How Malaysian states and their strongmen shape urban development: an examination of the Sibu municipal council

Abstract

In the Federation of Malaysia, the state government has a dominant role in the management and administration of local authorities as well as in allocating resources. This paper takes a bottom-up perspective to look at the dependence of the Sibu Municipal Council on the Sarawak state government and strongman. It begins by showing how the existing legal and political frameworks enable the formation of a strongman government and then addresses the state government's control over resources for local development. Then, it zooms into the local politics of Sibu, showcasing the patron-client relations between the state strongman and local business groups in Sarawak. However, it argues that the power of strongman politicians is not unchecked but constrained by the political framework. The later part of this paper features the political-economic networks of the state strongman in Johor to show that the strongman phenomenon is not particular to Sarawak.