Failed Autocratization: Malaysia under Najib Razak (2009–2018)

IF 1.4 4区社会学 Q1 AREA STUDIES

Pacific Affairs Pub Date : 2022-09-01 DOI:10.5509/2022953527

Andreas Ufen

引用次数: 2

Abstract

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak's systematic strategy of autocratization backfired. This paper is based on a model of three pillars of authoritarian regimes. It traces the di erent strategies and measures employed to weaken the opposition and shows that major survival strategies were prone to frequent shifts. At the beginning of his tenure, Najib depicted himself as a reformer, and refined some forms of repression. The regime scrapped central coercive tools such as the Internal Security Act, but later replaced them with kindred, yet ine ective measures. Co-optation was more centralized and "money politics" expanded. The widespread and unprecedented usage of patronage resulted in corruption, which fundamentally destabilized the regime. Legitimation was modified since 2013 to a more Malay-centric and Islamist discourse. Because of this shift, legitimation eroded among ethnic and religious minorities. The prime minister's legitimacy shrank due to corruption scandals. This paper helps gauge the lacking complementarity of the pillars and the failures of an authoritarian regime in crisis, which is important also with a view to political developments in Malaysia since 2018.

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马来西亚总理纳吉布·拉扎克(Najib Razak)系统性的独裁策略适得其反。这篇论文是基于专制政权的三大支柱模型。它追溯了用来削弱反对派的不同策略和措施，并表明主要的生存策略容易频繁变化。在他的任期之初，纳吉布将自己描绘成一个改革者，并改进了一些镇压形式。该政权废除了《内部安全法》(Internal Security Act)等中央强制手段，但后来用类似但有效的措施取而代之。联选更加集中，“金钱政治”扩大。广泛和前所未有的任人唯亲导致了腐败，从根本上破坏了政权的稳定。自2013年以来，合法化被修改为更以马来人为中心和伊斯兰主义的话语。由于这种转变，合法性在少数民族和宗教群体中受到侵蚀。由于腐败丑闻，总理的合法性下降了。本文有助于衡量支柱之间缺乏互补性以及危机中的专制政权的失败，这对于2018年以来马来西亚的政治发展也很重要。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Pacific Affairs AREA STUDIES-

CiteScore

1.60

自引率

12.50%

发文量

期刊介绍： Pacific Affairs has, over the years, celebrated and fostered a community of scholars and people active in the life of Asia and the Pacific. It has published scholarly articles of contemporary significance on Asia and the Pacific since 1928. Its initial incarnation from 1926 to 1928 was as a newsletter for the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR), but since May 1928, it has been published continuously as a quarterly under the same name. The IPR was a collaborative organization established in 1925 by leaders from several YMCA branches in the Asia Pacific, to “study the conditions of the Pacific people with a view to the improvement of their mutual relations.”