Malaysia’s Creeping Islamization—and Dimming Prospects for Covenantal Pluralism

Joseph Chinyong Liow

The Review of Faith & International Affairs, 2021, vol. 19, issue 2, 1-13

Abstract: For countries with religiously diverse populations that have a record of tense relations with each other, the notion of a covenantal pluralism, if successfully established and entrenched as an organizing principle for society, offers an opportunity to break out of the cycle of mutual mistrust and suspicion. Yet, the reality is that the effectiveness of covenantal pluralism as not just an idea but a framework will depend, among other things, on the structural nature of these relationships between religious constituencies and the processes that shape them, as determined by the configuration of political power. This paper proposes that this is precisely the case in Malaysia, where a deeply entrenched narrative of affirmative action favoring the majority ethnic group has found expression in the spheres of politics, economics, social relations, and indeed, everyday life. Concomitantly, it is for this reason that the prospects for covenantal pluralism to gain traction in Malaysia will be profoundly difficult.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/15570274.2021.1917127 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rfiaxx:v:19:y:2021:i:2:p:1-13

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rfia20

DOI: 10.1080/15570274.2021.1917127

Access Statistics for this article

The Review of Faith & International Affairs is currently edited by Dennis R. Hoover

More articles in The Review of Faith & International Affairs from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().