Political Economy of the Muslim Middle Class in Southeast Asia: Religious Expression Trajectories in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdur Rozak ◽  
Bayu Mitra A. Kusuma ◽  
Abd. Aziz Faiz
2001 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel P. S. Goh

AbstractSoutheast Asia has come under scholarly focus for the contradictions of rapid development and environmental protection, and the ensuing politics. Most give Singapore a miss because it is a "strange" case that does not fit into a region where affected local peoples, "middle class" activists and developmental states struggle over the exploitation of natural resources and environmental degradation. This paper claims that analysis of the "quiet" politics of environment in Singapore is instructive, and can correct the materialist bias evident in the understanding of Southeast Asian political economy/ecology. It argues that urban "middle class" environmental activism is a manifestation of resistance to enlarging systems of governance allied with capital. Environmentalism can be seen as a response against the encroachment of the system into the intimate living places of the lifeworld. This response is embedded within an international public sphere that enables environmental politics. These activists derive their motivation and political strength from public moral discursive actions. Environmentalism is a contemporary reflection of a fundamental sociological theme, the discontents' moral struggle for the good society, not necessarily reflecting parochial class interests.


Author(s):  
Afrida Arinal Muna

<p>The <em>hijrah</em> campaign or massive movement that invites Muslims to become a better person by practicing religious teachings is more vigorously voiced in the digital era, including on social media, as we can find on ‘detiknews’ that the hastag #<em>hijrah</em> in the instagram search box more than 1,7 million posts. The <em>hijrah</em> account on facebook has also been followed by more than 300 thousand accounts. This phenomenon cannot be denied also by the artists, because this phenomenon is massive in the middle to upper class, who have the opportunity to consume issues trending or viral on social media. The trend in <em>hijrah</em> activities also influenced a series of celebrities who decided to <em>hijrah</em> with different processes. I assume that celebrities who do <em>hijrah</em> actually want not only to show their new religious expression by showing their peity to the public but also to be  a form of ‘accomodating protest’ that before they decide to <em>hijrah</em>, there is a kind of bullying that is the emergence of stigmas of a fear of a decline in their image in public when an artist <em>hijrah</em> with his new hijab style, but instead there is a kind of resistance that celebrities want to come out to public that they can still exist in even though wearing the hijab. There is also an political economic strategy played by the artists by making some innovations such as halal industry. This is their target because the trends have been becoming a massive consumerism trend by the millenial Muslim middle class, which is believed to be economic booster of the 21<sup>st</sup> century.</p><p> </p><p><em>Kampanye hijrah atau gerakan massif yang mengajak kaum </em><em>M</em><em>uslim untuk menjadi pribadi yang lebih baik dengan menjalankan ajaran agama semakin gencar disuarakan di era digital. di era digital, termasuk di media sosial, sebagaimana dapat kita temukan di ‘detiknews’ bahwa tagar #hijrah di kotak pencarian instagram terdapat lebih dari 1,7 juta postingan, akun hijrah di facebook juga sudah diikuti lebih dari 300 ribu akun. Fenomena ini tidak bisa dinafikan juga dari kalangan artis, karena fenomena ini masif ditemui di kalangan kelas menengah ke atas yang berkesempatan mengonsumi isu-isu yang menjadi tren atau viral di media sosial. Tren aktivitas hijrah ini pun mempengaruhi sederet selebriti yang memutuskan untuk hijrah dengan proses yang berbeda-beda. Saya berasumsi bahwa selebriti yang melakukan hijrah sebenarnya tidak hanya ingin menunjukkan ekspresi keberagamaan barunya dengan menunjukkan kesalehannya terhadap publik, tetapi juga sebagai sebuah bentuk ‘accomodating protest‘ bahwa sebelum mereka memutuskan untuk hijrah ada sejenis bully-an yaitu munculnya stigma-stigma ketakutan menurunnya citra mereka di hadapan publik ketika seorang artis melakukan hijrah dengan style hijab barunya, tetapi justru ada semacam perlawanan yang ingin ditunjukkan oleh para selebriti kepada masyarakat bahwa mereka tetap bisa eksis walaupun memakai jilbab dan juga ada strategi politik ekonomi yang dimainkan oleh artis-artis hijrah tersebut dengan membuat inovasi-inovasi industri halal, tren hijab yang semakin down-to-earth, dan yang lainnya. Industri halal tersebut menjadi sasaran mereka karena tren tersebut menjadi tren konsumerisme yang masif oleh kelas menengah </em><em>M</em><em>uslim milenial yang diyakini sebagai penggerak ekonomi abad-21. </em></p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Falih Suaedi ◽  
Muhmmad Saud

This article explores in what ways political economy as an analytical framework for developmental studies has contributed to scholarships on Indonesian’s contemporary discourse of development. In doing so, it reviews important scholarly works on Indonesian political and economic development since the 1980s. The argument is that given sharp critiques directed at its conceptual and empirical utility for understanding changes taking place in modern Indonesian polity and society, the political economy approach continues to be a significant tool of research specifically in broader context of comparative politics applied to Indonesia and other countries in Southeast Asia. The focus of this exploration, however, has shifted from the formation of Indonesian bourgeoisie to the reconstitution of bourgeois oligarchy consisting of the alliance between the politico-bureaucratic elite and business families. With this in mind, the parallel relationship of capitalist establishment and the development of the state power in Indonesia is explainable.<br>


1970 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 419-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. D. Steele

The first part of this study of Mill sought to show how much less radical he was on the subject of Irish land reform than is often supposed. In the earlier editions of the Principles of Political Economy from 1848 to 1857 there were passages which constituted a terrible indictment of landlordism, and insisted on the need for legislation to convert the tenant farmers into joint owners of their holdings: but in another passage this harsh criticism was substantially withdrawn, and the demand for fixity of tenure effectively retracted. Although they continued to reproduce the criticism and the call for a drastic measure, the editions of 1862 and 1865 were more moderate still in their conclusions on Irish land. With the progress of the changes in the economy and society set in motion by the Great Famine, Mill became more strongly convinced that the country should be left to evolve slowly under the existing law of tenure, only slightly amended. One cannot imagine Mill saying, ‘tenant-right…is equivalent to landlords' wrong’: but he and Palmerston were none the less in nearly complete agreement by 1865 on the degree of laissez-faire that was desirable in Ireland. For all his strictures upon aristocratic misgovernment and middle-class prejudice, Mill was too warm an admirer of British institutions to want to undermine their social basis over a wide area of the United Kingdom. The second part of this study deals with his action and his motives, in briefly advocating, without any reservations this time, the revolutionary land legislation from which he had always previously shrunk, despite his brave words written for the earlier editions of the Principles.


2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 659-662 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Waddell

Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson's Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class is both a work of political science and a contribution to broad public discussion of distributive politics. Its topic could not be more relevant to a US polity wracked by bitter partisan disagreements about taxes, social spending, financial regulation, social insecurity, and inequality. The political power of “the rich” is a theme of widespread public attention. The headline on the cover of the January–February 2011 issue of The American Interest—“Inequality and Democracy: Are Plutocrats Drowning Our Republic?”—is indicative. Francis Fukuyama's lead essay, entitled “Left Out,” clarifies that by “plutocracy,” the journal means “not just rule by the rich, but rule by and for the rich. We mean, in other words, a state of affairs in which the rich influence government in such a way as to protect and expand their own wealth and influence, often at the expense of others.” Fukuyama makes clear that he believes that this state of affairs obtains in the United States today.Readers of Perspectives on Politics will know that the topic has garnered increasing attention from political scientists in general and in our journal in particular. In March 2009, we featured a symposium on Larry Bartels's Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. And in December 2009, our lead article, by Jeffrey A. Winters and Benjamin I. Page, starkly posed the question “Oligarchy in the United States?” and answered it with an equally stark “yes.” Winner-Take-All Politics thus engages a broader scholarly discussion within US political science, at the same time that it both draws upon and echoes many “classic themes” of US political science from the work of Charles Beard and E. E. Schattschneider to Ted Lowi and Charles Lindblom.In this symposium, we have brought together a group of important scholars and commentators who offer a range of perspectives on the book and on the broader themes it engages. While most of our discussants are specialists on “American politics,” we have also sought out scholars beyond this subfield. Our charge to the discussants is to evaluate the book's central claims and evidence, with a focus on three related questions: 1) How compelling is its analysis of the “how” and “why” of recent US public policy and its “turn” in favor of “the rich” and against “the middle class”? 2) How compelling is its critique of the subfield of “American politics” for its focus on the voter–politician linkage and on “politics as spectacle” at the expense of an analysis of “politics as organized combat”? 3) And do you agree with its argument that recent changes in US politics necessitate a different, more comparative, and more political economy–centered approach to the study of US politics?—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (01) ◽  
pp. 113-133
Author(s):  
Ade Priangani ◽  
Jeremy Aldi Rezki Hattu

South China Sea (SCS) dispute is a matter of seizure or claim of a territory by some countries is indeed a complicated problem. Conflicts involving China with some members of ASEAN have heated up. To improve relations with ASEAN, China through persuasive attitudes and actions. Due to liberalization strategy of China's political economy over SCS especially to ASEAN. The success of ASEAN over the last 50 years has made ASEAN a market share by the major powers that gave birth to a "rivalry". This research uses descriptive method and historical method, where the research is focused on the plan and action of liberalization of China's political economy to face the rivality of the major countries correlation with the dynamics of SCS conflict. The results of this research are: ASEAN succeeded in maintaining peace of political security stability but difference of opinion related issue of sensitive SCS dispute become challenge entering the next 50 years. SCS is actually becoming OBOR's maritime silk line to Southeast Asia. Facing the rivalry of the big countries, China uses its economic card as a control over ASEAN. AIIB as China's bargaining opportunity to ASEAN. So China can easily get rid of western influence and win ASEAN diplomatically.


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