THE ROLE OF POLITICAL SOCIALIZATION ON FACEBOOK AMONG MALAYSIAN CHINESE

The Barisan Nasional (BN), Malaysia's dominant coalition party that has ruled since 1957, lost the 14th general election. Various analyses were conducted, and many discussions centred on Chinese voters who had switched to opposition, Pakatan Harapan, and rejected BN entirely. This situation raises an interesting discussion about what prompted Chinese voters to make drastic changes in this ethnic-based country's politics. This study, therefore, focuses on whether political socialization in social media will build a political opportunity for Malaysian Chinese. In investigating how social media propaganda can provide Malaysian Chinese a political viewpoint, these studies argue that the internet and social media have led to unparalleled complexity in Malaysia's political socialization process. A bottom-up, constructivist approach is used to decide how social media played their position as Malaysian political socializers.

Book Review

In Participation Without Democracy, Garry Rodan argues that as a response to the dynamics and contradiction inherent in the capitalist development, the regime—representing the dominant coalition of interest, the ruling/dominant political elites—‘invent’ ways to contain conflicts with societal entities (i.e., opposition parties, civil societies, labor unions) in a way so that such conflicts do not yield politically harmful impacts. This argument is based on two propositions. First, the development of capitalism has caused inequality to deepen. Both the ruling political-economy elites and the marginal groups found this inherent inequality and disruption in capitalism created political challenges, which, as a consequence, demand mitigation strategies. Second, the established coalition of interest's tactics handle political dissents towards the regimes move beyond the binary scenarios, not just merely opening political participation or applying coercion means such as crackdown and arrest. Instead, while the elites design the participation and representation institutions as a response to domesticating dissents and conflicts, the marginal groups also respond to those channels beyond being co-opted or merely refuse to join it. Opposition parties, radical NGOs, marginal groups seek to utilize the institutions for their transformative agenda. In short, both the ruling elites and the marginal groups have been engaged in the participating institutions with different goals in mind.

Mudança de larga escala na política ambiental: análise da realidade brasileira

The Brazilian presidential elections of 2018 brought large-scale changes in the Brazilian environmental policy subsystem. The purpose of this article is to analyze these changes through the lenses of the Advocacy Coalition Framework - ACF. First, we introduced some of the main characteristics of this subsystem, then we presented a hemerographic analysis to describe and analyze the effects of four recent shocks in this subsystem. Two of these shocks were external: (i) the election of a new political elite in power that brought a clear discourse of denial of the relevance of environmental policy and (ii) calamitous environmental events that occurred in Brazil in 2019. The other two shocks were internal: (i) the capture of key positions and resources by dominant coalition members and (ii) the rise of conflict and polarization among the coalitions in the subsystem. The results showed: (i) the rise of a hyper-adversarial environmental policy subsystem; (ii) a realignment between non-dominant coalitions in a cooperative direction; (iii) the imposition of clear barriers to negotiation; (iv) changes in the use of scientific information by more politicized discourses with a high degree of bias. The article contributes to the understanding of the processes of institutional change in environmental policy, especially in contexts of large-scale change generated by increasing electoral polarization and fierce political disputes. It also contributes to the analysis of the limits and possibilities of the ACF in the Brazilian environmental agenda.

Large-scale environmental policy change: analysis of the Brazilian reality

The Brazilian presidential elections of 2018 brought large-scale changes in the Brazilian environmental policy subsystem. The purpose of this article is to analyze these changes through the lenses of the Advocacy Coalition Framework - ACF. First, we introduced some of the main characteristics of this subsystem, then we presented a hemerographic analysis to describe and analyze the effects of four recent shocks in this subsystem. Two of these shocks were external: (i) the election of a new political elite in power that brought a clear discourse of denial of the relevance of environmental policy and (ii) calamitous environmental events that occurred in Brazil in 2019. The other two shocks were internal: (i) the capture of key positions and resources by dominant coalition members and (ii) the rise of conflict and polarization among the coalitions in the subsystem. The results showed: (i) the rise of a hyper-adversarial environmental policy subsystem; (ii) a realignment between non-dominant coalitions in a cooperative direction; (iii) the imposition of clear barriers to negotiation; (iv) changes in the use of scientific information by more politicized discourses with a high degree of bias. The article contributes to the understanding of the processes of institutional change in environmental policy, especially in contexts of large-scale change generated by increasing electoral polarization and fierce political disputes. It also contributes to the analysis of the limits and possibilities of the ACF in the Brazilian environmental agenda.

The Separation of Powers

This chapter explores the judiciary’s institutional role in maintaining balance among the branches of government. To contextualize the judiciary’s fraught position, it recounts how Malaysia’s dominant coalition government infamously amended the Constitution in 1988 to remove the provision vesting judicial power in the courts. The Malaysian judiciary’s response was initially anemic, with the Federal Court appearing to concede that the courts’ powers were now at the mercy of the legislature. This chapter uses as its central case study the landmark decision of the Malaysian Federal Court in the 2017 case of Semenyih Jaya v. Pentadbir Tanah Daerah Hulu Langat. For the first time in decades, the Court struck down a federal statute, declaring that constitutional judicial power is vested solely in the courts and nullifying the 1988 constitutional amendment. Semenyih Jaya represents a landmark in Malaysia’s constitutional jurisprudence. It recognized judicial power and the separation of powers as features so central to the constitutional framework that they cannot be altered by the legislature, effectively establishing a basic structure doctrine applied to the Malaysian Constitution. With this affirmation of judicial power, the Malaysian Federal Court reanimated the separation of powers as an effective principle of checks and balances.

Are outside directors on the small and medium-sized enterprise board always beneficial? Disclosure of firm-specific information in board-management relations as the missing mechanism

In board governance literature and practice, the presence of outside directors is presumed to have a beneficial effect on board effectiveness and firm performance. This study challenges this prevailing view by exploring the boundary conditions and intermediate mechanism preventing the potential benefits of outside directors. Our results reveal that reality is more complex than previously assumed. Using unique data from a sample of 561 Belgian small and medium-sized enterprises, we find that the presence of outside directors has a neutral or even negative effect under certain boundary conditions on board service engagement in the small and medium-sized enterprises context. Family ownership control and infrequent board meetings are two important contingencies that reduce management’s propensity to disclose firm-specific information to the board in the presence of outside directors. The disclosure of such information, in turn, serves as a critical mechanism to offset firm-specific information asymmetry, associated with better board service engagement and (indirectly) enhanced firm performance. Based on our study, we articulate new theoretical insights for understanding board governance in small and medium-sized enterprises, which integrate existing board governance theories with the dominant coalition context, serving as a springboard for future board governance research.