Freezing and De-Freezing Cleavages in Malaysia and Indonesia

Lipset and Rokkan have described the freezing of cleavages within European party systems. Since the 1970s, scholars noted a de-freezing and eroding linkages between parties and voters and the emergence of new cleavages. In Southeast Asia, there are two party systems that also have been structured by relatively strong cleavages: Malaysia and Indonesia. The freezing took place during critical junctures where predominantly primordial (ethnic and religious) cleavages have been particized. In contrast to many European countries, the de-freezing has been blocked through elite agency in electoral authoritarian Malaysia for a few decades. Nevertheless, a reformist mass movement was able to translate a prodemocratic, mostly anti-ethnicist and anti-Islamist agenda into the party system which recently seems to have entailed a transition towards electoral democracy. In Indonesia, an electoral democracy, a de-freezing has been going on for decades, but new cleavages do not arise because of the cartelization of political parties. While the party system is decreasingly being structured by cleavages, ethnic and religious cleavages are deepening within civil society. This has led to a marked discrepancy between masses and elites.