Is Malaysian democracy backsliding or merely staying put?

Abstract

Observers proclaimed Malaysia's first-ever transfer of federal power through elections in 2018 as marking a democratic transition, only to see in the reversal of that change two years later evidence of backsliding. I argue instead that these concepts lack nuance: we should not read too much into a change of leadership. At best, the electoral-authoritarian regime wobbled; it neither transitioned convincingly in 2018 nor qualified as backsliding per se in 2020. That said, the regime has been edging toward liberalization, but less in the electoral sphere than in civil society and prevailing norms.