Providing an ethnographic account of the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) and its Youth Wing (Dewan Pemuda PAS), this book analyses the genesis and role of Islamic movements in terms of their engagement in mainstream politics. It explores the party’s changing approach towards popular culture and critically investigates whether the narrative of a post-Islamist turn can be applied to the PAS Youth.

The book shows that in contrast to the assumption that Islamic marketization and post-Islamism are reinforcing each other, the PAS Youth has strategically appropriated and integrated Islamic consumerism to pursue a decidedly Islamist – or ‘pop-Islamist’ – political agenda. The media-savvy PAS Youth elites, which are at the forefront of implementing new outreach strategies for the party, categorically oppose tendencies of political moderation among the senior party. Instead, they are most passionately calling for the establishment of a Syariah-based Islamic order for state and society, although these renewed calls are increasingly expressed through modern channels such as Facebook, YouTube, rock music, celebrity advertising, branded commodities and other market-driven forms of social movement mobilization.

A timely and significant contribution to the literature on Islam and politics in Malaysia and beyond, this book sheds new light on widespread assumptions or even hopes of "post-Islamism." It is of interest to students and scholars of Political Religion and Southeast Asian Politics.

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Conceptual Framework: Islamism, Post-Islamism or Pop-Islamism?
3. The Politics of Islam in Malaysia
4. The Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) and its youth wing
5. The Pop-Islamist reinvention of PAS: Anthropological observations
6. Conclusions

Dominik Müller was a visiting scholar at Shorenstein APARC in 2013. His anthropological research focuses on Muslim politics and popular culture in Southeast Asia. Müller is now a postdoctoral fellow at Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany.

On April 3, 2014, Karen Eggleston provided testimony before the U.S-China Economic and Security Review Commission at the "Hearing on China’s Healthcare Sector, Drug Safety, and the U.S.-China Trade in Medical Products."

Some of the questions addressed included:

• How has the nature of disease in China changed in recent decades? What kind of burden might it place on China's future development?
• If providers are "inducing" demand by overprescribing drugs, it this a public health crisis in the making?
• Can you outline the pros and cons of market reform in China's healthcare sector? What might be the proper role of the state of improving healthcare delivery?
• Kan bing nan, kan bing gui (inaccessible and unaffordable healthcare) is one of the top concerns of ordinary Chinese. Which groups are most affected? Is this a global problem, what lessons can we learn from China?
• The pharmaceuticals industry features in China's Medium and Long-term Plan for Science and Technology (2006-2020), as well as in more recent measures to promote indigenous innovation and industrial upgrading. Is it fair to say that the Chinese government is prioritizing domestic pharmaceutical companies, which foster economic growth, over the welfare of patients?
• What were major successes and failures of the 2009 healthcare reforms [in China]? How have those reforms been supplemented by more recent measures (e.g. last November's Third Plenum)?
• What aspects of China's healthcare reform should the U.S. government and U.S. companies pay most attention to?

The legacy of the Second World War has been, like the war itself, an international phenomenon. In both Europe and Asia, common questions of criminality, guilt, and collaboration have intersected with history and politics on the local level to shape the way that wartime experience has been memorialized, reinterpreted, and used.

By directly comparing European and Asian legacies, Confronting Memories of World War II provides unique insight into the way that World War II continues to influence contemporary attitudes and politics on a global scale. The collection brings together experts from a variety of disciplines and perspectives to explore the often overlooked commonalities between European and Asian handling of memories and reflections about guilt. These commonalities suggest new understandings of the war's legacy and the continuing impact of historical trauma."A provocative, timely, superbly documented volume on urgent moral, political and historical topics. There is no trace of idealization - the book is objective, clear-minded, and historically poignant. A substantial, truly enriching addition in terms of a global comparative approach."          - Vladimir Tismaneanu, University of Maryland, College Park

"This truly 'international' edited volume on the issues of war, memory, and national identity explores how memories about wartime experiences - including criminality, collaboration and reconciliation - are shaped and reshaped, connected to questions of national identity, and used for domestic and international political purposes."   - Patricia L. Maclachlan, University of Texas, Austin

Daniel Chirot is Herbert J. Ellison Professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies at the University of Washington. Gi-Wook Shin is director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, as well as holder of the Tong Yang, Korea Foundation, and Korea Stanford Alumni Chair of Korean Studies. Daniel Sneider is associate director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Center. Contributors include Thomas Berger, Frances Gouda, Julian T. Jackson, Fania Oz-Salzbe, Gilbert Rozman, Igor Torbakov, and Roger Petersen.