Johor Survey: Attitudes towards Governance and economy, Iskandar Malaysia, and Singapore

These are selected findings from a survey on Johor residents commissioned by ISEAS. The survey was conducted with 2,009 respondents between October and November 2013. The big picture painted by the findings is one of interethnic dissonance, especially between ethnic Malays and Chinese in the state of Johor. More than income of education, ethnicity seemed to be the key determinant of how certain questions were answered in this survey. With regard to satisfaction with the performance of state and federal government, ethnic Chinese respondents were more likely to be dissatisfied with the government's performance to date compared with their Malay and Indian counterparts. Interethnic dissonance is also evident in the political and economic outlook of respondents. With regard to Iskandar Malaysia, although the majority of respondents said they were satisfied with the developments, Chinese respondents were the least likely to say so. Chinese and Indian respondents were more likely to have a favourable opinion of Singapore and were more open to visiting and working in the city-state. in terms of ethnic affinity across the Causeway, Malay, Chinese and Indian respondents in Johor did not see similarities between themselves and their ethnic counterparts in Singapore.