Dr Wong Chin Huat

Lecturer in Journalism

Ph.D. (Politics) Essex

M.A. (Psychology) (UKM)

B.Econ. (Hons) (Malaya)

Email: wong.chin.huat@monash.edu

Phone No.: +603 5514 6264

Fax No:+603 5514 6365

Room Mo.: 2-6-28

Biography

Born in Kampar, Perak, Wong studied in the Pei Yuan Primary and High Schools, then Sri Kampar High School, before reading economics at University of Malaya (UM) and psychology at National University of Malaysia (UKM). Supported by the Chevening scholarship, he went to University of Essex, United Kingdom to pursue his doctorate in comparative democratisation in 2002. He joined Monash in 2007.

When the Reformasi wave swept Malaysia in 1998-9, he was a columnist for the Chinese-language daily Nanyang Siang Pao. In 2000, he joined a Chinese community political lobby, Suqiu Committee, pressing for democratization until Suqiu was finally disarmed after political storms. In 2001, along with 80 others, he quitted writing for Nanyang Siang Pao and three other Chinese dailies in protest of their control by a ruling party. He visited the United States later on the International Visitor programme.

Since returning to Malaysia in 2006, he has been active in the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (BERSIH) and Writer Alliance for Media Independence (WAMI). He also writes columns for Selangor Times, thenutgraph.com, merdekareview.com.


Units Taught

Research Degree Supervision

Research Interests and Activities

Wong’s fundamental research interest is on how humans organise and manage conflicts in competition for various resources, and the optimal role of the state in regulating competition, conflict and violence.

Wong sees group conflicts, albeit varying in intensity and form, as inevitable in any society. Groups do not conflict because of differences, but differ because of conflicts. Ethnic, religious and linguistic differences are often highlighted only to define group boundary and facilitate mobilisation.

He is keen to understand how social pluralism shapes a society’s view on political pluralism, and how a society’s political system in turn moulds its social structure.

His PhD investigates how the First-Past-the-Post electoral system reinforced the Barisan Nasional (BN)’s electoral hegemony in West Malaysia from 1982 to 2004. He is now studying the relationship between Malaya/Malaysia’s bipolar society and the BN’s “electoral one-party state”, hoping to provide a Rational Choice Theory account on the origin and rationale of authoritarianism in Malaysia.

Marrying his scholarly interest and advocacy of electoral reform, he is now studying the pattern of gerrymandering and malapportionment of constituencies in Malaysia, with a case study report on the state of Selangor scheduled to be published in 2011. He also writes the chapter on free and fair elections for local human rights group Suaram’s annual human rights reports since 2008.

His other research involvements include a study of the 2004 and 2008 elections to understand how elections were conducted and contested under the Abdullah Badawi Administration – which saw the BN reaching an unprecedented 91% height in parliamentary control before almost being swept away in the 2008 political tsunami.

He is also coding print media report of the 2008 elections to revisit political agenda setting by various political players and documenting creative protests, which challenge Malaysia’s de facto prohibition of political demonstrations, since 2009.

Publications

Wong, Chin-Huat and James Chin (2010), “Malaysia: Centralised Federalism in an Electoral One-Party in Rekha Saxena (ed) Varieties of Federal Governance: Major Contemporary Models. Shah Alam: Marshall Cavendish. Pp. 208-231.

Wong, Chin-Huat (2010) “Forget About the Two-Party System For Now!” in Kee Thuan Chye (ed) March 8: Time for Real Change. Shah Alam: Marshall Cavendish. Pp. 288-297.

Wong, Chin-Huat, James Chin and Norani Othman (2010), “Malaysia – towards a typology of Electoral One Party State” Democratization 17(5), Pp 920-949.

Lee, Julian C.H., Wong Chin-Huat, Melissa Wong and Yeoh Seng Guan (2010) ‘Elections, repertoires of contention and habitus in four civil society engagements in Malaysia’s 2008 General Elections’, Social Movement Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 293-309.

Wong, Chin-Huat (2010), “Dismantling the One-Party State and Affirming Federalism: Achievements, Omissions and Failures” in Tricia Yeoh (ed), The Road to Reform: Pakatan Rakyat in Selangor. Petaling Jaya: SIRD. Pp. 35-52.

Wong, Chin-Huat and Norani Othman (2009) “Malaysia at 50 – An ‘Electoral One-Party State’?” in Abdul Razak Baginda (ed.) Governing Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia Strategic Research Centre. Pp 1-57.

Wong, Chin-Huat (2007) “Effectiveness of Advocacy in Malaysia – an Analysis of 13 Causes” in Joel Paredes and LT Rillorta (Ed.) Political Space for Advocacy in Southeast Asia. Manila: Southeast Asian Committee for Advocacy.

Wong, Chin-Huat (2005) “The Federal and state elections in Malaysia, March 2004”, Electoral Studies 24, pp. 303-344.