Welfare Regimes, Social Services and Poverty Reduction

Abstract

In order to examine how policy shifts in social services supported the transformation of Malaysia into a newly industrializing society, mainly during rapid globalization in the 1990s, this chapter will focus on the role of two major service areas, namely education and health. The ensuing discussion will explain how two seemingly contradictory developments in social services combined to produce a positive outcome. On the one hand, the Malaysian state wielded major control over services to realize the New Economic Policy (NEP) objective of creating a just and equitable society. On the other hand, the state promoted the growth of market-driven social services to hasten neoliberalism and globalization, without which the development process might have been thwarted to some extent. This chapter shows how the state manoeuvres the intricate contradictions between public and private interests in the provision of social services to reduce poverty and protect the interests of the poor.