Contemporary comparative political science has regarded Malaysia as the most developed politically of the new of Asia and Africa. A good measure of Malaysia's imputed political development derived from its ‘competitive’ electoral process which had several parties vying freely and actively for political representation and, ultimately, power. Impressive as political performances as they have been, elections are really relatively new to Malaysia, the first having been held at the municipal level as late as 1952. General Elections were first held only in 1955, and then for a small majority of the Colonial Legislative Council. Since then General Elections have taken place for a fully-elected Federal Dewan Ra'ayat (House of Representatives) every five years, in 1959, 1964 and again in May 1969. Although one party, the Alliance, consistently won overwhelming Parliamentary majorities and formed the Government, Malaysian General Elections continue to exhibit a high degree of political vitality. At every election a number of more-or-less well organized political parties and independents competed vigorously for electoral support from the plural political community that is Malaysia.

Both in terms of area and population, the fifteen changwads of the North-east constitute the largest of the four basic regions in the Kingdom of Thailand. Recent census data indicate that 37.9 per cent of the 3.2 million Thai farm households live in this region cultivating a similar proportion of the country's 69.7 million rai (I rai = 0.395 acre) of land in agricultural holdings. However, the region seems to have more than its fair share of the problems which stand in the way of the Government's efforts to accelerate the country's economic development. At present, the solution to the ‘North-east Problem’ remains as elusive as it was a decade ago. In spite of the impressive amount of public expenditure already poured into the region for improving the infra-structure and providing a wide range of rural facilities, together with an ever-increasing amount of services rendered by national and international agencies for planning and implementing the processes of growth, the per caput income of the North-easterner still lags as far behind that of his fellow countryman residing elsewhere in the kingdom as it did in the recent past. This article attempts to analyse the interaction of the physical conditions and socio-economic problems which are bound up in the existing land-use system of the North-east.

A Complex stratified polity such as that of India, containing a variety of political cultures and a great diversity of political structure, inevitably produces a multitude of styles of political behaviour. Such styles may be the product of different political cultures and processes of recruitment and training, and they interact with each other in significant ways. In particular, the new integrated political system encourages what I call the ‘percolation of style’ from one stratum of the system to another. The percolating process flows in two-ways—from the national arena to the local, and vice versa—and the process itself affects the nature of political styles. A style which was appropriate and effective in one arena will need adaptation if it is to meet the distinctive challenges of a different stratum in the political system. Percolation thus involves modification of style, and the whole process may be viewed as the gradual development of new styles responsive to the demands of new situations. Inevitably this leads to multitudinous tensions, destructive or creative, but the process is thus an integral part of political change and an understanding of stylistic percolation is an important key to the understanding of the nature and direction of political development.

The May Fourth Movement of 1919 was an epochal event in modern Chinese history. It marked the beginning of China's modern revolutionary era, and a new stage after the Republican Revolution of 1911. It was both anti-imperialist and anti-warlord, and represented the reaction of the Chinese people to the turbulent new forces unleashed by the First World War. In specific protest against the terms of the Versailles Peace Treaty as they affected China, and against the terms of Japan's infamous ‘Twenty-one Demands’, huge student demonstrations were held in Peking on 4 May 1919 to denounce the pro-Japanese Peking government. This revolutionary tide soon spread rapidly throughout China, spearheading a rapid growth of mass consciousness and cultural change, and culminating in the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921, in the reorganization of the Kuomintang in 1924, and the establishment of a united front between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party. It is the very importance of the May Fourth Movement (MFM) as well as its manifold repercussions and ramifications, which have complicated the problems of defining, interpreting, and evaluating the movement per se. The definition of its true nature and character, the clear identification of its actual leadership, and the realistic appraisal of its scope and achievements have all become matters of dispute. Ideological commitment, political ties, or professional interest have too often clouded the objectivity of individuals who have studied the movement—and hence their interpretations of it.

In Malaya, as in many underdeveloped nations, problems of the peasantry form a source of continual anxiety. One of the most intractable of these was described by the Malayan Government as ‘the unsatisfactory situation [of] overcrowding on the land and the frustration of ambitions to acquire land.’ How this situation has come about is the initial concern of this paper, which explores the historical record of agricultural development and land ownership in one area of western Malaya. By tracing changes that have taken place since 1890, it is hoped to demonstrate how and at what rates limited resources of land have become partitioned among increasing numbers of people, a process that, being the very antithesis of development, has been termed ‘agricultural involution’ by Geertz. The information is then supplemented with modern records from other areas to show typical features of ownership in the Malayan peasant sector of today. The findings suggest how traditional Malay society has responded to modern economic pressures, and may generate practical methods for dealing with some of the problems facing development planners today.