ABSTRACT
In a seminal article on elite recruitment and political development, Lester Seligman argued that “whether a new state can maintain both stability and development hinges on the integration of its political elites. The politically “eligible” enter the elite as the culmination of a “career path.” In the developing polity, recruitment is a major regulator of the infusion of new values and identities into the political elite. The chapter analyses the recruitment of Malaysian MPs to the divergent requirements of democracy and conflict management in divided societies, and attempts to construct a typology of the career paths which brought our respondents to the Dewan Rakyat. The selection process for the election of MPs begins with party nominations. The multiplicity of communal parties and the single-member constituency make the nomination procedure particularly important in the Malaysian context and increase the value of unity within parties and cooperation among parties.
