Some names, like “rose”, acknowledge what exists. Others, like “unicorn”, create what otherwise would not exist. In between lie names that simultaneously describe and invent reality. “Southeast Asia” is one of these.Some who study the region treat it as if it were Shakespeare's rose: a reality existing independently of its name. Others would agree with Waddell that an observer of “Southeast Asia” who uses the name incautiously risks hallucinating unicorns: projecting homogeneity, unity, and boundedness onto a part of the world that is in fact heterogeneous, disunited, and hard to delimit.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0022463400012182

“Southeast Asia”: What's in a Name?

v NOTES ON TRANSLITERATION AND SPELLING vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS viii

The Middle Eastern influence on the development of religious and political thought in Malay society, 1880-1940

Ethnic politics has been an important feature of Malaysia’s political life since even before its formation in 1963. Despite being part of Malaysia, however, the East Malaysia state of Sabah historically was devoid of such politics. But since the formation of Malaysia, there has been a long decline in ethnic tolerance and harmony in Sabah due to the federal elite’s success in expanding ethnic politics there. This thesis investigates the following questions: How did the governing elites in Kuala Lumpur successfully expand ethnic politics to Sabah? Why was it important for the governing politicians to expand such politics to the periphery state? Why did the public allow this to happen? By carrying out in-depth ethnohistorical investigation into the role played by governing federal politicians in generating ethnicity in Sabah’s politics, this thesis notes how ethnic politics can be developed, escalated and diffused. It describes how the federal political elite’s decision to export West Malaysia’s model of ethnic based coalition government eventually established ethnicity as a feature of Sabah politics due to competition and collaboration between federal and local political elites, and competition between local politicians who elicited responses along ethno-religious lines from the public. For their part the people of Sabah came to accept the expansion there of ethnic politics and its principles of consociational democracy under pressure from the federal elite. From a policy perspective, the findings suggest that abandoning ethnic-based democracy and policies is crucial in providing more universal benefits to the citizenry and preventing full-fledged conflict within an ethnically and religiously diverse population.

/pdf/federal-political-elites-and-the-expansion-of-ethnic-9bep6rmw7o.pdf

Federal Political Elites and the Expansion of Ethnic Politics to the Periphery State of Sabah in Malaysia

iv THESIS DECLARATION vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii ABBREVIATIONS viii FIGURES ix INTRODUCTION 1 The history of international relations in Southeast Asia 2 The thesis 5 The structure of the thesis 7 1 THE ASEAN WAY – HOW HAS IT BEEN IDENTIFIED? 10 The ASEAN Way 10 Scholarly discussion of the ASEAN Way 13 (i) The principle of non-interference 14 (ii) Face-saving behaviour 18 (iii) Consultations 20 (iv) Informality 22 (v) The spirit of working together 23 The influence of Southeast Asian cultures on the ASEAN Way 24 ASEAN and its precursors: The origin of the ASEAN Way 26 Concluding remarks 29 2 AN AWAKENING OF REGIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS 31 Southeast Asia after the Japanese surrender 31 The advent of the Cold War 32 Towards self-reliance 41 The birth of regional consciousness 47

/pdf/working-together-for-peace-and-prosperity-of-southeast-asia-34g24vy4uw.pdf

"Working together" for peace and prosperity of Southeast Asia, 1945-1968: the birth of the ASEAN Way.

Managing Malaysia–Indonesia relations in the context of democratization: the emergence of non-state actors

Nationalism postulates the existence of a people and declares its right to take over an old state organization or establish a new one. A nationalist movement attempts to do this in the name of the people so postulated. Usually, the leaders of such movements come from the centre, or more precisely, the large urban areas of the envisaged state.

Angus Mcintyre

Papers

The ‘Greater Indonesia’ Idea of Nationalism in Malaya and Indonesia