Academic Publications
JOURNAL ARTICLES & WORKING PAPERS
Truce and Tales in New Malaysia: Happy First Anniversary | The ASAN Forum, Vol 7 (4), June 2019
The expression “New Malaysia” or Malaysia Baharu emerged in 2016 as a semantic capsule for the democratic aspirations of the movement for electoral reform Bersih (“clean” in Malay), whose rally in November of that year brought more than 100,000 people to the streets...
The Downfall of Malaysia’s Ruling Party | Journal of Democracy, Vol 29(4), 114 – 128, October 2018
General elections in May 2018 saw the downfall of controversial prime minister Najib Razak—and an end to the monopoly on power enjoyed by the ethnonationalist United Malays National Organization (UMNO) for the whole of independent Malaysia’s 61-year history. Key to...
Islamist Echoes in the context of the Tunisian Islamist Party’s 10th Congress | European University Institute, Max Weber Programme, July 2017
Since the uprising in 2011, Tunisia is seen as a political lab whose experiences impact the entire region. The return to the political scene of the of the Islamists of the Ennahdha Party, and their democratic ascension to power, came as a surprise, if not a shock, to...
Genesis and Development of a “non-Partisan” Political Actor: the Formation of the Jama’ah Islah Malaysia (JIM) and its Roots in Western Europe | Al-Jami‘ah, Vol. 47, No. 1, 2009
This chapter looks at the genesis and development of the Jama’ah Islah Malaysia (JIM), a modernist-reformist Islamist organisation that today has played a vital and visible role in the political landscape of Malaysian politics. Little is known about the early genesis...
Apostasy and Islamic Civil Society in Malaysia | ISIM Review 20, Autumn 2007
In Malaysia, legal definitions of the religious category “Muslim” and ethnic category “Malay” imply each other. Consequently, Muslims who have renounced Islam find themselves in an abyssal legal zone. The legal intricacies and the media representations surrounding...
BOOKS
Minorities Matter: Malaysian Politics and People Volume III | Gerakbudaya, 2017
Reflecting on the changes, and continuities, that Malaysia has witnessed since the electoral outcome of GE14, Minorities Matter brings together a group of local and international scholar to look at contemporary Malaysian politics and society through the lens of those...
Illusions of Democracy: Malaysian Politics and People (Europe and Americas Edition) | Amsterdam University Press, 2018
In the social sciences, the role of emotion in politics is not a new axis but is only starting to be taken up as a possibility in the study of political phenomena (Braud 1996); the notion of ‘illusion’ and the performance and fabrication of legitimacy have yet to be...
Illusions of Democracy: Malaysian Politics and People Volume II | Gerakbudaya, 2017
Bringing together a group of both international and Malaysian scholars, Illusions of Democracy: Malaysian Politics and People Volume II offers an up-to-date and broad analysis of the contemporary state of Malaysian politics and society. Transcending disciplinary...
Misplaced Democracy: Malaysian Politics and People | Strategic Information and Research Development Centre (SIRD) & Gerakbudaya, 2014
Misplaced Democracy: Malaysian Politics and People is the fruit of a three-year collaboration between academics who have chosen Malaysia as their specialty. Defined by its inter-disciplinarity and covering the fields of urban studies, political economy, international...
From the Mosque to the Ballot Box: An Introduction to Political Islam in Malaysia | The Institute for Research on Contemporary Southeast Asia (IRASEC) & S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), 2010
In these referenced papers from IRASEC, Bangkok, four specialists consider many aspects of political Islam in contemporary Malaysia. The first study is on the religious dimension of Malaysia's international integration. Part 2 explores the Dakwah, or Islamic revival...
BOOK CHAPTERS
Malaysia: Gangster Boogie, Bosses And Politics | Handbook of Organised Crime and Politics (Chapter 26), 2019
This chapter focuses specifically on the relationship between the organisation PEKIDA and its satellites, and the former ruling party UMNO (1957-2018). It explains the phenomenon in the context of the Prime Ministers Abdullah Badawi and Najib Razak governements' era,...
The Real World? Fabricating Legitimacy in a Semi-Authoritarian State | Illusions of Democracy: Malaysian Politics and People (Chapter 5), 2018
This chapter examines the durability of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO)'s rule in Malaysia, exploring how the party has maintained political stability by constructing and manipulating perceptions of power and legitimacy. This article is available on...
Gangsta and politics in Malaysia | Misplaced Democracy: Malaysian Politics and People (Chapter 5), 2014
This chapter is a short exploration of the relationship between political parties, and more specifically UMNO, and gangs through the case study of Pekida. The articulation of this relationship is the central concept of this study: we define it as "connivance...
Conversion and Controversy: Reshaping the Boundaries of Malaysian Pluralism | Proselytizing and the Limits of Religious Platform in Contemporary Asia (Chapter 10), 2013
In Malaysia, the political articulation and social perception of religion, more specifically of proselytism and conversion, are at the source of recurrent tensions between religious groups, and jeopardize the balance of this plural society. The first part of this...
Cracks in the Mosaic: The rise of Ethno-religious Groups in Malaysia | Religious Norms in the Public Sphere, 2011
In this talk, I’m going to give a case study on the rise of ethnonationalist groups in Malaysia. In order to understand the origins and challenges of this movement, it is necessary to give a bit of background first. Historically, Malaysia has been at the crossroad of...