ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how the current phase of economic globalization has affected Malaysia, a classic plural society in which economic performance has underpinned political legitimacy. focusing on the 1990s, it empirically investigates the role capital has played in this period in bolstering the Malaysian economy as well as contributing to its social cohesion and political stability. The Mahathir government maintains only a tenuous legitimacy where ethnic policies and autocratic politics are ameliorated by performance legitimacy rather than political legitimacy anchored within a strong civil society. Genuine political legitimacy remains problematic for a political regime which not only continually fails to redress fundamental economic problems but one which also persistently ignores the demands, interests and rights of civil society. The chapter presents an analysis of economic globalization in the context of East Asian development and to the 1997/98 financial crisis and meltdown. Finally, it addresses prospects for capital, ethnicity, governance and political legitimacy in Malaysia.
