Inter-Research And Studies (IRAS)

北海德教会紫威阁 于25.01.2012 （年初三）， 中午12点正在本阁参拜师后， 在下午1点正在对面陈氏宗祠举行51周年联欢宴会。

Perhaps the subtle shades of meaning in these key concepts are best clarified by the notion of sovereignty. Defining this concept and exploring some of its implications also will being us to a convenient and logical point for concluding our introductory inquiry into the nature of the state. "Sovereign" is from the French and means "above" or one who is superior to others. The term was used to identify the king, but n the sixteenth century, the French political thinker Jean Bodin gave it a new meaning. Properly understood, Bodin argued, "sovereignty" refers to the sources of the state's authority, regardless of its form of government. Sovereignty may be vested in a king or in some elite group or even in the corporate citizenry of the society over the time. Whatever the form of sovereignty, Bodin explained, it is distinguished by three attributes: it is absolute, perpetual and indivisible. Bodin's primary concern was to strengthen the authority of t...

槟州华堂年初二大团拜 Penang Chinese Town Hall Open House 24.01.2012 9.00am-12.00noon IRAS Deputy Director Richard Lim who represented our research institute attended the Chinese New Year open house organized by the Penang Chinese Town Hall this morning. The open house was officially graced by the Penang Chief Minister and DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng.

By Viktor Wong Parliamentary Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has said that a Pakatan Rakyat (PR) federal government would be satisfied with a simple majority in Parliament, citing concerns that a two-thirds majority victory will make the coalition complacent. The Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Advisor said that a simple majority would ensure a strong federal government as well as opposition, as well as allow a proper-check-and balance system so that the PR does not end up mirroring the current Barisan Nasional (BN) kind of governance. We applaud these kind of middle-path and power-sharing system being upheld by Anwar. We agreed that giving one party a two-thirds majority or more than that would make the said party complacent, too strong, too powerful and in the end creating an attitude of hunger for power, positions, fame which in turn will lead to mismanagement, power abuses, a phobia of being afraid of losing power, factionalism and so on. A kind of middle-path and power-shar...

By Viktor Wong We wish to refer to an article written recently by the Star associate editor Veera Pandiyan which was published in The Star newspaper on 22 December 2011. The title of the article was "The harnessing of hatred". According to the editor, the acronym, ABU has long been associated with hate right from the United Kingdom to Malaysia. Besides, the ABU acronym, according to him, also represents many aspects, from education, aviation, broadcasting, medical to automotive. The subject which brought to our attention is not the whole article itself but on the ABU acronym in Malaysia, which stands for "Asalkan Bukan Umno" or Anything But Umno. ABU in Malaysia was recently launched by an NGO dedicated to reform and according to Veera, this NGO and their activist were well-known for their aversion towards Umno. Aversion towards Umno? In his article, Veera had also mentioned that it was this NGO who is inciting hate against Umno and its leaders and associating them ...

We all know that the state consist of formal bodies and institutions designed to service human needs as they have developed over the incredibly long history, where most of it unwritten, of the social evolution. The state is in many respects an extension of the family - the family and also the clan and the tribe, were all designed to ensure minimum of security and well-being for their members and so is the state. The greater impersonality of the state reflects the bureaucracy that comes inevitably with routine, specialization of task, the distribution of benefits in terms of more of merits than personal acquaintance and not least, large number of people living in an extended geographic location. We also know that the emergence of the state is signaled in part of a self-conscious effort to explain its origins and to lend legitimacy of its institutions, bodies, personnel and policies. States also may differ markedly from one another in many ways, but they all have in common the primary ch...

Any or all the said sub-disciplines may be integrated into a comparative framework. When political analyst look at the political parties or socialization processes of two or more societies, they are able to clarify their generalizations about a particular political system because its characteristics are highlighted by comparison with those of other political systems. Comparative political analysis is also help to us in understanding and also identifying those characteristics which may be universal to the political process, regardless of time or place. In fact, it may be argued that no hypothesis or theory of politics deserves credibility unless it has been tested in several different societies - cross culturally. And while the traditional approach to comparative politics tended to describe only the institutional details of several foreign states, more recent trends have been in terms of specific system characteristics compared cross culturally. It is possible to learn more about execut...