The State and Ethnic Politics in SouthEast Asia (Hardcover)

This text provides discussions of ethnic politics in Myanmar, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, offering an interpretation of the nature of ethnic consciouness and the causes of ethnic tensions. Ethnic consciousness is defined in terms of a psychological and political ideology that is, predominantly, influenced by the attitude and policy of the state. This idea is developed through an examination of the influence that theoretical ideas - such as neo-patrimonialism, corporatism, ethnocracy, internal colonialism and class - have had upon the various regimes in the countries above. The book explores how the influence of these different theories and conceptualizations of the state, resulted in a variety of manifestations of political ethnicity.