經濟發展、民主化與族群政治－－馬來西亞的個案

Economic Development, Democratization, and Ethnic Politics in Malaysia

在政治發展理論中，現代化理論者認為經濟發展將創造出政治民主。然而，對於第三世界國家而言，「特例」的情形常可發現。馬來西亞是個發展中國家，大多數的學者並不認為馬來西亞是一個「完全的」民主體制。本文認為「族群政治」一直是馬來西亞政治主要的特徵，「經濟發展」之所以沒有帶來馬來西亞進一步民主化，是因為「族群政治」的社會結構維持了馬來西亞的威權政體。由於「族群政治」的因素，加上馬哈迪在「經濟發展」、「威權民主」與「族群政治」之間擺盪的政治操作，是他能繼續維持不墜的主要原因。

In the theory of political development, modernization theorists believe that economic development will result in political democracy. Yet this is often not the case in the Third World. Being one of the developing countries, Malaysia is not regarded as a truly democratic polity by most scholars. This author argues that ethnic politics has been a characteristic of Malaysian politics for years. The reason that Malaysia's economic development did not bring about further democratization is because the authoritarian polity is closely connected to the social structure of Malaysia's ethnic politics. Due to ethnic politics, together with Dr. Mahathir's political manipulation of economic development and authoritarian democracy, Mr. Mahathir is able to continue to remain in power.