231. Democracy and Development at Risk: The Monetization of Politics in Malaysia. Sponsored by the Malaysia-Singapore-Brunei Studies Group

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel

Abstract

Electoral democracy and equitable development in Malaysia may be at risk because of money politics. This panel seeks to explain money politics in its different manifestations such as rent seeking, patronage politics, party capitalism and, in most recent years, open kleptocratic practices. The increasing monetization of politics has involved the use of the corporate sector and sovereign and national saving funds. The latter is epitomized by the 1MDB financial debacle which has seen losses of some USD13 billion from the country's coffers. This scandal involved investigations by at least five other national governments over offences from fraud to money laundering. What are the causes of this regressive slide towards kleptocracy? Has money politics intensified as the success of the ruling National Front coalition wanes over the last two general elections? Is Malaysia's system of ethnic democracy, one that favours Malay rule over other ethnic groups one of its origins? Panelists will examine political business in Government-Linked Investment Companies (GLICs), rent allocation through political patronage networks, and sovereign wealth funds as primary vehicles in entwining business and politics. Corruption and one-party dominance are linked to a conflict of the accumulation process, a weakening state (paper by Tan), the relegation of politics to short-term corporate goals (paper by Elder), a financial concentration in the hands of the prime minister (paper by Gomez) and a more fragmented ethnic landscape which induces the monetization, rather than the manufacture of consensus (paper by Mohamad and Saravanamuttu).

Area of Study

• Southeast

Session Organizer

• Johan Saravanamuttu, Nanyang Technological University

Chair

• Meredith L. Weiss, State University of New York, Albany

Individual Presentations

• State Accumulation, Patronage and Conflict in Malaysia - Jeff Tan, Aga Khan University

• Stealing Time, Banking Like a State: Sovereign Wealth Funds in Malaysia and Beyond - Laura Elder, Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame

• Who Owns Corporate Malaysia Now? Politics, Money and Control of Government-Linked Investment Companies - Edmund Terence Gomez, University of Malaya

• From Manufactured to Monetized Consensus: The Material Basis of One-Party Dominance - Maznah Mohamad, National University of Singapore; Johan Saravanamuttu, Nanyang Technological University

Discussant

• Meredith L. Weiss, State University of New York, Albany