Malaysian democracy and civil society The relationship between the concept of democracy and civil society is central to understanding the dynamics of the Malaysian system. The general concept of civil society goes back to antiquity as an arena between the...

For over 30 years, Pekida has been one of the shadow allies of the ruling party, UMNO; emerging in the media only in 2008. The election results of 2008 were seen as an awakening of political consciousness among the majority of Malaysians. Facing this new wave of...

Reconstructing the history of Pekida and its network’s is a hard task. No historical account of the organisation has been found, and every attempt to locate official records has been an arduous mission. This article relies primarily on oral history (rarely shared with...

What if the liberalisation of the public sphere since the Mahathir era paved the way for the emergence of civil surrogates of political parties? What if the so-called “civil society” was used as a veil to hide and promote the rise of militants who are in fact...