Progress in Political Geography (Routledge Revivals) by Michael Pacione

Author:Michael Pacione [Pacione, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780415707558
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2014-12-04T00:00:00+00:00

Ethno-regional Inequalities

Information derived from behavioural studies of national integration, such as the perceptions and attitudes of the inhabitants towards the state, assists in measuring the degree of ethno-regional support for statehood and state policies. However, alternative structuralist approaches, based upon aggregate socio-economic data can highlight regional inequalities and suggest areas of possible anti-régime resistance, if diffusion hypotheses of political mobilisation are to be believed. Disaffection and opposition, particularly in Third World states, are held to be aggravated by a combination of factors, such as regional inequality, mobilised political parties and a sense of alienation from state directives and actions. Clearly questions of land tenure, the direction, pace and rewards of development, the desire to be free from the fetters of neo-colonialism are central in the formation of a revolutionary ideology which seeks to challenge the ideological and materialist basis of social existence under capitalism. Evidence of such stirrings abounds, particularly in Southeast Asia and has been analysed by geographers primarily through positivistic frameworks. In an informed discussion of the relationship between economic underdevelopment and political resistance Lee Yong Leng (1979) cites the examples on Mindanao, Sabah, Sumatra and the Huk-balahap rebellion in the Philippines during the 1950s and mid 1960s as reactions to the imbalance of wealth and regional economic development. Attempts by governments to reduce poverty and economic imbalance may give rise to frustration and resentment on two grounds. The first is economic: as patterns of land tenure are modified (albeit too slowly for the majority) acute frustration is accentuated by the close relationship between the political elite and the landowning class. In the Philippines Lee Yong Leng suggests that often appropriate land reform schemes are emasculated by the time they pass through Congress. The highly skewed pattern of land ownership maintains the rural peasantry in a permanent dependency situation, consigned by the system to a precarious status of share-tenancy or a landless existence as occasional workers.

Alternatively government policy aimed at reducing ethno-regional inequality may attack the socio-structural persistance of discrimination. This is particularly apposite in situations where an intrusive ethnic group has benefited from colonialism and modernisation to the disadvantage of the indigenous population. In Malaysia it was the Chinese and Indians who achieved initial advantages during the colonial period. On independence in 1957 it was recognised that long-established patterns of urbanisation, education and employment had created an urban-rural dichotomy along ethnic lines with the Malays in a subordinate position. Various crude attempts at positive discrimination in favour of rural development to equalise opportunities for Malays and to reverse their low socio-economic position have threatened the basis of Malaysian political stability, as Chinese and Indians perceive their position within the new state as increasingly untenable. Watson (1980) demonstrates the impact of positive discrimination in favour of Malays in education and training, particularly at the tertiary level where three new universities were created. Judged by the evidence of the Majid Report (1971), and measured by the increase in the numbers of Malays enrolled in all courses (Tables 4.1 and 4.

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