Gordon P. Means

Malaysian politics : the second generation

This study traces the major political events in Malaysia during two decades, focusing on political elites, their interaction, leadership styles, and the public policies emerging from responses to the problems and demands generated by an ethnically divided society. The author traces the major events and policy initiatives of three second-generation administrations: Abdul Razak, Hussein Onn, and Mahathir Mohamad.

Public Policy Toward Religion in Malaysia

M MALAYSIA is a multi-ethnic society which has been afflicted by persistent communal antipathies and intermittent communal violence.* The Malaysian Government has come to the conclusion that many of the latent ethnic hostilities are a product of the relative economic deprivation of the indigenous Malays, in comparison with the more recent immigrant communities-the Chinese, Indians, and others-who tend to dominate, if not monopolize, the more modern sectors of the economy. Because each ethnic community has tended to acquire privileged access to, and dominance over, certain functional roles in society and the economy, economic conflicts have frequently become defined by Malaysians in a communal idiom. To overcome ethnic predominance over various sectors of the economy, the government has embarked on an ambitious program known as the New Economic Policy which has as its two primary goals:

The Past in Southeast Asia's Present.

Meeting: Canadian Society for Asian Studies, Annual Conference, 8th, 4-5 Nov. 1977, Hamilton, Ont., CA