Engaging divided society in the nation-building process : the case of government communication in Malaysia
16 Jul 2020-
TL;DR: Thematic analysis on all eleven national action plan (NAP) documents known as Malaysia Plan (1965-2016) was conducted to enable the pattern of similarities and differences in nation-building and government communication strategies to be identified over time as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: This thesis explores how government engages with a divided society in the context of nation-building. The widely used yet loosely understood concept of ‘engagement’ in the context of government communication is the focus of this thesis. By using Malaysia as the case study, this research investigates how citizens are communicatively constructed in the context of Malaysia’s post-independence nation-building process. This study is significant because research on citizen engagement in Malaysia’s nation-building is limited and studies focusing on the concept of engagement in deeply divided societies are also scarce.Thematic analysis on all eleven national action plan (NAP) documents known as Malaysia Plan (1965-2016) was conducted to enable the pattern of similarities and differences in nation-building and government communication strategies to be identified over time. Semi-structured elite interviews with the elite actors in Malaysia’s federal government were conducted to understand the government’s articulation and operationalisation of engagement in the context of nation-building process.The key findings from the NAPs reveal that the nation-building in Malaysia takes in a form of national identity project. Adopting an elite instrumentalist approach, national unity becomes the focal communicative strategy in the construction of the national identity. The elite interviews on the other hand demonstrate that government actors tend to describe engagement using the notion of dialogic communication. While acknowledging the advancement in communication technologies, government actors emphasise that the face-to-face engagement initiatives with the citizens are of central importance in the nation-building process.This thesis contributes to the studies of government strategic communication in the context of a deeply divided society that has been characterised as "plural society" that is in a state of “stable tension” (Shamsul, 2009). It helps to develop a richer understanding and knowledge of Malaysia’s nation-building process and approach as a modern postcolonial nation.
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TL;DR: For instance, during debates over East Timor's political status that occurred between 1975 and 1999, Indonesia emphasised the ethnic kinship between Indonesians and East Timorese.
Abstract: East Timor's twin experiences of colonialism established its collective identity and internally recognised rights of self-determination. Political boundaries were created through negotiated treaties between Portugal and the Netherlands, and Portuguese colonialism provided East Timor with its status as a non-self-governing territory under international law in 1960. Indonesian colonialism resulted in a discursive battle over identity as both the Indonesian government and East Timor's independence movement employed ethnocultural narratives and myths to persuade the international community of the legitimacy of their respective political claims. During debates over East Timor's political status that occurred between 1975 and 1999, Indonesia emphasised the ethnic ‘kinship’ between Indonesians and East Timorese. In contrast, East Timor's representatives emphasised cultural links with Portugal and Melanesia to prove its distinctiveness from Indonesia.
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TL;DR: Anthony Stockwell as mentioned in this paper is a Professor of Imperial and Commonwealth History at Royal Holloway, University of London, who was a Vice-President of the Royal Asiatic Society in 2002 and 2003.
Abstract: Anthony Stockwell is Professor of Imperial and Commonwealth History at Royal Holloway, University of London. He was President of the Royal Asiatic Society in 2002–2003 and is currently a Vice-President. His publications include British Policy and Malay Politics during the Malayan Union Experiment (1979) and, as editor, British Documents on End of Empire: Malaya, 1942–1957 (three parts, 1995). He has been joint editor of the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History since 1990. This is a version of a lecture delivered to the Royal Society for Asian Affairs on 26 February 2003.
7 citations
Abstract: The current issue of the European Journal of East Asian Studies addresses the topic of nation-building. It has been chosen because the term ‘nation-building’ has been revived, so to speak, in the social sciences as well as in anthropology and history, for several reasons. It has also become a common term these days in the arena of international politics; its notion is positive and clearly distinguished from more ‘alarming’ terms such as ‘nationalism’. In the field of international relations, nation-building has gained a prominent position in the debate on failing or even failed states, conflict management and development theory. It is legitimate to say that nation-building has re-entered the debate, for it had been relegated to the backbenches during the latter half of the Cold War period—at least in the perception of Western observers. In Asia and particularly in the post-colonial nation-states of South and Southeast Asia, however, nation-building has been a constant part of the political agenda since the 1950s. The articles in this volume relate to this importance. The Western world turned its eyes back towards nation-building when the great conflict areas of the 1990s, such as Somalia, the Balkans, Afghanistan and lately Iraq, offered a gruesome picture of what state failure and societal fragmentation can mean to the inhabitants of an entity called a nation-state. On an international level, nation-building is currently discussed from an instrumental perspective. As Jochen Hippler points out, nation-building is regarded ‘either as a preventive political option to avoid the break-up of the state and social fragmentation, as an alternative to military conflict management, as part of military interventions or as an element of post-conflict policies’.1 The instrumental character is obviously emphasised by external observers of processes of nation-building rather than by insiders. The view from within a
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TL;DR: A review of the literature on listening as related to the contexts of religion and spirituality suggests that while religious/spiritual groups and individuals recognize listening as a communication and spiritual construct and claim to practice listening, the views of what constitutes listening vary greatly as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: A review of the literature on listening as related to the contexts of religion and spirituality suggests that while religious/spiritual groups and individuals recognize listening as a communication and spiritual construct and claim to practice listening, the views of what constitutes listening vary greatly. In their discussions of listening, writers focus primarily on practicing listening and on aspects of the greater listening process rather than on a well-grounded understanding of how listening is related to religion and spirituality. Many of the reports of the role of listening are based on untested assumptions; thus, researchers are encouraged to investigate the role of listening in religion and spirituality with scientifically based methods.
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