Page 97 - Towards_a_New_Malaysia_The_2018_Election_and_Its_6146371_(z-lib.org)

5

Politics of Reform and the Triumph of

Pakatan Harapan: Continuity in Change

Johan Saravanamuttu

is chapter argues that progressive steps along a path valorised by institutional,
ideological, and programmatic developments will lead to increasing returns on
that path. Speci cally, it posits that the outcome of the 14th general election
in Malaysia (GE14) was on such a path. A path-dependence approach serves
to illuminate trajectories of electoral successes and also explains how electoral
successes are continued and enhanced. Such an approach draws from the
1
seminal work of Paul Pierson (2000, 2004) who adapted notions used in
economics and business studies to the analysis of politics. Path-dependence
theorizing puts the accent on the potential for progressive institutional change
in contrast to a broad genre of work that stresses the authoritarian stability
and resilience (Slater 2010) of ‘semi-democracies’ like Malaysia (Case 1993).
In my own earlier work, I have tried to show the relevance of path dependence
in framing a trajectory of democratization in Malaysian electoral politics
(Saravanamuttu 2012 and 2016: 12–13). e present essay on the outcome
of GE14 draws on this previous work, which argued that such a process was
path-dependent and largely substantiated by a new politics of reform that has
driven electoral change and transition since the late 1990s.
An important notion of path-dependence theory is ‘ rst-mover advantage’
(FMA), normally used in business studies to refer to the technological
advantage of a pioneering rm or a new entrant in a eld of enterprise.
Coupled with FMA is the notion of ‘increasing returns’, which, in brief,
refers to the probability that further steps along a particular path tend to
lead to increases down that path (Pierson 2000). Both concepts are central

82

This content downloaded from 139.80.253.0 on Fri, 06 Nov 2020 04:22:05 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms