Indonesia remains a country in transition even now, some two decades after its extraordinary shift from authoritarianism to democracy and from economic crisis to a rapidly growing economy. What explains the trajectory of that shift? What challenges does this island nation of 270 million people - with the world's largest Muslim population - face now, as the quality of democratic life erodes and it grapples with profound social and economic inequalities? Addressing these questions, the authors comprehensively explore the dynamics of Indonesia's politics, society, political economy, and culture, as well as its role in the international order.
Activists in Transition examines the relationship between social movements and democratization in Indonesia. Collectively, progressive social movements have played a critical role over in ensuring that different groups of citizens can engage directly in—and benefit from—the political process in a way that was not possible under authoritarianism. However, their individual roles have been different, with some playing a decisive role in the destabilization of the regime and others serving as bell-weathers of the advancement, or otherwise, of Indonesia's democracy in the decades since. Equally important, democratization has affected social movements differently depending on the form taken by each movement during the New Order period. The book assesses the contribution that nine progressive social movements have made to the democratization of Indonesia since the late 1980s, and how, in turn, each of those movements has been influenced by democratization.
By any indicator, Indonesia, the fourth most populous nation on earth, is a development success story. Yet 20 years after a deep economic and political crisis, it is still in some respects an economy in transition. The country recovered from the 1997–98 crisis and navigated the path from authoritarian to democratic rule surprisingly quickly and smoothly. It survived the 2008–09 global financial crisis and the end of the China-driven commodity super boom in 2014 with little difficulty. It is now embarking on its fifth round of credible national elections in the democratic era. It is in the process of graduating to the upper middle-income ranks. But, as the 25 contributors to this comprehensive and compelling volume document, Indonesia also faces many daunting challenges — how to achieve faster economic growth along with more attention to environment sustainability, how to achieve more equitable development outcomes, how to develop and nurture stronger institutional foundations, and much else. “This is a timely and much-needed book. There are very few recent books on Indonesia with such a comprehensive analysis of not just mainstream economic policies, but also most importantly the key issues of human capital, inequality, social welfare, labour, food security and natural resource management. This book will not only be crucial for policy discourse but for all stakeholders who care about Indonesia making the transition not only to a high-income economy, but an inclusive one.” — Mari Pangestu, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Indonesia “The Indonesian Economy in Transition: Policy Challenges in the Jokowi Era and Beyond is one of the most important books that discusses the Indonesian economy post–Asian Financial Crisis. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand contemporary Indonesian economy.” — M. Chatib Basri, former Minister of Finance of Indonesia
A major realignment is taking place in the way we understand the state in Indonesia. New studies on local politics, ethnicity, the democratic transition, corruption, Islam, popular culture, and other areas hint at novel concepts of the state, though often without fully articulating them. This book captures several dimensions of this shift. One reason for the new thinking is a fresh wind that has altered state studies generally. People are posing new kinds of questions about the state and developing new methodologies to answer them. Another reason for this shift is that Indonesia itself has changed, probably more than most people recognize. It looks more democratic, but also more chaotic and corrupt, than it did during the militaristic New Order of 1966–1998. State of Authority offers a range of detailed case studies based on fieldwork in many different settings around the archipelago. The studies bring to life figures of authority who have sought to carve out positions of power for themselves using legal and illegal means. These figures include village heads, informal slum leaders, district heads, parliamentarians, and others. These individuals negotiate in settings where the state is evident and where it is discussed: coffee houses, hotel lounges, fishing waters, and street-side stalls. These case studies, and the broader trend in scholarship of which they are a part, allow for a new theorization of the state in Indonesia that more adequately addresses the complexity of political life in this vast archipelago nation. State of Authority demonstrates that the state of Indonesia is not monolithic, but is constituted from the ground up by a host of local negotiations and symbolic practices.
Surveys in detail the most significant problems now facing Indonesia, raises vital issues for further investigation, and analyzes the results of the 1999 election.
Indonesia was founded on the ideal of the “Sovereignty of the People”, which suggests the pre-eminence of people’s rights to access, use and control land to support their livelihoods. Yet, many questions remain unresolved. How can the state ensure access to land for agriculture and housing while also supporting land acquisition for investment in industry and infrastructure? What is to be done about indigenous rights? Do registration and titling provide solutions? Is the land reform agenda — legislated but never implemented — still relevant? How should the land questions affecting Indonesia’s disappearing forests be resolved? The contributors to this volume assess progress on these issues through case studies from across the archipelago: from large-scale land acquisitions in Papua, to asset ownership in the villages of Sulawesi and Java, to tenure conflicts associated with the oil palm and mining booms in Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Sumatra. What are the prospects for the “people’s sovereignty” in regard to land?
(Un) Civil Society and Political Change in Indonesia provides critical analysis of Indonesia’s civil society and its impact on the country’s democratization efforts that does not only take the classical, pro-democratic actors of civil society into account but also portrays uncivil groups and their growing influence on political processes. Beittinger-Lee offers a revised categorization of civil society, including a model to define the sphere of ‘uncivil society’ more closely and to identify several subcategories of uncivil society. This is the first book to portrays various uncivil groups in Indonesia, ranging from vigilantes, militias, paramilitaries, youth groups, civil security task forces and militant Islamic (and other religious) groups, ethnonationalist groups to terrorist organizations and groups belonging to organized crime. Moreover, it provides the reader with an overview of Indonesia’s history, its political developments after the democratic opening, main improvements under the various presidents since Suharto’s fall, constitutional amendments and key reforms in human rights legislation. This book will be of interest to upper level undergraduates, postgraduates and academics in political science and Southeast Asian studies.
Indonesia enters the new millennium at a time of transition. It has experienced several crises - in particular the economic crisis of 1997-98, a severe intensification of its environmental degradation, and more recently the East Timor crisis, the ongoing Aceh demand for independence, the change of government from the autocratic Soeharto regime to one democratically elected and under the leadership of President Abdurrahman Wahid, and the outbreak of a number of violent communal conflicts. These crises were separate but have interlinked social and political dynamics. This major volume is the first wide-ranging analysis of recent developments. It analyses the social and political dimensions of reformation: poverty and income, environment and livelihood, civil society and legal institutions, and Islam and politics. Contributors include Indonesian and Australian scholars from a range of social science disciplines.
Troubled Transit considers the situation of asylum seekers stuck in limbo in Indonesia from a number of perspectives. It presents not only the narratives of many transit migrants but also the perceptions of Indonesian authorities and of representatives of international and non-government organizations responsible for the care of transiting asylum seekers. Fascinated by the extraordinary and seemingly limitless resilience shown by asylum seekers during their often lengthy and dangerous journeys, the author highlights one particular fragment of their journeys — their time in Indonesia, which many expect to be the last stepping stone to a new life. While they long for their new life to unfold, most asylum seekers become embroiled in the complexities of living in transit. Indonesia, a vast archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, is more than a location where people spend time waiting; it is a nation state that interacts with transiting asylum seekers and formulates policies that have a profound impact on their experience in transit there. Troubled Transit tries to explain the complexities faced by the transiting migrants within the context of the Indonesian government and its political challenges, including its relationship with Australia. The Australia-centric view of recent asylum seeker issues has tended to ignore the larger socio-political context of the migratory routes and the perspectives of transit states towards asylum seekers stuck in transit. This book hopes to direct the Australia-centric gaze northwards to take Indonesian policies and policymaking into account, thereby giving Indonesia more relevance as a transit country and as an important partner in regional protection schemes and migration management. Even though some Indonesian policies and practices are less than favourable for asylum seekers, and even reprehensible from a human rights perspective, more attention must be paid to ongoing developments that impact on transiting asylum seekers in Indonesia if any of the hardships they suffer there are to be alleviated.
