View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by ScholarBank@NUS THE ETHNIC TRIANGLE: STATE, MAJORITY AND MINORITY IN INDONESIA, MALAYSIA AND SINGAPORE SUN TSAI-WEI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2010 THE ETHNIC TRIANGLE: STATE, MAJORITY AND MINORITY IN INDONESIA, MALAYSIA AND SINGAPORE SUN TSAI-WEI MA (National Taiwan Univ.; UCLA) A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2010 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe thanks to many people for helping me during my doctoral work. My deepest gratitude goes first and foremost to Associate Professor Hussin Mutalib, my main supervisor, for his constant encouragement and guidance. Words cannot express my gratitude for Professor Hussin’s firm support and illuminating comments. Most importantly, without his patience with my slow writing process, this thesis could not have reached its present form. I would also like to record my heartfelt gratitude to my three co-supervisors: Dr. Kenneth Paul Tan, Dr. Jamie Davidson, and Dr. Wang Cheng-Lung, for their valuable comments and suggestions on the draft of my thesis. I particularly appreciate their tolerance of my insistence on writing this thesis my way. I am also greatly indebted to the professors at the Department of Political Science—Professor Shamsul Haque, A/P Lee Lai To, Dr. Kilkon Ko, Dr. Ethan Putterman, and Dr. Bradley Williams—for their kind words of encouragement and support during my time at NUS. I also owe my sincere gratitude to my friends and my fellow classmates Yew Chiew Ping, Ang Ming Chee, and Andy Mickey Choong, who assisted me in adapting to life in Singapore, preparing for my qualifying exams and fieldworks, as well as lending a listening ear and helping me work out my problems during the difficult course of my study. Because of them and many other friends at NUS and Taiwan, I had a joyful and memorable time in the past five years. i I would also like to thank the National University of Singapore for awarding me a Research Scholarship for four years and the Center for Asia-Pacific Area Studies, RCHSS, Academia Sinica (Taiwan) for providing me a Ph.D Candidate Research Grant during my final stage of thesis writing. Both funds enabled me to carry on with my research. Lastly, my thanks go to my life-time mentor Professor Wu Yu-shan, my dearest father Professor Sun Chen-ching and mother Huang Hsien-rong, and my sweetest husband Dr. Liao Chien-neng, for their loving support and confidence in me all through these years. At this time when I am writing this acknowledgement, I thank God not only for the completion of this thesis, but more so for having them. Tsai-wei February 2010 ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements i Table of Contents iii Summary v List of Tables and Figures vi CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1 The Argument 4 Research Method and Data Source 8 Thesis Organization 11 CHAPTER II: THEORIES OF ETHNIC CONFLICT AND VIOLENCE 13 Literature Review and Alternative Framework 13 The Ethnic Triangle 25 Conclusion 49 CHAPTER III: ETHNIC DIFFERENCE, DISCRIMINATION, AND ETHNIC 51 CONFLICT: A CROSS-NATIONAL STATISTICAL ANALYSIS Ethnic Difference, Discrimination, and Ethnic Conflict 51 The Chinese in Southeast Asia 72 CHAPTER IV: INDONESIA 1950-2009 79 Phase I (1950-1965): Formation of the State-Minority Alliance and its Breakup 80 Phase II (1966-1998): From State-Pribumi Marriage to a Stable Unit-Veto Triangle 89 Phase III (1998-2009): A Romantic Triangle in the Democratization Era 111 Summary and Conclusion 127 CHAPTER V: MALAYSIA 1957-2008 131 Phase I (1957-1969): the Breakdown of the State-Chinese Marriage 132 Phase II (1970-1987): the Consolidation of the State-Malay Marriage 142 Phase III (1988-2008): the Ups and Downs of the State-Malay Relations 157 Summary and Conclusion 169 CHAPTER VI: SINGAPORE 1965-2008 173 Phase I (1965-1979): From Unit-Veto to Romantic Triangle 174 Phase II (1979-1988): the Outcast State? 188 Phase III (1988-2008): the “ Ménage à Trois” Triangle and its Challenges 203 Summary and Conclusion 218 CHAPTER VII: CONCLUSION 221 The Ethnic Triangle: Purposes and Concepts 221 The Ethnic Triangle: The Empirical Applications 225 Conclusion: Implications of the “Ethnic Triangle Paradigm” to Future Research 233 BIBLIOGRAPHY 237 iii APPENDICES A: Employed MAR Variables in Chapter III 263 B-1: State-Pribumi -Chinese Conflict Incidents and Government Responses, Indonesia 265 B-2: State-Malay-Chinese Conflict Incidents and Government Responses, Malaysia 268 B-3: State-Chinese-Malay Conflict Incidents and Government Responses, Singapore 269 C: GDP Growth Rate (%) of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, 1961-2007 270 iv SUMMARY Conventional studies of ethnic conflict and violence have offered general explanations as to the factors that variously influence the escalation of conflicts into violence. The validity of such explanations, by and large, has been confirmed via numerous empirical and quantitative research studies. This particular study, however, does not intend to figure out which factors are more important in bringing about ethnic conflict and violence but rather, is more concerned with interpreting how the various “master cleavages” in selected countries affect ethnic groups and inter-ethnic relations in general. More specifically, this thesis aims to investigate “the processes” by which Governments adopt in managing ethnic relations, specifically, the series of institutional arrangements or policy designs, which in turn lead to changes in the balance of ethnic groups’ relative status and strength. Given the dynamic characteristic of inter-ethnic relations, especially majority-minority relations, invariably, there are bound to be different responses from ethnic groups of such state-initiated policy moves. In turn, these could force the government to further mediate, if not amend, its policies—with the similar corresponding chain reactions from affected ethnic groups, being repeated again and again. It is argued in this thesis that such processes, although admittedly dynamic and somewhat complicated, can actually be better understood through the “ethnic triangle model”, which is adapted from the “strategic triangle” theory in international relations. Applying this theoretical paradigm, this dissertation reviews and analyzes the dynamic, on-going change consequent to State actions, in the relationships among the principal actors in the “triangle”, namely, the State, the Chinese, and the indigenous population, in three post-colonial countries—Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. v LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES A. Tables Table 2-1: Ethnic Triangle and Ethnic Violence 43 Table 3-1: Selected Countries and Ethnic Groups 54 Table 3-2: Descriptive Statistics 59 Table 3-3: Correlation Coefficients Between Independent Variables 63 Table 3-4: Regression Results for Three Types of Ethnic Conflict 65 Table 3-5: The Chinese in Southeast Asian Countries 73 Table 4-1: Indonesian Parliamentary Election Results, 1971-2009 95 Table 5-1: Institutional Sources of Malay Electoral Advantage, 1955-2004 136 Table 5-2: Malaysian Parliamentary Election Results, 1959-2008 142 Table 5-3: Mean Monthly Household Income and Poverty Rates, 1970-2007 152 Table 5-4: Ownership of Share Capital of Limited Companies (%), 1970-2004 152 Table 5-5: Demographic Transition in Malaysia, 1970-2000 163 Table 6-1: Singaporean Parliamentary Election Results, 1968-2006 186 Table 6-2: Key Educational and Economic Indicators of the Resident Population 193 Table 6-3: Revealed Ethnic Preferences in the Resale Market for HDB Flats 201 Table 6-4: Distribution of SMD/GRC MPs and Opposition Performance 204 Table 6-5: Elected MPs and Ethnicity, 1968-2006 212 B. Figures Figure 2-1: The strategic Triangle 27 Figure 2-2: Analytical Framework of the Research 50 Figure 4-1: Shifts of the Ethnic Triangle in Indonesia, 1950-2009 80 Figure 5-1: Shifts of the Ethnic Triangle in Malaysia, 1957-2008 131 Figure 5-2: Number of Parliament Seats won by Major Political Forces, 1959-2008 166 Figure 6-1: Shifts of the Ethnic Triangle in Singapore, 1965-2008 172 Figure 6-2: Educational Performance by Malays and Chinese, 1980-2008 217 Figure 7-1: Multiple Ethnic Triangles 225 vi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This dissertation adapts an international relations theory, the “strategic triangle” model, to interpret the dynamic changes in relations between the state and ethnic groups over time. Using this model, it assesses the likelihood of ethnic violence in general and the nature of relations between ethnic Chinese and native populations in three Southeast Asian countries—Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore—in particular. Specifically, this study focuses on the effects of policy and institutional factors on state-majority-minority relations, which lead to either ethnic peace or ethnic violence. Over the last decade, ethnic and nationalist strife across the world has drawn both public and academic attention to ethno-cultural violence as a “striking symptom of the ‘new world disorder’” (Brubaker & Laitin, 1998: 424). Recognizing that ethnic war or peace has profound effects on prospects for democracy and economic growth in many countries 1, a multitude of explanations has been offered to account for the causes of ethnic violence. These include primordial-cultural, socio-economic, and political factors that contribute to ethnic mobilization and conflict. Scholars and policy-makers have also sought ways of managing ethnic tension and preventing potential violent conflict. These include various designs of constitutional and electoral systems, elite level negotiation and co-operation, and, as a last resort, interventions by international peacekeeping institutions. A review of some of the major research in ethnic-conflict studies will be presented in Chapter II. It appears that some are more theory-oriented, 1 For empirical reports on the effect of ethnic conflict on economic growth, see Alesina, et al. (1999), Easterly & Levine (1997), and Rodrik (1999) for some of the examples. For discussions on the relationship between ethnic heterogeneity on the one hand, and political participation, social capital, and the fate of democracy on the other hand, see Alesina & La Ferrara (2000) and Horowitz (1993).