Political Identities in Malaysia since Its Independence in...

Q: Since gaining independence in 1957, which social cleavages have been important in shaping the identities of political parties in Malaysia? As is the case for many (relatively) new democracies, Malaysia’s electoral backdrop has been influenced by competing social cleavages since gaining its independence in 1957. But which social cleavages have been important in shaping the identities of political parties in Malaysia? This essay highlights which social cleavages have played an instrumental part in maintaining the identities of each of the major parties within Malaysia, and which cleavage dimension has been politicised to create the strongest electoral division. It will first assess to what extent social cleavages in Malaysia have been†¦show more content†¦The resulting cleavage structure is the product of complex relations of crosscutting and reinforcing cleavages – largely defining the setup of a party system which outlines political platforms, individual party behaviour, and the potential for coalition forming. To assess which cleavage structures have typically divided voters within a given party system, the party system must have been ‘frozen’ – whereby the party system has effectively politicised a certain issue dimension where political parties emerge from and have maintained their relevance in the system due to the salience of such issues. For many Western democracies, Lipset and Rokkan assessed that two revolutions have been responsible for structuring certain cleavages in party systems: the national revolution was responsible for politicising the differences of the centre/periphery and the religious/secular while the industrial revolution characterised the urban/rural and capital/labour divides. However, Malaysia is a relatively new democracy. There has never been a national revolution which divided the centre/periphery and the religious/secular, nor was it the case of urban/rural and capital/labour divides of the industrial revolution – at least not to the point of freezing the party system. So how can we apply the model put forth by Lipset and Rokkan to account for the politicisation of social cleavages in Malaysia? Ufen writes that the structures of party systems mirror real socialShow MoreRelatedMalaysias International Relations Essay956 Words   |  4 Pagesof growth, and official manipulation of social identities join in the regulation of social order that facilitates capital accrual while maintaining state legitimacy in a multi-ethnic context. Therefore the term international relations can be describe in various dimensions such as political economy that basically looking into way of discovering how politics generates power over economics as well as associate. 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