Social Forces and Electoral Change in Sarawak: A Case Study of Five Social Forces
Social forces in various parts of the world have played a significant role in instituting electoral change especially a change of government. However, change of government has not taken place in Malaysia despite the emergence of social movements engineered by social forces. Nonetheless, they were...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/23863/1/Chua%20Wey%20Lin%20ft.pdf |
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| Summary: | Social forces in various parts of the world have played a significant role in instituting electoral
change especially a change of government. However, change of government has not taken
place in Malaysia despite the emergence of social movements engineered by social forces.
Nonetheless, they were able to bring about significant electoral change in the 2008 and 2013
elections. The Barisan Nasional (BN) government lost a few states during this period but
Sarawak remains a BN stronghold. Through Migdal (1994) State-In-Society theory, a
qualitative research was carried out to study the pattern of Sarawak social forces and its
contestation towards the state in instituting for electoral change. Many Sarawak social forces
that can be seen pushing for electoral change suffer from weak internal and external structures.
Restricted by their weak structures, these social forces work only on their issues of concern
and are very localised in terms of geographical concentration. Over-concentration on their
own issues of concern and being too localised geographically results in no cooperation
between Sarawak social forces to form one large mass movement advocating issues that can
bring about significant electoral change or a change of government. Nevertheless, two social
forces of ROSE and the BMF had played a role in instituting electoral change in the state.
Freer and fairer election and an increase in number of seats gained by the opposition in
Sarawak were credited to the role played by ROSE and the BMF. Therefore, social forces may
not be successful in instituting for a change of government in the state but it has undeniably
played a role in bringing about electoral change in Sarawak. |
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