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Acknowledgements

is book had its genesis in discussions between the two editors, starting well
before Malaysia’s 14th general election, about the impending, sure-to-be-
signi cant event and our shared interest in gathering together smart people to
talk and write about it, ideally in a way that might help move the conversation
on Malaysian politics forward. We started to line up potential participants and
contributors as we waited for the big day. Having planned the project so far
in advance of the election, we neither knew nor (frankly) expected what the
outcome would be. e project suddenly became even more interesting!
One week after the 9 May general election, we organized a workshop at
the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS) at Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia (National University of Malaysia). Our aim was to put
together a book examining the historic general election—one that would go
beyond simply recounting what happened and where (however important that
task also is), to try to tease out trends, patterns, and implications for Malaysia
and for our theories of how politics works. All but two of the chapters in this
book (Chapter 6 by Ross Tapsell and Chapter 9 by David Kloos) originated
in that preliminary workshop. We are very grateful to IKMAS for hosting and
to our participants, who came together before the dust had even fully settled
after the election to present sketches of their proposed chapters for feedback,
then worked diligently to hone their analyses and deliver their manuscripts
unusually e ciently, despite busy schedules. It has been a pleasure working
alongside each of them. Our thanks, too, to Francis Loh Kok Wah, former
professor of political science at Universiti Sains Malaysia, who participated
in our post-election workshop and who contributed valuable suggestions to
help guide the authors as they developed their chapters, and to E. Terence
Gomez, professor of political economy at Universiti Malaya, who joined the
two editors in a related pre-workshop public forum hosted by the University
of Nottingham Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur campus.
e Merdeka Center for Opinion Research, widely considered (including
by us!) to be Malaysia’s premier pollsters, provided nancial support for the
project. As political scientists, we owe the Merdeka Center thanks more
generally, too, for their ongoing support for social-science research and
publication.

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