Abstract
Structurally-based intra-elite conflicts emanating from relationships between capitalist development and state power in Malaysia mean that the merger of state and party is less cohesive than in Singapore and more prone to challenge. This translates into quite different political opportunities around which accountability coalitions potentially form. The establishment of a human rights commission in Malaysia while not in Singapore demonstrates this. In Singapore a cohesive technocratic elite has formed around a particular model of state capitalism and has kept human rights accountability reform firmly off the agenda. By contrast, in Malaysia elite fractures have created conditions in which a coalition of moral, liberal, and democratic accountability ideologies have enforced concessions.