Book review

Book reviewPublic PolicySoutheast Asia
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Issues in Malaysia’s public policy and administration: An Institutional Analysis

How does institutional quality dictate a bureaucracy’s ability to change? Should we see change as transformational? Or should we see change as incremental, one that takes place in small steps over time? Are institutional legacies great impediments to change? This is a newly released book that touches on various issues on Malaysia’s public policy and…

Book review
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Is Capitalism and Democracy incompatible?

Unlike common belief, there is always the tug of war between capitalism and democracy. Some are suggesting that rampant capitalism as we see now is putting democracy under threat. The effects iof capitalism is evident from widening rich-poor divide, the rule of markets over state’s policy and the evident rise in populism. This review takes…

Book reviewPoliticsPublic Policy
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Seriously, A Culture of Poverty?

Is there such a thing as a “culture of poverty”? This question was triggered after I chanced upon an article by Anandi Mani, a professor in behavioural economics at the Blavatnik School of Government. She co-wrote a paper titled “Poverty impedes Cognitive Function”, that suggests that being poor reduces a person’s cognitive ability. In other…

Book review
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Democracy and Prosperity: Reinventing Capitalism Through a Turbulent Century

At a time when issues of income inequality, redistribution, populism, terrorism are increasingly pinned on states’ inability to assume full control of globalising forces and capitalism’s failure to provide for more equitable growth, Torben Iversen and David Soskice’s (2019) latest book is a welcome addition to the political economy literature. The two eminent scholars suggest…