Ethnic management in Malaysia (1950s-1970s) :an analysis using historical institutionalism approach

Abstract

Horowitz (1985,1999), Lijphart (2002) and Houle (2017) claimed that in deeply divided societies, ethnic conflict management has always been a central concern of the government. It constitutes one of the challenging tasks that often result in a state national agenda for nation-building efforts. Despite the significance of this claim, the puzzle remains how a state can best manage its multi-ethnic society. While there are many unsuccessful stories about governing multi-ethnic society particularly in African countries, Malaysia’s experience has been different. It succeeds to keep ethnic conflict at a minimum level except on May 13, 1969 ethnic riot. This study offers a historical institutionalist explanation of why it is so. The analysis of Malaysia's historical trajectory from the 1950s to 1970s and its path dependency reveals that non-state institution played a significant role in explaining the absence of ethnic conflict in Malaysia. The study finds this institution had set a foundation for a specific style of ethnic management. This is done by analyzing elite power-sharing arrangement, the points of escalation of Malaysia ethnic trajectory, path dependence including the punctuation in the equilibrium of ethnic management. Because of this reason, this study contends that Malaysia had no other options to deal with its multi-ethnic problems except to manage all ethnic demands and interests instead of eliminating them. The study also includes the analysis of the working of parliament as an important state institution to discover and manage ethnic demand and interest to understand further Malaysia's elite power-sharing institution. In doing so, content analysis of the parliamentary Hansard was conducted to explore pertinent ethnic demands and interests. The analysis of parliamentary Hansard indicates that the parliament reflected significant Malay interests as a majority group while minority interests were under-represented particularly in two areas which are development and education. Elite’s interview was also conducted to solicit their perceptions on the working of these institutions in Malaysia. The analysis of these transcripts reveals three major themes about non-state and state institutions in governing multi-ethnic society in Malaysia namely the perception about function, contribution, and challenges facing these institutions. It is discovered that all respondents agreed Malaysian institutions have changed gradually to respond to its internal problems of being multi-ethnic and these institutions have always taken a moderate approach to reconciling seemingly irreconcilable conflict of interests and demands among mainly three different ethnic groups.