Malaysian suggestions for political change have been articulated by diverse societal groups and communities. The emerging civil society in Southeast Asia is reflected in Malaysia through the power struggles of old and new political parties and movements. Within this set-ting, the coalition of Islamic and non-Islamic parties is one of the most striking phenomena to be observed. The paper addresses the question of what theoretical parameters can be applied to analyse the critical juncture at which Malaysia and other Southeast Asian nation-states have arrived at the turn of the century (1999-2001). The approach used in the paper is to ana-lyse the interplay of domestic and international influence factors in order to explain the cur-rent political discourse in Malaysia.