamad (1995). Khoo is co-editor (with Francis Loh Kok Wah) of Democracy in Malaysia: Discourses and Practices (2002).
Khoo, Boo Teik is Associate Professor and Deputy Dean in the School of Social Sciences, University Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang, Malaysia. He is the author of Paradoxes of Mahathirism: An Intellectual Biography of Mahathir Mohamad (1995). Khoo is co-editor (with Francis Loh Kok Wah) of Democracy in Malaysia: Discourses and Practices (2002).

Table of Contents

1. From Paradoxes to Crises
A Question of Legacy?
The Politics of a Project

2. The Projection of a Vision
Three Turning Points
Nationalism and Regionalism: Vision 2020 and 'Asian Values'
Hegemonic Interlude: The 1995 General Election
The Futurism of the Multimedia Super Corridor

3. The Anarchy of the Market
Gambling With Money
Depreciation, Devaluation and Disinvestment
Rescue, Recapitalisation and Reflation
Bringing the Crisis Home

4. The Inventions of Anwar Ibrahim
Between Praise and Damnation
On the Way to the Assembly
The Improbability of Succession
Four Phases and a Contradiction

5. Reformasi and the End of UMNO's Hegemonic Stability
The Meanings of Reformasi
The Trials of Anwar Ibrahim
Barisan Alternatif and the 1999 Election
The End of UMNO's Hegemonic Stability

6. The Cultural Imperative of Coalition Building
DAP and the Pendulum of Minority Politics
The Rise and Rise of PAS?
Keadilan between Vision and Fulfilment
The Cultural Imperative of Coalition Building

7. The Coming of the Second Dilemma
Limits to Personalised Hegemony
Ambitions, Ideals and Discord
Rumours of an Islamic state
Mahathir's Final Dilemma

Bibliography

Index