Explore ANU College of Asia & Pacific research activities

Is Malaysian democracy liberalizing, backsliding, or merely staying put?

ANU Malaysia Institute Seminar

Speaker

Prof Meredith Weiss

Venue

Hedley Bull Theatre 2, Hedley Bull Centre (130), Garran Road, ANU

Date

Friday, 12 August, 2022 - 15:00 to 16:30

This seminar is hosted by the ANU Malaysia Institute.

Dual delivery: This seminar will be held in-person and online in zoom.

Observers proclaimed Malaysia’s first-ever transfer of federal power through elections in 2018 as marking a democratic transition, only to see, in the reversal of that change two years later, evidence of backsliding.

In this in-person and online seminar, Professor Meredith Weiss argues instead that these concepts lack nuance: we should not read too much into a change of leadership. At best, the electoral-authoritarian regime wobbled; it neither transitioned convincingly in 2018 nor qualified as backsliding per se in 2020. That said, the regime has been edging toward liberalization, but less in the electoral sphere than in civil society and prevailing norms.

SPEAKER

Meredith Weiss is Professor of Political Science and director of Rockefeller College’s Semester in Washington Program. She has published widely on social mobilization and civil society, the politics of identity and development, electoral politics and parties, institutional reform, and subnational governance in Southeast Asia, with particular focus on Malaysia and Singapore. Her books include Student Activism in Malaysia: Crucible, Mirror, Sideshow (Cornell SEAP, 2011); Protest and Possibilities: Civil Society and Coalitions for Political Change in Malaysia (Stanford, 2006); The Roots of Resilience: Party Machines and Grassroots Politics in Southeast Asia (Cornell, 2020); and the co-authored Mobilizing for Elections: Patronage and Political Machines in Southeast Asia (Cambridge, forthcoming).

Register here for either an in-person ticket, or an online ticket.

Online attendees - will need to log in to Eventbrite at the time of the event to get the link to join the zoom webinar. Please make sure you have created an Eventbrite account associated with the email you register with.

In-person attendees - we look forward to seeing you at 3pm this Friday, in Hedley Bull 2 Theatre, in the Hedley Bull Building, corner Liversidge St and Garran Rd,  ANU, Acton, Canberra.

Share

Enquiries

ANU Malaysia Institute

Venue map

Updated:  24 April, 2017/Responsible Officer:  Dean, ANU College of Asia & the Pacific/Page Contact:  CAP Web Team