Lily Rahim, Malaysia Chair of Islam in Southeast Asia and Associate Teaching Professor, Georgetown University

Since its historic May 2018 breakthrough election, Malaysia's Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition government has experienced some erosion of public support. The presentation will analyse PH's weakening popularity within the context of its 'catch-22' policy and political conundrum. Simply put, the promised implementation of substantive policy reform, with respect to 'Malay rights', threaten to weaken PH's tenuous relations with the predominantly conservative majority Malay community - susceptible to the fear and racial displacement rhetoric of opposition politicians. At the same time, PH's reluctance to implement substantive institutional and policy reforms have generated disillusionment within its urban, cosmopolitan and middle-class electoral base - key to its electoral breakthrough in 2018 but increasingly wary of the governing coalition's leadership tensions.

Lily Zubaidah Rahim is Associate Teaching Professor and Malaysia Chair of Islam in Southeast Asia at the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. She was previously a professor of government and international relations at the University of Sydney, specializing in authoritarian governance, democratization, Southeast Asian Politics, political Islam, and ethic politics. Her books include The Singapore Dilemma: The Political and Educational Marginality of the Malay Community (Oxford University Press 1998/2001; translated to Malay by the Malaysian National Institute for Translation), Singapore in the Malay World: Building and Breaching Regional Bridges (Routledge, 2009), Muslim Secular Democracy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), The Politics of Islamism: Diverging Visions and Trajectories (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) and The Limits of Authoritarian Governance in Singapore’s Developmental State (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). Her current comparative politics book project focuses on regime change and policy reform in Malaysia, Indonesia and Tunisia.

Lily has published in international journals such as Democratization, Contemporary Politics, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Journal of Comparative and Comparative Politics, Critical Asian Studies and the Australian Journal of International Affairs. Her sole-authored journal article ‘Governing Muslims in Singapore’s Secular Authoritarian State’ was short-listed for the Boyer Prize by the Australian Journal of International Affairs (AJIA). Lily is Vice-President of the Australian Association for Islamic and Muslim Studies (AAIMS) and Co-Convener of the Social Inclusion Network (SIN) at the University of Sydney. She was Convener of the multi-disciplinary ‘Religion, State and Society’ (RSS) Network and President of the Malaysia and Singapore Society of Australia (MASSA).

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