Party Cooperation And Ethnic Politics:A Study Of The Institutional Change Of Political Parties In Malaysia

In a multi-ethnic society,the ethnicization of politics is an important feature of political functioning,and the reality of communal politics lays down the potential for ethnic conflict.As a multi-ethnic country,Malaysia has a long history of relative political stability and generally harmonious ethnic relations.However,Malaysia is also heavily influenced by ethnic politics.Since independence,Malaysia’s political development has been characterized by a pendulum swing between "beyond ethnic politics" and "ethnic politics".The root cause of this alternation is the alternation between the logic of "short-term electoral competition beyond ethnic politics" and"long-term ethnic politics that prioritizes ethnic interests" in the Malaysian political arena.Malaysian politics is characterized by ethnic party politics,where the main political parties are ethnic parties and the specific role played by each ethnic party in political practice is constrained by the specific party system.The influence of ethnic politics in the sense of party system is manifested by the fact that party alliances characterized by ethnic party cooperation form the "center" parties,while ethnic parties characterized by more extreme ethnicism are the "flanking" parties,and the center parties are an important reason for the emergence or strengthening of the flanking parties.Thus,the persistence of both center and flanking parties has delayed the elimination of the problem of ethnic politics.Through a comparative historical study of the Malaysian political party system,this paper argues that the key to overcoming the problem of ethnic politics under the conditions of party politics is to overcome the"center-flank" relationship in party politics,i.e.,the key is to minimize the chance of election on ethnic issues and eliminate the ground for the development of flanking parties.The problem of ethnic politics cannot be solved by the efforts of individual political parties alone,but can only be alleviated within the framework of party politics by forming a two-tier party system.In the course of Malaysia’s political development,the two-tier system of dual coalition parties has for the first time broken through the center-flank logic of ethnic politics in the sense of party system,thus providing useful insights to transcend ethnic politics,i.e.,ethnic party cooperation needs to be fully reflected in the sense of party system,and the formation of a coalition government alone cannot completely solve the problem of ethnic politics.