Joshua Barker

Beyond Bandung: developmental nationalism and (multi)cultural nationalism in Indonesia

Abstract This article argues that the Indonesian case is characterised by at least two important variations on the thesis of a transition from developmental to cultural nationalism. First, the transition took place with the establishment in 1966 of Soehartos New Order, much earlier than in most other countries, and was associated less with neoliberal policies than with a pronounced capitalist bias which could be combined either with statist or economically liberal policies. Second, the variants of cultural nationalism that have been most openly adopted by Indonesias postcolonial state have been multicultural rather than exclusionary in orientation. The article provides an overview of the transition from developmental to (multi)cultural nationalism in Indonesia in the mid-1960s. These changes are highly visible in the Indonesian context because each successive political regime has defined its identity in large measure by its particular nationalism. Since the Indonesian state has historically been the main site for power struggles within the political elite, the changes over time in nationalist ideology reflect quite closely the changing political and economic fortunes of particular elements within this elite. They also indicate how elites are trying to define their relations to other groups in Indonesian society, and how they are adapting to constraints imposed, and opportunities presented, by a changing national and global political economy.

Imagining the New Order Nation: Materiality and Hyperreality in Indonesia

This paper examines the tension between the materiality of information and communications technologies and the hyperreality which they are thought to produce. The setting for our analysis is Indonesia, where the most recent innovations in communications technologies co-exist alongside ancient – but still functional – ‘predecessor’ devices. Building upon Benedict Andersons work on late-colonial Indonesia and Chandra Mukerjis work on seventeenth-century French formal gardens, we examine how the national imaginaries specific to Suhartos New Order state are embedded in the materiality of the present.

Indonesia and the Liberal Peace: Recovering Southern Agency in Global Governance

It is necessary to move beyond the marginalization of the global South towards a perspective that takes it as a relational, generative, and agentive site within world politics. Indonesia is an instructive case in this regard: its participation in various multilateral peace projects constitutes a narrative of Southern agency that runs counter to dominant accounts of contemporary global governance. The dominant methodologies of peacekeeping, worked out through various iterations into a project of liberal governance, have been deeply implicated in many sets of illiberal relations. This illiberal side to the ‘liberal peace’ can be seen in the ways particular North–South relations have been structured into peace governance, as well as its instrumentalization by powerful domestic elements of Southern states. This is well exemplified by the Indonesian case, whose postcolonial transitions have been caught up in problematic civil–military relations, with both its governments and armed forces deriving various types of support from the international community at various times. Following the Cold War, and especially post-Suharto, these have intertwined with matters of ethno-religious violence, military authority, democratization, and the rise of political Islam. Indonesias participation in global liberal governance interventions raises questions about peace operations as a world-ordering technology. Es necesario desplazarse más allá de la marginalización del sur global hacia una perspectiva que la toma como un sitio relacional, generativo y de cambio dentro de la política mundial. En este aspecto, Indonesia es un caso instructivo: su participación en varios proyectos de paz multilaterales constituyen una narrativa de la agencia del sur que va en contra de cuentas dominantes de gobierno global contemporáneo. Las metodologías dominantes de mantenimiento de paz, trabajaron a través de varios ciclos dentro de un proyecto de gobierno liberal, han estado implicadas en varias series de relaciones conservadoras. Este lado conservador de ‘la paz liberal’ puede verse tanto en la forma como las relaciones particulares de norte-sur han sido estructuradas dentro de la gobernanza de paz, como en su instrumentalización bajo los elementos domésticos poderosos de los estados del sur. Esto ha estado bien ejemplificado por el caso indonesio, cuyas transiciones poscoloniales han sido envueltas en relaciones civiles-militares problemáticas, con sus gobiernos y fuerzas armadas, derivando varios tipos de soporte de la comunidad internacional en varias ocasiones. Después de la guerra fría, y especialmente después de Suharto, estos se han ligado con asuntos de violencia etnoreligiosos, de autoridad militar, democratización y el surgimiento del islam político. La participación de Indonesia en las intervenciones de gobierno liberal global, plantean dudas sobre las operaciones de paz como una tecnología de orden mundial. 我们有必要超越全球南方边缘化的想法，迈向一个将全球南方视为世界政治中一个相关的、有生产力、有动力场所的视角。关于这点，印度尼西亚是一个富有教益的案例：其在各种多边和平项目中的参与构筑了对南方能动作用的一种叙述，这种叙述与当代全球治理的主流解释相左。维和的主要方法，是通过各种循环进入自由主义治理项目从而解决问题，这些方法深深地涉及许多非自由主义关系。“自由主义和平”的非自由主义这一面可见于特定的北-南关系被结构为和平治理，以及通过南方国家强有力的国内因素被工具化。这通过印度尼西亚这一个案得到了很好的例证，印尼的后殖民主义转变正逢军民关系困难重重，其政府和武装力量在不同时期都从国际社会获得各类支持。继冷战之后，特别是后苏哈托时期，这些与族群-宗教暴力、军人威权、民主化以及政治伊斯兰的崛起等问题交织在一起。印尼对全球自由主义治理干预活动的参与提出了有关作为世界-秩序技术的和平行动的各种问题。 남반부의 주변화를 넘어서 남반부를 세계 정치 내에서 관계적, 생성적, 행위적 공간으로 연기는 관점을 갖는 것이 필요하다. 인도네시아는 이러한 점에서 교훈적이다: 여러 가지 다자간 평화 프로젝트에 인도네시아의 참여가 현대 지구적 거버넌스에 대한 지배적인 설명에 반대되는 남반부 행위자의 내러티브를 구성한다. 여러 반복을 통해서 자유 거버넌스의 프로젝트를 통해서 만들어진 지배적인 평화유지 방법론들이 비자유적 관계 속에 깊숙히 연루되어 있다. ‘자유주의 평화’의 비자유주의적 측면이 특히 북부-남부가 평화 거버넌스에 구조화되어 있는 방식과 남부 국가들의 강력한 국내적 요소들에 의해서 이루어진 북부-남부 관계의 도구화에서 보여질 수 있다. 이것은 인도네시아 사례가 예시한다. 인도네시아의 정부와 군 모두 여러 차례 국제사회로부터 다양한 형태의 지원을 받으면서, 인도네시아는 포스트콜로니얼 이행이 문제가 되는 민군관계에 포획되어 있다. 냉전 이후 특히 수하르토 이후 이러한 문제들은 인종-종교 폭력 문제, 군의 권위, 민주화, 정치적인 이슬람의 등장과 얽혀 있다. 지구적 자유 거너번스 개입에 인도네시아가 참여하는 것은 세계 질서를 만들어 내는 기술로서 평화활동에 대한 의문을 제기하게 만들었다.

STS, Governmentality, and the Politics of Infrastructure in Indonesia

How do new infrastructures for the movement of goods, people, and ideas get built, and how do they change? How do infrastructures function as instruments for new modes of political power and control? Can social actorsmobilize to shape the direction of infrastructure change? These are the core questions that animate this excellent set of articles written by an emerging cohort of STS scholars with an interest in Indonesia. Each of the articles presents a case study of a specific infrastructure project: Mohsin traces the history of a state-led project to build out the electrical grid in Bali during Indonesia’s NewOrder; Padawangi examines the politics of a community-based project aimed at expanding piped water service to poor neighborhoods in Jakarta; Fatimah analyzes a university-based project to establish a new biofuel industry in Sumbawa; and Budiastuti describes the deployment of a new DNA tracking system for Indonesian timber exports. Taken together, these case studies contribute to an emerging picture of sociotechnical change in Indonesia that draws sharp contrasts between how infrastructures were built and organized during the New Order period (1966– 98) and how they are coming to be built and organized now. During the New Order, new infrastructures were built mainly by the state in a topdown fashion and aimed to modernize Indonesian society by incorporating Indonesians into the expanding global capitalist economy while retaining centralized state control. In more recent years, infrastructure innovation has been driven by private firms and nonstate actors and has focused much more on expanding the reach of capitalism by developing distributed forms of governance and control. In what follows, I describe the central features of the New Order pattern of infrastructure innovation and show some of the ways these features have become “unbundled” and are being refashioned for use in the post–New Order era. I then draw on the case studies to ask, how is the old politics of infrastructure being rearticulated, challenged, or subverted now that the state’s role has been diminished?