Edward Aspinall

The Construction of Grievance Natural Resources and Identity in a Separatist Conflict

This article makes a case for extending social constructivist approaches to the study of grievance in natural resource conflicts. It does this by analyzing the separatist conflict in Aceh, Indonesia, which is often portrayed as a paradigmatic resource conflict due to the importance of the natural gas industry there. It is argued here, however, that natural resource exploitation promoted conflict in Aceh only because it became entangled in wider processes of identity construction and was reinterpreted back to the population by ethnic political entrepreneurs in a way that legitimated violence. Rather than any intrinsic qualities of natural resource extraction, the key factor was the presence of an appropriate identity-based collective action frame. The argument is strengthened by comparison with two other resource-rich Indonesian provinces where resource extraction patterns were similar to Aceh but where no protracted violence occurred because similar identity resources were not available to local actors.

A NATION IN FRAGMENTS: Patronage and Neoliberalism in Contemporary Indonesia

Scholars of Indonesia are still searching for ways to characterize the ordering principles of the new post-Suharto politics. In the 1950s and 1960s, Clifford Geertzs notion of aliran (stream) politics captured central features of Indonesian political life. In the 1970s and 1980s, the state took center stage, with scholars seeing the New Order state as standing above society, depoliticizing and reordering it. Since reform began in 1998, these analyses are clearly no longer adequate, but scholars have yet to find persuasive alternatives. This article offers one attempt to diagnose the fundamentals of political organization in contemporary Indonesia. It starts by emphasizing the organizational fragmentation that characterizes much contemporary political life. It seeks the origins of this fragmentation in two sources: the ubiquity of patronage distribution as a means of cementing political affiliations and the broader neoliberal model of economic, social, and cultural life in which patronage distribution is increasingly embedded. These two forces are often portrayed as being incompatible, but in practice they are frequently intertwined. This argument is first substantiated by reference to the project (Indonesian: proyek), a mechanism for distributing economic resources that is pervasive in Indonesia. The proyek formally adheres to the expectations of transparency and competition associated with neoliberalism, but is also a major source of patronage. Proyek-hunting drives much of the fragmentation in contemporary Indonesian political and social organization. The argument is then illustrated with examples drawn from four spheres: state structures, political parties, non-governmental organizations and Islamic politics.

The Irony of Success

Abstract:Indonesia is alternately lauded as a democratization success story and derided as an exemplar of low-quality democracy. This article explains both Indonesian democracys surprising survival and its defects by focusing on how it fended off three potential spoilers: the military, Islamism and ethnic and regional unrest. In each case, democratic spoilers were granted concessions and incorporated into the democratic system, rather than being excluded from it, pointing to an absorptive capacity in Indonesian democracy inherited from the predecessor authoritarian Suharto regime. Indonesian democracys resilience and its defects are not in fundamental conflict, but are two sides of the one coin.

The state and illegality in Indonesia

Why did we write this book? The popular 1998 reformasi movement that brought down President Suharto’s regime demanded an end to illegal practices by state officials, from human rights abuse to nepotistic investments. Yet today, such practices have proven more resistant to reform than people had hoped.Many have said corruption in Indonesia is “entrenched.” We argue it is precisely this entrenched character that requires attention. What is state illegality entrenched in and how does it become entrenched? This involves studying actual cases. Our observations led us to rethink fundamental ideas about the nature of the state in Indonesia, especially regarding its socially embedded character.We conclude that illegal practices by state officials are not just aberrations to the state, they are the state. Almost invariably, illegality occurs as part of collective, patterned, organized and collaborative acts, linked to the competition for political power and access to state resources. While obviously excluding many without connections, corrupt behaviour also plays integrative and stabilizing functions. Especially at the lower end of the social ladder, it gets a lot of things done and is often considered legitimate.This book may be read as a defence of area studies approaches. Without the insights that grew from applying our area studies skills, we would still be constrained by highly stylised notions of the state, which bear little resemblance to the state’s actual workings.The struggle against corruption is a long-term political process. Instead of trying to depoliticize it, we believe the key to progress is greater popular participation.

Health care and democratization in Indonesia

Analyses of Indonesian democracy often emphasize elite capture of democratic institutions, continuity in oligarchic power relations, and exclusion of popular interests. Defying such analyses, over the last decade, Indonesia has experienced a proliferation of social welfare programmes, some with a redistributive element. This article analyses the expansion of social welfare protection by focusing on health care. At the national level, Indonesia has introduced programmes providing free health care to the poor and approved a plan for universal social insurance. At the subnational level, in the context of far-reaching decentralization reforms, politicians have competed with each other to introduce generous local health care schemes. Taking its cue from analyses of social welfare expansion in other East Asian states, the article finds the origins of policy shift in the incentives that democracy creates for elites to design policies that appeal to broad social constituencies, and in the widening scope for engagement in policymaking that democracy allows. The article ends with a cautionary note, pointing to ways in which oligarchic power relations and the corruption they spawn still undermine health care quality, despite expansion of coverage.

Elections and the normalization of politics in Indonesia

Between April and September 2004, Indonesian voters went three times to the polls, first to elect members of legislative bodies, then in two rounds to elect directly a president and vice-president. There were two starkly different views on the elections. For most observers, they were a triumphant affirmation of Indonesias reform effort; for some, however, they offered little substantive choice between candidates, and merely confirmed in power Indonesias old political establishment. This essay suggests that both views are right. The legislative, and especially the presidential elections of 2004, were simultaneously the crowning achievement of the reformasi movement that overthrew president Suharto in 1998, as well as its ultimate frustration. Elections have been crucial for demobilizing and domesticating the political energies of the reformasi upsurge and in confirming elite dominance. The 2004 polls were an important step in a process of ‘normalization’ of politics, and can be viewed as marking the end of Indonesias tumultuous political transition. They also demonstrate how closely Indonesia is aligning with the experiences of other post-authoritarian states in South East Asia, especially Thailand and the Philippines. The dominance of media, money and machine politics that characterized Indonesias 2004 elections is typical of broader patterns of post-democratization reorganization of political power. Indonesia is broadly distinguished from these countries, however, by the continuing influence of resilient socio-cultural identities (aliran) in voting behaviour. Even here, however, there are signs that the institutionalization and normalization of electoral competition are beginning to erode aliran loyalties.

Democratization and ethnic politics in Indonesia: Nine theses

After the downfall of President Suharto in 1998, communal violence occurred in several Indonesian provinces, producing an image of the country as one characterized by strong ethnic politics. In this article, I propose that this image is mistaken. The political salience of ethnicity has subsided greatly as a new democratic system has settled into place. Overall, Indonesia is a weakly ethnicized polity. Ethnicity still counts in arenas such as local elections, but what prevails is a soft form of ethnic politics, with few of the deep disputes about ethnohistory or cultural policy that occur in more ethnicized polities. Moreover, rather than producing ethnic polarization, democratization has created powerful new norms of compromise. I present this overarching argument by advancing nine general theses on Indonesian ethnic politics and by pointing to explanations concerning institutional crafting, historical legacies, and the deep architecture of politics, notably the prevalence of patronage. Rather than positing definitive answers, I propose new questions and frameworks for investigating the weakness of ethnic politics in contemporary Indonesia.

When Brokers Betray: Social Networks and Electoral Politics in Indonesia

ABSTRACT Research in many countries shows that where voters and campaign workers are motivated by material rewards, the brokerage networks delivering those rewards can be highly unstable. Brokers often exercise considerable autonomy, shifting between candidates, disobeying their directives, or stealing the cash or goods they are supposed to pass on to voters. What determines whether brokers betray their ca ndidates in such ways? This article answers this question by focusing on elections in Indonesia, where candidates construct ad-hoc “success teams” to organize brokers and mobilize voters. In proposing a model to explain broker behavior, the author proposes the division of team members into three categories: activist brokers, who support a candidate based on a political, ethnic, religious, or other commitment; clientelist brokers, who desire long-term relations with the candidate or with more senior brokers, with the goal of receiving future rewards; and opportunist brokers, who seek short-term material gains during the course of a campaign. Two problems of broker loyalty are then discussed, specifically: predation, where brokers misappropriate resources intended for voters or lower-level team members, and defection, where they desert one candidate in favor of another. Explaining the incidence of these phenomena, the author examines two key factors: the material endowments of candidates and broker evaluations of their prospects of electoral victory. Well-resourced candidates with poor prospects are most likely to experience predation, whereas less materially endowed candidates will experience defection. The article concludes by addressing the implications for studies of clientelism and brokerage.

Indonesia's 2014 Elections: Parliament and Patronage

Abstract:Analysing the 9 April 2014 legislative elections in Indonesia, this article presents a case study of patronage politics in an open-list proportional-representation electoral system. Under this system, candidates focus on increasing their personal vote rather than votes for their party. Most candidates did so in the 2014 elections by relying on personal brokerage networks rather than party machines. They also distributed material rewards—including individual gifts, club goods, and pork barrel projects—to voters, and engaged in straightforward vote buying. The paper concludes by suggesting that, in order to move beyond clientelism, Indonesia needs to explore options for electoral reform.

Oligarchic Populism Prabowo Subianto's Challenge to Indonesian Democracy

In 2014, Indonesian democracy came close to experiencing significant regression when Prabowo Subianto missed winning the presidential election by 6.5 percentage points. Prabowo, a leading hardline general during the final years of the Suharto regime, aimed to wind back important elements of Indonesia’s democratic reforms. This article analyzes the ideological and material foundations of Prabowo’s challenge, and its implications for Indonesian democracy. It argues that Prabowo presented a classically populist challenger, advancing an economic nationalist platform and depicting himself as embodying the popular will and as a strong leader who would smash through the corruption gripping the political elite. Prabowo mounted this challenge using economic and political resources that he derived from his position as a leading oligarch. A member of a prominent Suharto-era elite family, his campaign underlined the fusion of informal political and economic power that continues to characterize Indonesia’s oligarchy. His campaign, moreover, was supported by a wide array of established parties and entrenched economic interests, pointing not so much to the vulnerability of Indonesian democracy to outsider challenge as to the fragility of many of its core participants’ commitment to democratic values and procedures.