Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Malaysia

The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Malaysia offers a broad, analytical survey of Malaysia. It provides a comprehensive survey of significant topics in Malaysian politics, economy, and society today, focussing on issues, institutions, and trends. It is divided into four thematic sections, which are all introduced by the editor:

? Domestic politics

? Economics

? Social policy and social development

? International relations and security.

Now available in paperback, the volume brings together an international team of experts: an interdisciplinary mix of forty contributors from Malaysia and elsewhere, including many of the leading specialists on Malaysian affairs. The chapters included in the volume form an accessible and fascinating window onto contemporary Malaysia. They each introduce a different aspect of the Malaysian polity, economy, or society, offering both historical perspective and a current assessment or investigation. Designed for general readers and specialists alike, chapters may be read individually ? each stands on its own ? or conjointly.

Up-to-date, interdisciplinary, and academically rigorous, the Handbook will be of interest to students, academics, policymakers, and others in search of reliable information on Malaysian politics, economics, and society.

Part I. Domestic Politics Overview 1. Elections in Malaysia: Voting Behavior and Electoral Integrity 2. Malaysian Political Parties and Coalitions 3. Malaysia’s Unexceptionalism: Like Elsewhere, Elites are Fractious 4. Islam, the State and Politics in Malaysia 5. Rise of Christian Political Consciousness and Mobilisation 6. Centralized Federalism in Malaysia: Is Change in the Offing? 7. Exporting the BN/UMNO Model: Politics in Sabah and Sarawak 8. Local Government in Urban Malaysia 9. Public Administration in Malaysia: Origins, Influences and Assessment 10. Social movements in Contemporary Malaysia: The Cases of BERSIH, HINDRAF and PERKASA Part II. Economics Overview 11. Malaysia’s Development Strategies: Governing Distribution-through-Growth 12. Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Malaysia: Juggling Economic Imperatives and Political Reality 13. Affirmative Action: Hefty Measures, Mixed Outcomes, Muddled Thinking 14. The Middle Class in Malaysia: Market Expansion, Consumption and Vulnerabilities15. Natural Resource Extraction and Political Dependency: Malaysia as a Rentier State 16. Rent-seeking and Money Politics in Malaysia: Ethnicity, Cronyism and Class 17. Labour In Malaysia: Flexibility, Policymaking And Regulated Borders 18. Mainstreaming Environment and Sustainable Development Policies 19. Rural Transformations 20. The Great Transformation: Urbanisation and Urbanism in Malaysia Part III. Social policy and social development Overview 21. Ethnicity and Identity Formation: Colonial Knowledge, Colonial Structures, and Transition 22. Marginalisation of the Orang Asli of Peninsular Malaysia 23. Civil Liberties in Contemporary Malaysia: Progress, Retrogression, and the Resurgence of ‘Asian Values’ 24. Educational Reforms in Malaysia: Towards Equity, Quality and Efficiency 25. ‘1 Care’ and the Politics of Healthcare in Malaysia 26. Interfaith Relations in Malaysia: Moving Beyond Muslims versus ‘Others’ .27. Culture and the Arts in Malaysia: Playing to Multiple Galleries 28. Filling in the Gaps: The Pursuit of Gender Equality in Malaysia 29. Sexual Citizenship in Conflict Part IV. International relations and security Overview 30. Foreign Policy Priorities 31. Malaysia’s Security Concerns: A Contemporary Assessment 32. Malaysia and the United States: A Maturing Partnership 33. Malaysia-China Relations: Three Enduring Themes 34. Issues and Challenges in Contemporary Malaysian–European Relations 35. Contemporary Maritime Piracy in Malaysia

Meredith L. Weiss is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University at Albany, State University of New York, USA. She is the author of Student Activism in Malaysia: Crucible, Mirror, Sideshow (2011) and Protest and Possibilities: Civil Society and Coalitions for Political Change in Malaysia (2006), and editor of several volumes, most recently Electoral Dynamics in Malaysia: Findings from the Grassroots (2014).