The geographic scope of opposition challenges in Malaysia’s Parliament
Publication Type
Journal Article
Publication Date
6-2023
Abstract
During the long rule of the BN (Barisan Nasional) coalition prior to 2018, Malaysia’s parliament, the Dewan Rakyat, was largely absent from analyses of political contestation between the ruling government and its opposition. Nevertheless, during this period, opposition MPs were active users of available legislative tools such as parliamentary questions, offering a rich source of data about their priorities and political positioning. This article investigates how MPs from the opposition used parliamentary questions to build their public reputations, and whether those reputations were built around attention to local, subnational, or national issues. It uses an original dataset of over 37,000 oral questions submitted by MPs in Malaysia’s House of Representatives from 2008–2018. I find that opposition MPs were more likely to focus on local and subnational reputation-building compared to ruling government MPs. These differences were especially pronounced in East Malaysia, where opposition MPs were heavily oriented towards local infrastructure and issues of state underdevelopment and autonomy. I explain these findings as a result of the opposition’s need to build a constituency reputation in lieu of access to state resources, as well as a greater responsiveness to local- and region-specific grievances. This focus both complements, and differs from, how Malaysia’s MPs used extra-parliamentary strategies to cultivate personal and party reputation.
Keywords
authoritarian legislatures, opposition parties, parliamentary questions, regionalism, Malaysia
Discipline
Asian Studies | Political Science
Research Areas
Political Science
Publication
Pacific Affairs
Volume
96
Issue
2
First Page
253
Last Page
279
ISSN
0030-851X
Identifier
10.5509.2023962253
Publisher
Pacific Affairs
Citation
DETTMAN, Sebastian Carl.(2023). The geographic scope of opposition challenges in Malaysia’s Parliament. Pacific Affairs, 96(2), 253-279.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3784
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.5509.2023962253