Attitudes toward democracy in Malaysia: Challenges to the regime?

Asian Survey

Volumn 36, Issue 9, 1996, Pages 882-901

  Welsh, Bridget ^a  

^a Och Spine at New York Presbyterian Hospitals

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DEMOCRACY; DEVELOPING COUNTRY; ETHNICITY; POLITICAL ATTITUDES; RACIAL DIFFERENCE;

MALAYSIA;

EID: 0030389744     PISSN: 00044687     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/as.1996.36.9.01p0166v     Document Type: Article

References (14)

1. This term was first used to describe Malaysia by Zakaria Haji Ahmad, "Malaysia's Semi-Democracy," in L. Diamond, J. C. Linz, and S. M. Lipset, Democracy in Developing Countries, vol. 3 Asia (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1989), and is based on a procedural definition of democracy.
2. This statement does not completely reflect important changes in the democratic status of the regime. Before 1969 the regime was considerably more democratic; after 1982, under the leadership of the current prime minister, it has been seen as more undemocratic.
3. Population and Housing Census of Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur: Department of Statistics, 1991).
4. Further information about the methodology and sampling methods adopted, a copy of the questionnaire, as well as details of index construction and correlations found in the analysis, are available from the author, Department of Political Science, Columbia University, New York, N.Y. 10027.
5. Sabah's responses to the main indexes are listed in parentheses. Their closeness to the capital results are striking. Unfortunately, problems with the method of selecting these respondents makes a further exploration of these views unproductive.
6. A difference of .10 or 10% is considered significant throughout the article. If the results between the capital and non-capital areas are not significantly different, the average result is presented in the text.
7. These questions were: "The Prime Minister should decide when national elections should be held or the Parliament? PM (1)/ Parliament (2)/ Other (3)"; "When making alliances, should political party leaders be able to act on their own or should they be required to get permission first from ordinary members? Act Own (2)/ Get Permission (1)/ Other (3)"; and "Our national political leaders always listen to the voice of the people when they make decisions. Do you agree or disagree?"
8. The other question read: "Any issue, however sensitive, should be discussed in Parliament? Do you agree or disagree?"
9. The question read: "In deciding cases, should the courts be independent from governing political leaders or should the courts follow the advice of governing political leaders? Independent (1)/ Follow Advice (2)/ Other (3)."
10. The four questions addressing the media were: 1. "Is it okay if the media is allied with political leaders, or should it be independent? Allied (2)/ Independent (1)/ Other (3)"; 2. "Should the media be allowed to publish or broadcast even the most sensitive issues or should there be laws that limit the media's freedom in certain areas? Allowed (1)/ Limited (2)/ Other (3)"; 3. "If a newspaper regularly criticizes the government, should it have the right to continue publishing or should the government have the power to close it down? Publish (1)/ Close Down (2)/ Other (3)"; 4. "Consider the way the media reports news about the government. Is the media doing a good job of watching over the government, is it too critical, or is it not critical enough? Good Job (1)/ Too Critical (2)/ Not Critical Enough (3)/ Other (4)."
11. Similar to the categorization laid out in assessing mean values, a correlation below 2.0 is "weak," from 2.0 to 4.0 is "moderate," 4.1 to 6.0 is "strong," 6.1 and above is "very strong." All correlations are reported at a significance of P = .05 or less.
12. The question was: "Do you think there are distinctly 'Asian values' or are values the same everywhere? Asian (1)/ Same (2)/ Other (3)" and "(If yes to former), what are they?"
13. Due to the way the social order index was constructed, it was impossible to evaluate this hypothesis in relationship to the issue of political participation.
14. Findings reported are correlations for two or more different groups and fall into the moderate to strong range. For Malays in the capital, lower class (lc) = 59, middle class (mc) = 28, and upper class (uc) = 12; in non-capital areas, n is lc = 31, mc = 28, uc = 14. For Indians in the capital, n is lc = 123, mc = 8, uc = 5; in non-capital areas, lc = 43, mc = 5, and uc = 1. For Chinese n is lc = 16, mc = 23, and uc = 1 in the capital, and lc = 18, mc = 28, and uc = 4 in non-capital areas. A number of correlations on specific issues found for one group were not reported.