Abstract
This article assesses the state of International Relations (IR) as an academic discipline in Malaysia. We first trace the trajectories of the IR discipline in Malaysia, with particular attention to the undergraduate and postgraduate programs offered by public and private universities. We then track the propensities of Malaysian IR specialists toward theoretical approaches in the production and transmission of knowledge on international affairs. Finally, we identify the major themes of Malaysian IR scholarship, before linking them with the Global IR paradigm. We conclude by summing up the pathways through which local insights contribute to promoting and pluralizing the Global IR paradigm.
Methodologically, we conducted qualitative content analysis, semistructured interviews, an in-depth survey, as well as personal reflections of own experiences within Malaysian IR academia. We used Google Scholar to identify Malaysian, Malaysia-based, or Malaysia-focused IR scholars’ writings (journal articles, books, book chapters, and monographs), using keywords such as “international relations,” “Malaysia,” “foreign policy,” “external policies,” “regional affairs,” “security,” “diplomacy,” “strategy,” “peace,” “war,” “conflict,” and “cooperation.” We then used such criteria as number of citations, year of publication, and academic publishing to narrow the scholarly outputs for close reading. We then extracted and evaluated the contents by concentrating on those academic outputs’ main arguments, explanatory variables (explicit or implicit), and key findings to identify their main themes. These steps and selection criteria allow us to ascertain and assess the major ideas and insights more representative of Malaysian IR scholarship in as comprehensive, concise, and fair manner as possible.
Besides the content analysis, the first author conducted informal interviews with Malaysia's pioneering IR scholars and practitioners from April to December 2023, while the second author conducted a survey of Malaysian IR specialists between August and November 2020. A total of 81 scholars from 12 Malaysia-based universities and think tanks were invited to participate in the survey. Of the 81 invitees, 30 responded, constituting a response rate of 37%. The survey combined mostly close-ended questions with a few semi-close-ended questions that offered the option of providing alternative answers.
The respondents held various academic positions; 40% of the respondents were lecturers, followed by assistant professors or senior lecturers (23.3%), associate professors (20%), and full professors (6.7%). There were nearly equal numbers of male and female respondents. Although most respondents resided in the vicinity of the capital, Kuala Lumpur, universities throughout Malaysia were represented. More than half of the respondents (54%) worked in universities in the Klang Valley (Greater Kuala Lumpur, including Selangor state), that is, there were seven respondents from the University of Malaya (UM), six from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (the National University of Malaysia, UKM), two from Universiti Pertahanan Nasional (the National Defence University of Malaysia, UPNM), one from the International Islamic University Malaysia, IIUM), and one from Taylor's University. The second-largest group of respondents were based in northern Malaysia: six were affiliated with Universiti Utara Malaysia (the Northern University of Malaysia, UUM) in Kedah state, and one with the Universiti Sains Malaysia (the Science University of Malaysia, USM) in Penang. The other respondents included four scholars from Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), one from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), and one from Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (UniSZA) in Terengganu. The survey enabled the identification of individual scholars and experts across the key IR institutes in Malaysia, their teaching programs, research directions, perspectives toward theories and conceptualization, as well as preferences and goals for IR knowledge production.
Based on the results of our content analysis, interviews, and survey, as well as direct participant observations, we argue that even though the Malaysian IR community's dialogue with Global IR is indirect and limited, its contributions are thematically noteworthy and potentially significant. Among the main ideas often associated with Malaysian IR scholarship are: the internal-external linkages, including the impact of history and culture on a postcolonial, multiethnic state's worldview; Malaysian activism in Southeast and East Asian regionalism, as instances of small-state and nonstate actor agency in multilateral and transnational governance; and alignment choices of “middle states” (states that are sandwiched between competing powers). Each of these themes, or potential pretheories, helps enrich the Global IR paradigm not just by adding cases and empirical examples but also by pluralizing the perspectives, conceptual lenses, and theoretical propositions. While these indigenous insights are far from globally prevalent theories, they link local and regional expressions of experiences, ideas, and mindsets with the Global IR agenda over the long run.
Trajectories: Disciplinary Development of IR in Malaysia
The origins of IR as an academic discipline in Malaysia can be traced to the mid-1960s, when introductory IR courses were taught at the Department of History of the UM, the country's oldest university. 1 International Relations started as a specialization at the Department, where students were required to take History courses. 2 Among the scholars who pioneered the study of IR at the Department were Dr Gerald Maryanov 3 and Dr Goh Cheng Teik. 4 After the mid-1970s, the IR course syllabi and teaching approaches at the Department were gradually reoriented toward History, instead of Political Science (Balakrishnan, 2008). An explicitly Political Science approach to teaching IR emerged elsewhere in Malaysia. The School of Social Sciences at the USM, which was established in 1969 in Penang, offered a Bachelor of Social Sciences (Honours) program in Political Science in 1971. 5 The UKM, which was established in 1970 in Bangi, Selangor, followed by launching its Department of Political Science in 1976. 6 The Political Science approach was subsequently adopted by the UM's Faculty of Economics and Administration, after its Division of Public Administration began teaching IR courses in the mid-1970s. 7
In the late 1960s, regional and global developments (most notably, the withdrawal of British troops from Southeast Asia, the fall of Saigon in 1975, and the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1978) heightened the Malaysian elite's security anxieties, which in turn increased their attention to issues of war and conflict. There was increased demand for teaching and researching defense and security issues beyond the military centers of higher learning, that is, the Malaysian Armed Forces Staff College (MTAT)
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and the Malaysian Armed Forces Defence College (MPAT).
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UKM and USM started offering modules focusing on war, military security, and regional affairs in the 1980s. UKM's newly established Strategic and Security Studies Unit (
It was not until the early 1990s that Malaysian universities formally established IR programs. UM's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences launched its International Studies Programme in 1992, offering IR degrees at the undergraduate, Masters, and PhD levels. 12 Around the same time, two new universities offered IR programs either as a major or a minor: IIUM (established in 1983 in Gombak, Selangor) created its Department of Political Science, which offered a Bachelor of Human Sciences (Political Science) in 1990, while UUM (established in 1984 in Jitra, Kedah) created its School of Social Studies from year 1, which offered a Bachelor of Public Administration with a concentration in IR. Since then, Malaysian public universities have established IR programs one after another: UNIMAS started its IR undergraduate program in 1993, followed by UMS in 1995, UUM in 1997 (when it launched its Bachelor of International Affairs Management), UKM in 2003 (when it ran its Bachelor of Social Sciences in IR), UPNM in 2007, and UniSZA in 2014. These public universities, including Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), have also started offering IR programs at the postgraduate levels. Table 1 is a list of IR or IR-related programs in Malaysian public universities, including those in the Greater Kuala Lumpur area, as well as those in other states across Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, and Sarawak.
IR Programs in Malaysian Public Universities.
International Relations courses are taught not only at Malaysia's public universities but also at private universities, including the Malaysian campuses of foreign universities (see Table 2). Monash University Malaysia began its Bachelor of Arts and Social Sciences (Global Studies) and PhD in IR in 2006. University of Nottingham Malaysia followed suit, offering IR degrees at the bachelor, masters, and PhD level since 2010. Home-grown private universities such as Taylor's University and the Asia Pacific University of Technology and Innovation started offering IR degrees in more recent years.
IR Programs in Malaysian Private Universities.
List of IR/IR-Related Journals in Malaysia.
Theoretical Propensity (or Lack Thereof): Features of the Malaysian IR Landscape
Tracing the above trajectories helps identify three features of the Malaysian IR landscape. First, there is a strong Western orientation and a dominance of English as the medium of instruction in Malaysian IR scholarship. Second, the nexus between academia and policy across the Malaysian IR terrain is loose and limited. Third, the propensity toward theories in the transmission and production of IR knowledge in Malaysia is mixed and ambivalent.
A Long and Strong Western Orientation, with a Dominance of English Language
Zakaria Haji Ahmad, who taught at UKM from 1977 to 2003, observed in 1984 that the field of Strategic Studies in Malaysia, both at the military staff schools and the universities, “is either too Western-oriented in conceptualization or so general as would seem to stretch the meaning of ‘strategic’ way past its parameters” (Zakaria, 1984: 9). He added that “the epistemological foundations of the field” in Malaysian institutes of higher learning “display a literature list that has originated almost entirely from the United States and Britain” (Zakaria, 1984: 10). This state of affairs has not changed much decades later. In a 2009 essay examining the development of IR studies in Malaysia, Balakrishnan of UM's Department of Strategic Studies and IR similarly highlighted a “strong influence of the western (particularly British and American) tradition” in Malaysian IR education at its four premier public universities: UM, UKM, USM, and UUM (Balakrishnan, 2008). Our survey in 2020 confirmed the same pattern: 90% of Malaysian IR scholars involved in the survey perceive the field of IR in Malaysia as a “Western-dominated” discipline.
This tradition is reinforced by the dominance of English as the medium of instruction. Even though Malaysia's national language, Malay (or
This dominance is not surprising, considering Malaysia's colonial past and the fact that English is the primary means of communication in Malaysia's major cities. Equally important, it also has to do with the educational backgrounds of IR faculty members. The majority of Malaysian IR experts have been trained in the West. This was especially so for the first generation of IR specialists and historians, almost all of whom received their PhDs from UK, US, and Canadian universities (Chandran Jeshurun from LSE in 1967; Lee Poh Ping from Cornell in 1974; KS Nathan from Claremont Graduate School in 1975; J Saravanamuttu from UBC in 1976; Stephen Leong from UCLA in 1976; Zakaria Haji Ahmad from MIT in 1977; and BA Hamzah and Muthiah Alagappa both from Tuft's Fletcher School, in 1980 and 1985, respectively).
This was also the case with second-generation Malaysian IR scholars, who earned their postgraduate degrees in IR primarily from the UK, US, and Australia (e.g., Helen Nesadurai, Kamarulzaman Askandar, Kamarulnizam Abdullah, Khadijah Md. Khalid, Tang Siew Mun, Sharifah Munirah Alatas, Jatswan Singh Harnam Singh, Nor Azizan Idris, Kuik Cheng-Chwee, Kartini Aboo Talib @ Khalid, Adam Leong Kok Wey, Abdul Razak Ahmad, Lai Yew Meng, Ngeow Chow Bing). While a growing number of Malaysians are pursuing postgraduate IR degrees beyond the West, their programs still use English predominantly as the medium of instruction. These new localities include Japan (Md Nasrudin Md Akhir, Benny Teh), Taiwan (Chin Kok Fay), and Malaysia (Ravichandran Moorthy, Roy Anthony Rogers, Khoo Ying Hooi). This trend has continued in recent years, making the emerging generations of Malaysian IR specialists an even more diverse group, with more wide-ranging educational experiences and empirical expertise (and potentially more diverse understanding of methodological, conceptual, and theoretical issues). While relatively few scholars attended US universities, a good number still chose UK (Nicholas Chan, Tharishini Krishnan, Lee Pei May) and Australian universities (Helena Varkkey, Ho Ying Chan, Hoo Chiew Ping). More opted to study in Malaysia in both public and private universities (Mohamad Faisol Keling, Ramli Dollah, Nur Shahadah Jamil, Lee Chee Leong, Sumathy Permal, Ayman Rashdan Wong), while a small (and slowly growing) number studied in South Korea (Nurliana Kamarrudin, Zokhri Idris), China (Ali Ridha [in English], Lam Choong Wah [in Chinese]), and to some extent Singapore and elsewhere. Despite these non-Western localities, the English language IR programs mean the assigned readings and disciplinary outlooks are still predominantly Western in orientation. Since the textbooks and readings these scholars used as students were primarily written by US- and UK-based scholars, they tend to teach using similar materials. An indicator of this orientation, as evidenced by our survey results, is the prevalent discussions of the three Western IR theoretical paradigms—that is, Realism, Liberalism, and Social Constructivism—in virtually all IR modules in Malaysia (as elsewhere).
This is further reinforced by career development processes. 14 In both Malaysian public and private institutes of higher learning, among the major criteria used for IR experts’ career promotion is performance in terms of publication, especially in SSCI- or SCOPUS-indexed journals. Such journals are predominantly in English, and most are based in the leading universities and institutes of Anglophone countries. Publishing in English-medium journals and books also improves the chances of being cited, attracting peer attention, and getting invitations to international conferences and projects. In part to attract a wider readership, especially internationally, more Malaysia-based IR journals have adopted a bilingual approach, publishing articles in either English or Malay (See Table 3).
A Loose and Uneven Academic-Policy Nexus
In Malaysia, the production and transmission of IR knowledge have been shaped by a loose and uneven “academic-policy nexus” between experts from universities and officials from government agencies. Like other Southeast Asian states, Malaysia's IR community encompasses not only scholars in universities but also specialists in research think-tanks (e.g., Institute of Strategic and International Studies [ISIS],
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Maritime Institute of Malaysia [MIMA]
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), experts in government-linked centers of training or higher learning, both civilian (e.g., Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations [IDFR]
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, National Institute of Public Administration [INTAN]
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) and military (MTAT, MPAT, PUSPAHANAS),
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as well as policy practitioners engaged in IR intellectual activities. But unlike several neighboring countries (e.g., Vietnam and Singapore) where IR academic-policy linkages are more institutionalized (via principal–agent arrangements, sponsored research platforms, or collaborated projects), the academic-policy interactions in Malaysia are fairly limited and relatively unstructured, with the scope and sustainability of the nexus subject to
The IR academic-policy nexus in Malaysia typically takes one or more of the following forms. First,
These complex webs of sociointellectual ties and policy linkages, however, do not necessarily translate into a dynamic academic-policy nexus. Indeed, the nexus has remained loose and limited. Dialogues are often patchy and sketchy; debates are rare and superficial; and intellectual-policy syntheses are usually piecemeal, incoherent, and unsustainable. These are not only the signs of unstructured, less-than-institutionalized nexus processes (most of the policy-academic partnerships are
The nexus is also uneven, that is, some universities and specialists are more involved in academic-policy interactions than others. One example is UKM's UPSK (renamed Strategic Studies and International Relations Programme in 2002). Its two flagship Master's programs, that is, the UKM-IDFR Master's in Strategy and Diplomacy and the UKM-MPAT Master's in Defence Studies, established in 1999 and 2002, respectively, where course participants are required to take coursework, write mini theses and participate in seminars, have helped trained hundreds of mid- to senior-level officials for the two ministries and related agencies (including National Security Council, Research Division of the Prime Minister's Department, Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency, Royal Malaysia Police). Many of the participants, upon completion of the year-long program, have been promoted in their home agencies, some to command and leadership portfolios, and others to research and training positions. The creation of the two programs is attributable primarily to Zakaria Haji Ahmad, the doyen of Strategic Studies in Malaysia, who has long enjoyed close ties with Malaysian diplomatic and defense establishments, while providing intellectual leadership in developing the syllabus for both programs. In more recent years, various agencies have engaged specialists not only at think-tanks but also university-based entities (e.g., the EAIR Caucus, the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies [IKMAS] at UKM) for policy consultations, a process contributing to some key policy ideas such as those contained in the DWP and other government initiatives.
Conflicting Propensities Toward Theories
The above features notwithstanding, Malaysian IR specialists’ propensity toward theories and conceptual constructs have remained largely contentious and conflicting. On one hand, despite the strong Western orientation, the majority of Malaysian IR scholars are atheoretical in their work; and despite the academic-policy interactions described above, most Malaysian policy practitioners and think-tankers (even those who received their PhDs from Western universities) tend to dismiss theories and concepts as “too abstract,” “too academic,” and even “too American.” 20 One former think-tank leader see academic conceptualization efforts to be “hair-splitting” and considered many IR terms (e.g., “regime,” “legitimation”) to be “degrading,” “repugnant,” and only serve the West's “hegemonic” purposes. 21 Many Malaysian experts are unenthusiastic about Western-constructed concepts and theories, presumably because they believe that external policies and international affairs are too complex to make any meaningful generalization, and that each policy choice, each event, and each relationship must be studied on its own. Thus, Jawhar Hassan, a former head of ISIS Malaysia who is currently an adjunct professor at UM's Asia-Europe Institute, contends that IR approaches “covers not just theory or concept but practice and policy as well,” because “what states do, rather than the apparent theoretical premises of their conduct, often matters more” (Jawhar, 2021).
On the other hand, there are some Malaysian scholars, much fewer in number, who are keen about theories. They insist that conceptualization and theorization are essential means for knowledge production and transmission, precisely because the international environment is complex. Theories, in particular, are required to make focused comparisons, pursue parsimony, and make sense of the recurring patterns of choices and relations in fluid international affairs. Precisely because Malaysia's national attributes are heterogeneous and regional realities multifaceted, IR researchers need a combination of conceptual, theoretical, and methodological tools to keep some variables constant in order to better identify and assess the cause-and-effect relationships of a particular phenomenon and puzzle.
This latter group, which has shown greater preference and propensity for theorizing, includes Malaysian IR theorists residing and researching in overseas (e.g., Muthiah Alagappa and Yuen Foong Khong), as well as non-Malaysian scholars whose work covers Malaysian foreign policy, Malaysian politics, and Southeast Asian affairs. These non-Malaysian scholars, who have contributed to our understanding of Malaysia and its place in the region and the wider world, include Anthony Milner (an Australian historian whose work often adopts a textual analysis approach from the history of ideas to uncover concepts and perspectives underpinning external behavior), Marvin Ott (an American IR specialist who is among the pioneering researchers on Malaysia's foreign and security policies), and Richard Stubbs (a Canadian political scientist who employs such concepts as “threats,” “hearts and minds,” and “middle power” to explain Malaysia's shifting security and foreign policies). Other scholars in this genre include Amitav Acharya, Alice Ba, John Ciorciari, Jörn Dosch, Don Emmerson, Amy Freedman, Jürgen Haacke, David Martin Jones, Lee Jones, Joseph Liow, Rahul Mishra, Ann Marie Murphy, Kai Ostwald, Dan Slater, Meredith Weiss, and Bridget Welsh. In addition to these two genres of Malaysia-focused IR writers, there are Malaysia-based Malaysian IR scholars whose writings often build on conceptualization efforts, with varying degrees of emphasis on national or regional indigenous elements to unpack the puzzle of their respective analytical focus (elaborated in the next section).
Themes in Malaysian IR Scholarship: Contributions to Global IR
The “Global International Relations” (Global IR) research program, which aims to promote greater pluralism and inclusivity in the theory and practice of IR, has gained attention and traction over the past decade (Acharya and Buzan, 2019; Wemheuer-Vogelaar et al., 2020). 22 The program's agenda encourages increasing dialogues and including non-Western ideas, agency, and approaches to broaden IR knowledge beyond the existing Western-dominated traditions in the discipline (Acharya, 2016).
Thus far, Malaysia has been largely absent from the dialogue and debates on Global IR. Few Malaysian scholars, if any, refer to Global IR in their writings. Few IR courses in Malaysian universities discuss pre-Western, non-Western, and post-Western ideas and approaches. However, our survey results suggest that although only 27% of the respondents acknowledged familiarity with the Global IR agenda, the vast majority of the respondents are in agreement with this research direction.
While very few Malaysian scholars have explicitly connected their work to Global IR, we argue that the contributions of Malaysian IR community, while indirect, have been fittingly pertinent. Malaysian IR scholarly outputs have contributed to aspects of “pluralistic universalism” (and related characteristics of Global IR studies) as espoused by Acharya and Buzan. In our view, these contributions take three forms: (a)
Using citation counts, peer adoptions, and potential conceptual applicability beyond Malaysia as the criteria, we have identified three themes from Malaysian IR scholarship outputs that are particularly pertinent for the Global IR paradigm: (a) external policy choices as extensions of internal attributes; (b) small-state agency in regionalism and multilateralism; and (c) middle-state alignment behavior and the politics of hedging.
Internal-External Linkages
Malaysian and Malaysia-focused specialists on international affairs typically emphasize the role of historical, ideational, and other
Other scholars, historians and non-historians, Malaysians and non-Malaysians, have highlighted other internal sources that drive external policy behavior. For instance, the writings by Tilman (1969), Ott (1972), Chee (1974), Lyon (1969), Saravanamuttu (1996), Hwang (2003), and Dosch (2014) all illuminated the impact of individual leaders’ idiosyncrasies on Malaysia's foreign policy at different junctures. More recent scholarly work have underscored such internal factors as identity politics (Liow, 2004; Nair, 1997), the development imperative (Dhillon, 2009), elite legitimation (Kuik, 2008, 2023), civil society and interest groups (Weiss, 2009), and wider domestic sociopolitical dynamics as key drivers and constraints of Malaysian external policies (Zakaria, 1989; Camroux, 1994; Stubbs, 1990; Welsh and Chin, 2013).
While historians such as Wang, Anthony Reid, Chandran Jeshurun, and Farish Noor do not focus on theoretical generalizations, their systematically traced evolution of certain Malaysia-related phenomenon, as well as their characterizations of certain local idea and practices have benefitted IR writers immensely. Examples include: Wang's (2005, 2007) numerous writings on Malaysia- and Southeast Asia–China ties as well as the big powers in Asia; Jeshurun's (1980, 1994, 1999) studies on Malaysia's defense policy, civil–military relations, and strategic culture; and Danny Wong's (1995) work on Malaysia–Vietnam relations. Farish's (2006: 30) article on the US's post-September 11 war on terror offers a Malaysian perspective of the superpower's international behavior and its impact on “perpetuating the logic of Islamophobia well beyond the borders of the Western world.” Sodhy's (1991, 2012) and Heng's (2014) work on Malaysia–US relations usefully illuminate the dynamics and features characterizing small state–superpower relations.
Some of the characterizations of local insights and practices can be considered as “pretheories,” defined here as those abstract constructs, which, albeit not yet intended nor sufficient to perform any theorizing tasks, enable subsequent researchers to turn a basic idea or preliminary analytical element into operationalized variable(s) to explain a wider phenomenon. Such pretheories include conceptions of particular indigenous historical viewpoints, cultural traits, and heterogenous attributes. For instance, Anthony Milner and his Malaysian coauthors have persistently highlighted the salience of culture and “heritage of pre-modern thinking” in the shaping Malaysia's foreign policy behavior. Milner and Siti (2018) argue persuasively that “pre-modern Malay ideas” and “local concepts”—most notably “the ideas of
Muthiah Alagappa is perhaps the most prolific pioneer among the earliest generations of Malaysian IR scholars who have produced numerous conceptually elaborated and theoretically informed writings with Asian flavor over the decades (discussed below), with enriching, expanding, and exporting effects beyond Malaysia and beyond Southeast Asia. The writings by Singh (1995, 2004), Mak (1991, 1997, 2004), Kuik (2008, 2024), and Lam (2023) have similarly presented conceptually oriented analysis of Malaysia's security policies and Southeast Asian affairs. Lam's writing on power relations between Malaysian Parliament and the Malaysian foreign affairs establishment extends and complements Jeshurun's work on the Malaysian Parliament and defense policy.
The emphasis and explications of the internal-external linkages, while not all explicitly conceptual or theoretical oriented, have been maintained by successive generations of Malaysian IR scholars. Khaw (1976) unpacks the factors driving Malaysian policies in Southeast Asia from 1957 to 1970. Lee's (2008) writings focus on the interplay of external conditions and domestic imperatives underlying Malaysia's external policies (particularly the Look East Policy) and regional affairs. Baginda's (2016) important work on Malaysia's China policy similarly pays attention to domestic-external linkages. Younger scholars like Ngeow and Shahadah (2022a, 2022b) have also sought to explain Malaysia's external policy choices by reference to internal attributes and conditions, typically a combination of Malaysia's historical, geographical, and demographic features, as well as its socioeconomic and sociopolitical circumstances as a middle-income, medium-sized, and multiethnic, multireligion country.
Some of the above scholarly outputs have provoked debates or inspired attempts to reconceptualize IR “facts” or develop alternative theorizing based on Asian or Malaysian mindsets. Some have attempted to project Malaysian views and Southeast Asian voices, while others have explicitly challenged various mainstream IR theories constructed on Western experiences and values. Examples include Alagappa's conceptualization of “security practice” and “security order,” Nesadurai's writings on multiple “modes of governance”; and Kuik's work on “hedging” as a prevalent but often neglected alignment behavior, as compared to the mainstream “balancing” and “bandwagoning” strategies (elaborated below).
It is not just Malaysian scholars who are unsatisfied with the Western-centric orientation of IR as a field. Malaysian think-tankers and policy practitioners hold even stronger opinions, with some repeatedly stressing the need to develop an indigenous framework based on Malaysian experiences, Southeast Asian aspirations, and culturally bounded context in Asia. Noordin Sopiee (1986), the founder of ISIS Malaysia, emphasizes the need to understand consensus-seeking and other behavioral preferences dubbed the “ASEAN Way” as it is central to Malaysian and Southeast Asian diplomatic practices. Jawhar (2021), who succeeded Noordin at ISIS, underscores the importance of making sense of IR from non-Western approaches, especially from actual practice and policy in the non-Western world, rather than Western developed theoretical premises. More recently, Raja Nushirwan Zainal Abidin, the director-general of Malaysia's National Security Council and a former diplomat, opined in a firm and unambiguous tone: “We really ought to develop a Malaysian School of IR thought. [Malaysian] voice[s] and perspective[s], essential as they are, are just the first steps.” 23
Small-State Outlook on Regionalism and Multilateralism
Considering Malaysia's significant role in promoting regionalism, it is not surprising that many Malaysian IR writers have focused on ASEAN and related regionalist cooperation. Ghazali (1982, 2000) describes ASEAN as a “contributor to stability and development.” Noordin (1981) explicates the links between ASEAN and the Pacific Basin Concept. Zakaria (1986) unpacks the dynamics of ASEAN decision-making by focusing on bureaucratic elite perceptions in Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore. Alagappa (1987) writes about ASEAN's institutional framework and modus operandi. Saravanamuttu (1997) analyzes the role of ASEAN in Malaysia's foreign policy discourse and practice.
Since the 1990s, a growing number of Malaysian scholars have conducted research on regionalism and multilateralism; some have even introduced conceptual and theoretical insights. The trend is due in part to the growing centrality of ASEAN in regional affairs, following the expansion of ASEAN and the successive creations of ASEAN-led regional institutions, and in part to Malaysia's increasing regional activism via ASEAN and ASEAN-led mechanisms. More importantly, it is also attributable to several intellectual and disciplinary developments, including the social constructivist turn of ASEAN studies (especially after Acharya's 2001 book), the work of overseas-based Malaysian scholars, the maturing of International Political Economy (IPE) as a subfield of IR (Nesadurai 2003, 2006; Liu and Lim 2019), and the growing adoption of Neoclassical Realism (NCR) as an analytical model among younger generations of Malaysian IR scholars.
There are several threads in Malaysian scholarship on this theme. The first focuses on the evolution and effects of multilateralism in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific region. Zakaria, for instance, analyzes the political dimensions underlying ASEAN and the embryonic Asian-Pacific cooperation. Saravanamuttu (1994) observes ASEAN's role as a “pluralistic security community” amid the “diametrically opposed dynamics operating in regionalism today,” which hinges on security and economic cooperation. In his essay, Saravanamuttu (1997) focuses on the role of ASEAN in Malaysia's foreign policy discourse and practice. Subsequently, Saravanamuttu (2005, 2010) explicitly adopts a constructivist approach in analyzing ASEAN security community and Malaysian foreign policy.
Yuen Foong Khong, a Harvard-trained Malaysian scholar who taught American foreign policy at Oxford for decades before moving to Singapore in 2015, makes important contributions to the study of post-Cold War Asian institution-building and Southeast Asian security through a series of conceptually driven and empirically grounded articles. His 1995 essay provides a preliminary assessment of the ARF and APEC, the two nascent regional security and economic institutions in Asia (Khong, 1995). His 1997 article focuses on the notion of “security complex” to analyze the drivers, potentials, and limitations of ASEAN and ARF in the post-Cold War era (Khong, 1997a). In another essay the same year, he offers a candid review of Leifer's 1996 seminal work on the origins and evolution of the ARF. While Khong commends Leifer's rare “explicit theoretical stance” in articulating a balance of power interpretation of the ARF, he also expresses reservations about Leifer's balance-of-power perspective, in part because the term “balance of power” has become “an increasingly contested concept in post-Cold War discussions of security” (Khong, 1997b: 296). Khong (2006: 30) also questions Leifer's notion of “regional order,” describing it as “theoretically underdeveloped and methodologically imprecise” and proposes to replace Leifer's “regional order” with “peace and stability,” the “preferred terms of the discourse by ASEAN's policy elites.” Later, in a widely cited essay, Khong (2004) sophisticatedly unpacks how and why Southeast Asian states use institutions and soft balancing as twin mechanisms to cope with strategic uncertainty in the new era.
The second thread articulates a Southeast Asian and Asian outlook of multidomain regional cooperation and international order. Muthiah Alagappa, who served as a Senior Researcher at ISIS Malaysia from 1985 to 1988, is among the first Malaysian IR scholars pioneering the efforts to conceptualize and theorize the multilevel factors underlying Southeast Asian regionalism and related issues. His 1993 and 1995 essays offer a Southeast Asian perspective in developing “a framework for analysis” to examine the links between regionalism and conflict management, with the focus on the Cambodian conflict (Alagappa, 1993, 1995b). After moving to the United States in the 1990s and eventually serving at the East-West Center, Alagappa led a series of Asian-focused comparative studies, producing four edited volumes anchoring, respectively, on the core concepts of political legitimacy (1995a), security practice (1998), civil–military relations (2001), and security order (Alagappa, 2003).
In all the cited volumes, the individual Asian countries (in all subregions) are treated not just as empirical cases but also as sites for systematic inquiries about national peculiarities, especially those local insights that both complement and challenge conventional Western wisdoms about Asian politics and IR. In each volume, even though the anchoring concept is still predominantly Western, most authors’ assumptions and analytical approaches are based on Asian thinking, experiences, and behavioral records. Some of these discussions highlight local insights that appear to be distinct from Western philosophy. For instance, in the chapter on Malaysian civil–military relations, Nathan and Govindasamy (2001: 270) observe that the Malaysian authorities’ notion of “KESBAN”—achieving national security (
A related thread is a Southeast Asian perspective of regional institutions and regional governance (Chin 2011; Nesadurai, 2006, 2009). Guido Benny and his Malaysian colleagues conducted a series of quantitative studies surveying the public opinions of different segments of Southeast Asians toward the ASEAN community, regional integration, and related interstate cooperation (Benny, Moorthy et al., 2015; Benny, Tham et al., 2015; Moorthy and Benny, 2012, 2013). Varkkey (2011) explains how and why ASEAN is a “thin” community in managing the transboundary haze problem, a contrast to the EU's “thick” community, which is endowed with “pooled sovereignty and sufficient clout to influence regional outcomes.” Khoo and Tan (2019) links local bottom-up societal activism with global environmental norms.
Khong and Nesadurai (2007) offer a systematic analysis of regional institutional design in Asia by focusing on two ASEAN-led institutions: the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) and the ARF, which are, respectively, the principal economic and security institutions within ASEAN. They highlight numerous factors shaping the design of these institutions including: strategic uncertainty, prior institutional profile, the need for collective clout to “hang together,” the interplay between shared external threats and domestic political necessities (particularly regime security imperatives), the relative dynamics of which determine whether and what extent to which governments are willing “to accept institutional rules that intrude into their domestic decision-making.” Their arguments present indigenous Southeast Asian insights, some of which diverge from and challenge conventional viewpoints.
Adopting an IPE approach, Nesadurai advances the notion of “developmental regionalism” in a 2003 essay on AFTA. She argues that while globalization at the systemic level may provide the initial impulse for regionalism, it is “domestic political dynamics,” that is, elite politics and domestic coalitions (among political elites, the business class, and socioeconomic groups) that mediate final outcomes, giving rise to distinct approaches to economic regionalism in Southeast Asia (Nesadurai, 2003). In her essay, Nesadurai (2017), who has consistently advocated the need to go beyond the realist-constructivist debates on ASEAN's regional role, put forward new research which: (1) emphasizes the importance of studying different “modes of governance” (rather than just state-based regional governance) in Asia; (2) examines the active and key roles played by nonstate actors in private governance; and (3) explores “new ways of addressing problems not effectively governed through ASEAN.”
In their introductory essay to a Special Issue on “non-state actors and transnational governance in Southeast Asia” in the
Finally, a parallel thread centers on small-state perspectives of small-state agency and approaches to regional affairs. Successive generations of Malaysian IR researchers have often paid attention to the problems of Malaysia and other states being small, weak, and inherently vulnerable in an anarchic international system. Some have opined that, in order to cope with these vulnerabilities and ensure survival, it is imperative for weaker states such as Malaysia and other Southeast Asian nations to pursue group-based collective actions, either in the form of regional institutions or global governance, as essential means to maintain dialogue, minimize disagreements, meet expectations, manage conflict, and maximize cooperation. Askandar (1994) contends that the formation of ASEAN can be conceived as “an attempt to institutionalize the process of conflict management” among its members. Lee (2006) compares the approaches adopted by small states in Asia with those adopted by regional groupings in Europe. As an example of small state “forward diplomacy,” Kuik et al. (2022) focus on Malaysia's use of bilateral instruments and regional multilateral institutions with Northeast Asian states to explain why Mahathir's EAEG/EAEC proposal failed to launch, while subsequent efforts to initiate and institutionalize ASEAN Plus Three and East Asia Summit succeeded. More recent works have expanded this strand by examining small-state agency at the group level, focusing on a variety of ASEAN-led mechanisms, as power-equalizing and norm-internalizing platforms to manage intra-ASEAN problems, engage and enmesh the big powers, as well as tackle nontraditional security challenges (Kuik, 2022; Kuik and Fikry, 2023).
Weaker State Alignment Choices
Malaysia is a Southeast Asian state which external policy shifted from alliance (1957–1970) to nonalignment. As a strategically located weaker state which had experienced centuries-long colonization, Malaysia has always been mindful of asymmetric power relations and uncertainties associated with the reality of being sandwiched between competing big powers. Hence, middle-state alignment choices have been one of the core areas of research of Malaysian IR specialists.
The earlier generation of scholars studied the politics of alliance, focusing on the Anglo-Malayan Defence Agreement (AMDA), the subsequent shift from AMDA to Five Power Defence Arrangements, and Malaysia's post-1971 alignment posture. Chin Kin Wah's (1983) book details the intra-alliance politics among the anchor power (Britain), two associates (Australia and New Zealand), and two recipients (Malaysia and Singapore), unpacking the uniqueness of the alliance as “a hierarchy of powers embracing a hierarchy of roles.” Jeshurun (1980), Saravanamuttu (1983), Singh (2004), and Baginda (2016) highlight the internal and external reasons why Malaysia under Tunku Abdul Rahman joined the UK-led AMDA but avoided the US-led Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. Noordin (1975: 144) highlights the risk of abandonment in alignment politics. Malaysia made several adjustments in the wake of these realities: the promotion of the “neutralization of Southeast Asia” (which led to ASEAN's Declaration of the ZOPFAN in 1971), as well as Malaysia's eventual decisions to join the Non-Aligned Movement in 1970 and to normalize relations with the People's Republic of China in 1974. The changing structural and domestic factors leading to these alignment choices have been well analyzed not only by scholars in and out of the country (Hamzah, 1992; Hanggi, 1991; Pathmanathan, 1977; Tarling, 2009) but also by Malaysian leaders and policy practitioners (Azraai, 1973; Haron, 1992; Ghazali, 1971).
After the Cold War ended, Malaysia's external posture has remained “non-aligned” and neutral. Scholarly interpretations and explanations of its posture, however, have taken a more nuanced and multifaceted turn. Mak (2004) adopts a domestic explanation to make sense of the multiple paradoxes of Malaysia's defense and security policy: an insistence of “non-alignment” policy after 1970s despite being small and vulnerable; an actual policy of maintaining close defense partnerships with several Western powers despite the official nonalignment position; and a choice of continuing robust defense ties with those powers despite continuing political rows at the bilateral level. Baginda (2002, 2016) similarly not only stresses domestic determinants but also highlights the salience of structural sources as drivers of Malaysian alignment posture. Other Malaysian scholars, including the younger cohorts, have attempted to adopt a more explicit theoretical approach, mostly the NCR model, which emphasizes the interplay of structural and domestic-level factors in shaping national policy or regional dynamics (Abadi, 2017; Lai, 2015; Elina and Qistina, 2017; Leong, 2017).
Non-Malaysian scholars offer important insights as well. Acharya (1999) observes Malaysia's “counter-dominance” tendency vis-à-vis China. Storey (1999, 2007) and CP Chung (2004) are among the first to use the term “hedging” to describe Southeast Asian responses toward China. Subsequent scholars have similarly focused on “hedging” but attempted to develop conceptualization to operationalize the term in the context of weaker states’ alignment decisions (Goh, 2005; Haacke and Ciorciari, 2022; Jones and Jenne, 2022; Kuik, 2008; Lim and Cooper, 2015). Focusing primarily on Malaysia (but often with comparison to other individual ASEAN states), Kuik (2016, 2024) analyses smaller states’ “equidistance” behavior, offering an analytical framework with several sets of conceptual parameters to unpack hedging as an instinctive behavior in IR. The parameters include: “insurance-seeking” behavior under “high-stakes and high-uncertainties” conditions; “risk-contingency” and “return-maximizing” options; deference and defiance as mutually counteracting acts; the domestic logic of external “riskification,” trade-off calculations, etc. Some of these conceptual elements have been adopted and used by scholars to study cases beyond Southeast Asia (Haas, 2021; Hlavacek and Sanc, 2022; Rangsimaporn, 2023), and in some cases, outside the field of IR (Mendiolaza et al., 2022; Schindler and DiCarlo, 2022). Even though hedging remains an undertheorized term, the growing attention have enriched the literature and expanded the range of explanations to make sense of weaker actors’ alignment behavior across national, regional, and disciplinary boundaries.
Conclusions
The contours and contents of Malaysian IR scholarship, as discussed, suggest that locally generated and regionally grounded insights in Asia may contribute to Global IR in at least three ways. First, these insights enrich existing concepts by adding new cases, instances, or illustrations beyond the Western examples. Second, they expand existing IR theories by adding new layers of references and propositions beyond the extant mainstream constructs. Third, they export new ideas and inspirations beyond familiar Western conceptual tools for theorization efforts applicable to other countries or regions, with thematic thrusts pertinent for illuminating and comparing similar cases elsewhere.
Each of these pathways helps pluralize the universality and inclusivity of IR concepts and theories. In combination, they promise to generate even more locally inspired inputs and ideas. Over time, they may produce more applicable analytical building blocks useful for systematic comparisons, focused analysis, and generative theorizing efforts.
Will the pluralization efforts lead to the fragmentation of theorizing enterprises in IR? Answers vary. Some theorists opine that theoretical fragmentation is already a reality, even “the current state of the discipline” (Wight, 2019). Others suggest that pluralization will lead to some syntheses, even though fragmentation “may be inevitable” and this might not be a bad thing (Acharya, 2016; Alagappa, 2011). Yet others are optimistic that “pluralism”—“a normative position” which values diversity—may lead to greater reflexivity in the discipline (Levine and McCourt, 2018). Our tentative answer is that pluralization encourages dialogue among country- and regional-based theorists, enrich conceptual debates, and enhances inclusive applicability of theoretical constructs, regardless of where these constructs originated. Pluralization does not necessarily mean the emergence of a Malaysian, Vietnamese, or Southeast Asian school of IR. This is because the IR community in individual Southeast Asian states is relatively small. In addition, the vast diversity within and across the states makes region-wide theoretical parsimony and modeling potential harder. Parallel parochialism should not be ruled out, but its possibility should not be overstated either.
Just as important, most of the Malaysian and other Southeast Asian perspectives are not challenging the mainstream IR theoretical constructs on epistemological grounds. Rather, their emphases on country- or region-based peculiarities primarily raise ontological complementarity, ambiguity, and incongruence issues. These peculiarities include: the indigenous behavioral patterns of “the ASEAN Way” (a focus of analysis among many social constructivists, most notably Acharya, 2001 and Ba, 2009); the region-wide relative preference of “regional peace and stability” (reflective of a small-state-centric stance) than “regional order” (reflective of a big-power-centric viewpoint); the shared regional outlook of “development as security”; the interplay of elite legitimation, subnational contestation and sociocultural traditional practices; and the paradoxes of pragmatism, etc. Pondering these peculiarities within the Global IR research program is more likely to stimulate more cross-disciplinary conversations, as well as strengthen the comparability and applicability of regional indigenous analytical constructs, than to produce incompatible building blocks for globalized, universal theories of international politics.