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This chapter discusses the impact of tourism on the Kampong Glam Islamic heritage site in Singapore. For tourism development purposes, the main artery of the district was converted into a pedestrian mall. Planners tried to connect contemporary marketing initiatives for Islamic heritage with the historic role of Kampong Glam as a pilgrim destination, and attempted to legitimize the intense interventions. Despite these efforts, the rapidly induced changes have caused alienation of parts of the local Muslim community from the district. The chapter portrays the challenge to showcase Kampong Glam as a center of Singapore's Islamic heritage for interested tourists, while retaining the district's role as a homestead for the local Muslim minority.

With the literal translation of “New Village,” Kampong Baharu came into existence in 1899 with an area originally of about 223 acres located between the Klang and Batu rivers. It used to be a traditional water community, where people's lifestyles were entirely dependent on the river systems, and the main sources of livelihood were fishing and agriculture. It is believed that the idea to open the settlement was mooted by His Highness The Sultan of Selangor in 1897 to provide permanent settlement for the relocated Malays who were requested to leave, so as to make way for tin mining and related activities in the areas around adjoining Klang and Gombak rivers. Today this area is located around the Kuala Lumpur Mosque at Jalan Tun Perak. This event, however, is unrecorded in history (Personal Communication with MAS, 2007). It was reserved as the Malay Agricultural Settlement (M.A.S.), composed of nine communities then reduced to seven under a special autonomy of M.A.S. The total population of the area is around 45,000 with certain variation each year. To carry out the projects mentioned above, allotments of land were approved for the Malay people along with the condition that they develop the land through crop planting. Also, schools were built and amenities including roads and even irrigation water wheels were provided. M.A.S. was mandated to manage people's lives and activities and mediate between the people and government when conflict arises.

This chapter highlights how Malaysia has experienced a successful economy through different stages since independence. The development, administration and institution-building phase was followed by reform initiatives throughout the years. Master Industrial Plans, 5-year development plans and other mid-term plans are used, which include governance and performance management reform. Today, public service reform continues to evolve with emphasis on better services, e-government and one-stop clearance centres. Under the Government Transformation Programme launched in 2010, seven National Key Results Areas have been identified, e.g., reducing crime, fighting corruption, improving education, and raising living standards of low-income households. Within this, political transformation programme, digital transformation programme, community transformation programme and social transformation programme have been created that advance public sector reforms. This chapter shows that while states and leaders remain powerful actors, leaders recognise a need to reform and overcome unethical and inefficient bureaucratic dysfunctions, or keep them at a minimum. Leaders manage such problems by using transparency to address problems of vested interests, stringent audits and punishing civil servants for criminal breaches of trust, removal of ministerial control over government-linked companies and removing resisting actors. Yet, more reforms in shepherding public service renewal are needed in sustaining reforms and reputations of public institutions. The author calls for increased values-based leadership that is inclusive at the highest levels.

Kampong Bahru is located at the heart of the “golden triangle” of Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia. The Settlement was established in 1899 as a result of the expressed desire of the Resident General and the British Resident of Selangor. Initially its objectives were: to educate the children of Malays, to take part in the administration, and to enable them to reap some of the advantages of the prosperity. The new settlement is known as Kampong Bahru (New Village). This chapter describes new innovative ways to revitalize community ties in the urban village context of Kampong Bahru. The concept of eco-communities is analyzed and specific suggested actions are presented.

In Weberian scholarship, conventional wisdom views the corruption of the modern rational-legal bureaucratic state by local patrimonialisms as an endemic feature in non-Western postcolonial state formation. The resultant neopatrimonial state is often blamed for the social, political, and economic ills plaguing these societies. This essay challenges conventional wisdom and argues that neopatrimonialism is a process of hybrid state formation that has its origins in the cultural politics of colonial state building. This is achieved by drawing on a comparative study of British Malaya and the American Philippines, which offers contrastive trajectories of colonialism and state formation in Southeast Asia.

Because of the precariousness of state power due to local resistance and class conflicts, colonial state building involved the deepening of patron–client relations for political control and of rational-legal bureaucracy for social development. In the process, local political relations were marked and displaced as traditional patrimonialisms distinguished from the new modern center. Through native elite collaborators and paternal-populist discourses, new patron–client relations were institutionalized to connect the colonial state to the native periphery. However, colonial officials with different political beliefs and ethnographic world views in the center competed over native policy and generated cyclical crises between patron-clientelist excess and bureaucratic entrepreneurship.

Instead of the prevailing view that postcolonial states are condemned to their colonial design, and that authoritarian rule favors economic development, my study shows that non-Western state formation is non-linear and follows a cyclical pattern between predation and developmentalism, the excesses of which could be moderated.

This chapter relies on comparative case analysis to examine how and why particular social entrepreneurs in a higher Asian middle income economy broke new grounds in private higher education. The study provides arguments as to why these private higher education entrepreneurs, when viewed inclusively, are social entrepreneurs. Findings from the study suggest that social entrepreneurs distinctively used prior insights from their working experiences to harness the financial power of local capital to fund the scaling up of their social ventures while simultaneously engaging with the country’s economic and social challenges.

The 2021 Malacca state election was the first state election in West Malaysia held post-2018 general election during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a state where the governmental power fell into the hands of Pakatan Harapan (PH) during the 2018 general election before switching hands to Barisan Nasional (BN) and Perikatan Nasional (PN). After losing majority support, the state assembly was dissolved to make way for a fresh election. Although the Chinese voters in this election did not show much swing towards non-PH party, the support for PH is no long as enthusiastic as before. This chapter studies the political landscape in the 2018 general election focussing on Malacca before analysing the 2021 Malacca state election result that was held during a global health crisis.

However, after Singapore's independence and separation from Malaysia on 9 August 1965, the PAP leaders were forced to change their vision of Singapore as part of Malaysia to Singapore as an independent nation, which they had earlier rejected. In other words, the PAP leaders had to “reinvent” Singapore to ensure its survival.

This chapter discusses the development of public opinion polls in Malaysia, especially those related to politics and elections in the state. It traces the early attempts at public opinion polls and their relatively recent development in estimating electoral outcomes in Malaysia. In analysing the efforts, the chapter relates the conduct of opinion polls with changing trends in Malaysia’s elections, particularly the shift from a dominant party system to one of two-coalition systems since the 12th general elections (GE12) in 2008. The chapter also discusses the role of the various actors who are involved in opinion polling, and the usual contents in such polls. It evaluates the possibility and difficulty of the polls in estimating outcomes of elections. In view of the new norms developing since the spread of COVID-19 in 2020, the chapter also explores the challenges and opportunities of public opinion polls in articulating public sentiment.