Tom Pepinsky

Author: tompepinsky

  • British Colonial History in Penang

    Penang is well-known throughout Southeast Asia and beyond as a pleasant spot to visit. Singapore before hyper-modernization, and big enough to feature both mountains and beaches. There are lots of things that might draw a comparativist or political economist with a special interest in Southeast Asia to it: its reputation as the Silicon Valley of the East, the exquisite local cuisine, and the fact that it has long been a hotbed for what used to be Malaysia’s opposition. But for my money, the most interesting spot on the island is St. George’s church, in George Town.

    It is a lovely tropical church, boasting a brand new pipe organ inside and big open windows to move the air around. Residents are always careful to point it out that it is down the street from a Buddhist temple, a mosque, and a Hindu temple, signifying Penang’s multiethnic and multireligious character.

    But much more interesting than that are the fascinating little bits of history in the church, each of which ought to please anyone interested in the region’s political history, WWII, the Cold War, and so forth. Two are worth noting. The first is a memorial to British soldiers killed during the Malayan Emergency.

    The “struggle against terror” sounds awfully familiar. The Malayan Emergency is, interestingly enough, the source of modern counterinsurgency doctrine.

    The second is the list of chaplains and vicars, which reveals that the first ethnic Chinese vicar of St. George’s was installed under the Japanese occupation.

    I would love to know the story behind that.

    In all, this is probably the best place on the island—besides Fort Cornwallis, perhaps—to think about the British colonial presence in what is today Malaysia. This is a shame, because Penang Hill ought to be the ideal place to learn about British colonialism. There is more information about Penang Hill’s history as a hill station at its Wikipedia page than there is at the place itself. Penang Hill might be developed into a heritage site that explains the country’s colonial history; the relationship between Europeans and the weather; labor, social, and political conditions in the Straits Settlements; and all the rest. As it is, it’s too close to a theme park.

  • Single Country Research in Comparative Politics

    I recently shared the following figure on Twitter:

    The image depicts change—but also some continuity—in the scope and methods of articles published in top journals in the field of comparative politics. It comes from an analysis of every article published in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, World Politics, Comparative Political Studies, and Comparative Politics in five year increments from 1965-2015 plus 2017.

    I collected these data not because I am particularly concerned about methods in comparative politics, but instead as part of a slightly narrower project on single country research in comparative politics. The first draft of that essay is available here. In it, I discuss issues of internal versus external validity, regional and language bias, and substantive political relevance, but basically the findings can be summed up in one figure:

    For those interested in exploring these data further, I’ve made the raw data available for download here. I encourage anyone to search for your favorite article, or analyze further as you see fit. If you do use these data in any published work, please cite as follows:

    Feel free to alert me if you detect any coding errors.

    I hope that these data provide the foundation for further exploration. The coding of qualitative and experimental research, for example, is very coarse (by design). It would be interesting to further code the qualitative articles by methodology: archival, interview, ethnographic, secondary sources. Likewise, it would be interesting to look to see how frequently quantitative research invokes a logic of quasi- or natural experiments. These fine distinctions were beyond the ambit of our research, but some further digging could yield interesting insights.