IKMAS Seminar Series 3/2025

Beyond Regime Change: The Enduring Ideological Limits to Reform in Malaysia

  • Date: 20 June 2025 (Friday)
  • Time: 10am to 1130am
  • Venue: Meeting Room IKMAS, IKMAS Building, UKM Bangi
Mode: In-person and online
Virtual Zoom link: https://shorturl.at/Bjc8J
Please register here > https://shorturl.at/vOJPS

Abstract

The Madani Government holds a strong parliamentary supermajority but faces serious constraints in pushing through sufficient institutional reforms. Why? Part of the answer lies in the ideological framework that UMNO entrenched over decades to support and justify its dominance. That framework has never been comprehensively discredited and thus continues to structure politics and impose constraints. Understanding these is key to understanding the potential for and limits to reform in Malaysia.

Bionote

He is the HSBC Chair in Asian Research, and an Associate Professor at the School of Public Policy & Global Affairs and the Department of Political Science, the University of British Columbia (UBC). He is also the Director of UBC’s Institute of Asian Research and Associate Editor (Southeast Asia) at Pacific Affairs. His research focuses on political economy, governance, and development in Southeast Asia, with a particular emphasis on democratization, geopolitics, and Canada’s engagement with the Indo-Pacific.