The Malay Community: Voting Trends and Issues

Abstract

This article attempts to analyse the reasons for the Malay community’s seeming support for the People’s Action Party (PAP) government in Singapore, in spite of online discontent that was expressed towards the party immediately prior to the elections. The article makes three main arguments: first, that the reasons explaining the community’s support for PAP are similar to other Singaporeans, such as the death of founding leader Lee Kuan Yew and the risk-averse nature of the electorate; second, that institutional impediments exist with regard to the community that heavily favour the government; and third, that the main opposition party, the Workers’ Party, has not been able to present itself as a viable alternative to PAP for the community in terms of either quality of candidates or ideas for governance.     

The manufacturing of Islamic lifestyles in Tajikistan through the prism of Dushanbe's bazaars

ABSTRACT

This article traces the multiple ways of ‘manufacturing’ Islamic lifestyles in the urban environment of Tajikistan's capital city, Dushanbe. The city's bazaars serve as a lens through which to observe the conjunction of its booming trade business with Dubai alongside its growing Islamic commodity culture and a religious reformism that is inspired by the materiality and non-materiality of a progressive and hybrid Dubai Islam. Bringing together long-distance trade, urban consumption practices and new forms of public piety in the mobile livelihood of three bazaar traders and sellers, the article provides insights into how the commodification of Islam informs notions of urbanity and modernity in Tajikistan. These notions correspond to the launching of urban renewal and the meta-narrative of Dushanbe's future as a modern city on the rise. Furthermore, the article illustrates the ways in which Dushanbe's Muslims turn bazaars into an urban laboratory for religious agency and cultural identities.     

Entrepreneurial traits and micro-enterprise performance: a study among women micro-entrepreneurs in Malaysia

This article reports on a study that examined the effect of key entrepreneurial traits on the performance of micro-enterprises owned and managed by Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (AIM) women micro-entrepreneurs in Malaysia. This study adopted a cross-sectional design and a quantitative approach, and collected data from 407 micro-entrepreneurs. The study findings revealed that an ability to identify and tap into entrepreneurial opportunity is the key entrepreneurial trait that has a significant positive effect on the performance of micro-enterprises. AIM should therefore focus on designing enterprise development training programmes to improve entrepreneurs’ ability to identify and tap into entrepreneurial opportunity.     

The detection of clandestine graves in an arid environment using thermal imaging deployed from an unmanned aerial vehicle

The Middle East is one of the world regions that has frequently suffered from armed conflicts that resulted in mass burials. However, the detection of clandestine graves in such an arid environment by deploying remote sensing payload on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has received little attention. The present study used a UAV equipped with a thermal sensor aimed at narrowing down the search area of possible gravesites in the arid climate of Kuwait. The enclosed research area, which includes both control and experimental mass graves, was imaged for 18 months. The variation in topsoil temperature and soil moisture between the graves and their surroundings was evaluated. The results of the analysis demonstrated the effectiveness of thermal imaging techniques in detecting heat produced from buried sheep carcasses and detecting the change in grave soil moisture for our research environment for 7 and 10 months, respectively. The buried animals significantly influenced the topsoil temperature (p = 0.044), while the height from which the images were captured had an insignificant effect on the measured temperature within the range tested (p = 0.985). Furthermore, there was a negative correlation (−0.359) between grave temperature and the calculated soil moisture. The results from these cost- and time-effective search methods presented in this study confirm their potential for the detection of burial sites in an arid environment.     

Territorial functioning and victimisation: conceptualisation and scale development

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate territorial functioning measures and to examine the link between territorial functioning and victimisation in a high-crime context. To this end, four sequential stages of scale development were undertaken: conceptual model development, item generation and content validation, exploratory study and confirmatory study. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the three dimensions of territorial functioning, namely, neighbourhood attitudes, sense of control and marking behaviour, as dimensions of the second-order territorial functioning construct. The results of the structural model support findings reported in the literature that associate high territorial functioning with low victimisation. The theoretical and practical implications of the study and directions for future research are discussed in the concluding sections of this study.     

The Mahathir effect in Malaysia’s 2018 election: the role of credible personalities in regime transitions

The 14th Malaysian General Elections (Pilihanraya Umum, 14, PRU 14) in 2018 proved to be a watershed election as Barisan Nasional (National Front, BN) lost power for the first time in history. Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope, PH), led by former BN leader and Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, captured the majority of parliamentary seats. This article analyses the impact of Mahathir specifically, and credible personalities in general, in unseating dominant one-party regimes. I argue that credible personalities are vital in causing transitions in dominant one-party systems. Explanations on transitions from authoritarian regimes in the literature have typically revolved around incumbent weakness and opposition strength. While dissatisfaction toward the regime is a necessary condition for transition, it is not sufficient. Personalities which can adequately appeal to the masses are important to bridge the credibility gap which the opposition may otherwise have to grapple with. Mahathir’s presence in the opposition was crucial to PH’s victory, as he provided the credibility boost which the opposition needed. This was particularly important for Malay voters. This study is situated within the literature on parties, elections and democratization.     

Forensic Taxonomy of Android Social Apps

An Android social app taxonomy incorporating artifacts that are of forensic interest will enable users and forensic investigators to identify the personally identifiable information (PII) stored by the apps. In this study, 30 popular Android social apps were examined. Artifacts of forensic interest (e.g., contacts lists, chronology of messages, and timestamp of an added contact) were recovered. In addition, images were located, and Facebook token strings used to tie account identities and gain access to information entered into Facebook by a user were identified. Based on the findings, a two‐dimensional taxonomy of the forensic artifacts of the social apps is proposed. A comparative summary of existing forensic taxonomies of different categories of Android apps, designed to facilitate timely collection and analysis of evidentiary materials from Android devices, is presented.     

An Android Communication App Forensic Taxonomy

Due to the popularity of Android devices and applications (apps), Android forensics is one of the most studied topics within mobile forensics. Communication apps, such as instant messaging and Voice over IP (VoIP), are one popular app category used by mobile device users, including criminals. Therefore, a taxonomy outlining artifacts of forensic interest involving the use of Android communication apps will facilitate the timely collection and analysis of evidentiary materials from such apps. In this paper, 30 popular Android communication apps were examined, where a logical extraction of the Android phone images was collected using XRY, a widely used mobile forensic tool. Various information of forensic interest, such as contact lists and chronology of messages, was recovered. Based on the findings, a two‐dimensional taxonomy of the forensic artifacts of the communication apps is proposed, with the app categories in one dimension and the classes of artifacts in the other dimension. Finally, the artifacts identified in the study of the 30 communication apps are summarized using the taxonomy. It is expected that the proposed taxonomy and the forensic findings in this paper will assist forensic investigations involving Android communication apps.