Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T11:32:56.998Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Interpreting Ethnicity and Urbanization in Malaysia's 2013 General Election

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2016

Thomas B. Pepinsky
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In this article I reinterpret Ng, Rangel, Vaithilingam, and Pillay's analysis in this issue of pro-BN voting in Peninsular Malaysia in Malaysia's 2013 general election. I show that the authors' statistical methods are inappropriate for testing whether district ethnicity predicts district-level BN vote share, and that their modeling choices result in tests of hypotheses that do not exist and cannot be derived from standard theoretical approaches to ethnic voting in Malaysia. I then provide a range of statistical evidence that supports three main conclusions: (1) ethnicity and district area (a proxy for urbanization) both predict BN vote shares at the district level, (2) neither the effect of ethnicity nor of district area can be reduced to the other, and (3) there is no interactive effect between ethnicity and urbanization. These results are in direct contradiction with the authors' results, and apply equally in Peninsular Malaysia and the entire country. I also discuss the broader issues that emerge when testing competing theories of BN vote share.

Keywords

ethnicityurbanizationelectionsauthoritarianismMalaysiastatistics
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of East Asian Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , August 2015 , pp. 199 - 226
Copyright
Copyright © East Asia Institute 

References

Aitchison, J. 1986. The Statistical Analysis of Compositional Data. New York: Chapman and Hall.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aldrich, John H., and Nelson, Forrest D. 1988. Linear Probability, Logit, and Probit Models. Newbury Park: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Aljunied, Khairun. 2013. “How Malays Voted at GE13.” New Mandala, May 9. http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2013/05/09/how-malays-voted-at-ge13.Google Scholar
Aspinall, Edward. 2013. “Triumph of the Machine.” Inside Story, May 9. http://insidestory.org.au/triumph-of-the-machine/.Google Scholar
Brambor, Thomas, Clark, William Roberts, and Golder, Matt. 2006. “Understanding Interaction Models: Improving Empirical Analyses.” Political Analysis 14, 1: 63–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardeazabal, Javier. 2010. “Vote Shares in Spanish General Elections as a Fractional Response to the Economy and Conflict.” Economics of Security Working Paper 33. www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.356877.de/diw_econsec0033.pdf.Google Scholar
Gelman, Andrew. 2011. “Causality and Statistical Learning.” American Journal of Sociology 117, 3: 955–966.Google Scholar
Gelman, Andrew, and Imbens, Guido. 2013. “Why Ask Why? Forward Causal Inference and Reverse Causal Questions.” National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Working Paper 19614.Google Scholar
Greenberg, Sarah, and Pepinsky, Thomas B. 2013. “Data and Maps for the 2013 Malaysian General Elections.” Working Paper, Department of Government, Cornell University.Google Scholar
Imai, Kosuke, and Tingley, Dustin. 2012. “A Statistical Method for Empirical Testing of Competing Theories.” American Journal of Political Science 56, 1: 218–236.Google Scholar
Kessler, Clive J. 2013. “Malaysia's GE13: What Happened, What Now? (Part 1).” New Mandala, June 12. http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2013/06/12/malaysias-ge13-what-happened-what-now-part-1/.Google Scholar
King, Gary. 1986. “How Not to Lie with Statistics: Avoiding Common Mistakes in Quantitative Political Science.” American Journal of Political Science 30, 3: 666–687.Google Scholar
King, Gary, and Zeng, Langche. 2006. “The Dangers of Extreme Counterfactuals.” Political Analysis 14, 2: 131–159.Google Scholar
Kousser, J. Morgan. 2001. “Ecological Inference from Goodman to King.” Historical Methods 34, 3: 101–126.Google Scholar
Lee, Hock Guan. 2013. “Steadily Amplified Rural Votes Decide Malaysian Elections.” ISEAS Perspective , no. 34.Google Scholar
Ng, Jason Wei Jian, Rangel, Gary John, Vaithilingam, Santha, and Pillay, Subramaniam S. “2013 Malaysian Elections: Ethnic Politics or Urban Wave?” Journal of East Asian Studies (this volume).Google Scholar
Ostwald, Kai. 2013. “How to Win a Lost Election: Malapportionment and Malaysia's 2013 General Election.” The Round Table 102, 6: 521–532.Google Scholar
Papke, Leslie E., and Wooldridge, Jeffrey M. 1996. “Econometric Methods for Fractional Response Variables with an Application to 401(k) Plan Participation Rates.” Journal of Applied Econometrics 11, 6: 619–632.Google Scholar
Pepinsky, Thomas B. 2009. “The 2008 Malaysian Elections: An End to Ethnic Politics?” Journal of East Asian Studies 9, 1: 87–120.Google Scholar
Thompson, Eric C. 2013. “GE13 and the Politics of Urban Chauvinism.” New Mandala, May 14. http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2013/05/14/ge13-and-the-politics-of-urban-chauvinism.Google Scholar