Marcus Mietzner

Military politics, Islam, and the state in Indonesia : from turbulent transition to democratic consolidation

Military Politics, Islam and the State in Indonesia: From Turbulent Transition to Democratic Consolidation Preliminary pages INTRODUCTION Militaries in Political Transitions: Theories and the Case of Indonesia PART I: HISTORICAL LEGACIES, 1945-97 1. Doctrine and Power: Legacies of Indonesian Military Politics 2. Islam and the State: Legacies of Civilian Conflict PART II: CRISIS AND REGIME CHANGE, 1997-98 3. Regime Change: Military Factionalism and Suhartos Fall 4. Divided Against Suharto: Muslim Groups and the 1998 Regime Change PART III: THE POST-AUTHORITARIAN TRANSITION, 1998-2004 5. Adapting to Democracy: TNI in the Early Post-Authoritarian Polity 6. New Era, Old Divisions: Islamic Politics in the Early Post-Suharto Period PART IV: DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION, 2004-08 7. Yudhoyono and the Declining Role of State Coercion 8. Stabilizing the Civilian Polity: Muslim Groups in Yudhoyonos Indonesia.

Indonesia's democratic stagnation: anti-reformist elites and resilient civil society

As Egypt and Tunisia begin difficult democratic transitions, comparative political scientists have pointed to the worlds largest Muslim nation, Indonesia, as a role model. Seen as a stand-out exception from the global recession of democracy in the pre-2011 period, Indonesia has been praised as an example of a stable post-authoritarian polity. But a closer look at Indonesias record in recent years reveals that its democratization is stagnating. As this article demonstrates, there have been several attempts to roll back reforms introduced in the late 1990s and early 2000s. While not all of these attempts have been successful, Indonesias democratic consolidation is now frozen at 2005–2006 levels. However, the reason for this democratic stasis, the article argues, is not related to Diamonds notion of societal dissatisfaction with bad post-authoritarian governance. Opinion polls clearly show continued support for democracy despite citizen disgruntlement over the effectiveness of governance. Instead, I contend that anti-reformist elites are the main forces behind the attempted roll back, with civil society emerging as democracys most important defender. This insight, in turn, questions the wisdom of the decision by foreign development agencies – in Indonesia, but other countries as well – to reduce their support for non-governmental organizations and instead intensify their cooperation with government.

Soldiers, Parties and Bureaucrats: illicit fund-raising in contemporary Indonesia

This article discusses illicit fund-raising efforts in Indonesia’s armed forces, political parties and bureaucracy after the fall of Suharto in 1998. It argues that while personal self-enrichment remains a key motivation for military leaders, party politicians and bureaucrats to collect off-budget funds, there are also other crucial factors. Most importantly, all three sectors aim to control independent funds in order to maintain or strengthen their autonomy from other state institutions, such as parliamentary budget commissions, executive monitoring bodies or official auditing boards. By engaging in extensive self-financing practices, however, the three political actors undermine their own professionalism, functional effectiveness and internal coherence, and obstruct Indonesias process of democratic consolidation.

How Jokowi won and democracy survived

Abstract:This article discusses the 2014 presidential elections in Indonesia, which saw a strong populist challenge launched against the country’s young democracy. Prabowo Subianto, the former son-in-law of longtime autocrat Suharto, promised to roll back many of the democratic reforms of the last 15 years. Prabowo came within a hair’s breadth of winning the presidency, but ultimately lost out to Joko Widodo, a political newcomer from Central Java. The article evaluates what Widodo’s victory (and Prabowo’s strong campaign) tell us about the state of Indonesian democracy, and about the challenges that Widodo will face in leading Indonesia into the next phase of democratic strengthening.

Fighting the Hellhounds: Pro-democracy Activists and Party Politics in Post-Suharto Indonesia

Abstract In the literature on post-Suharto Indonesia, an increasingly dominant stream has portrayed the political system as being hijacked by predatory elite interests associated with the fallen New Order regime. While such characterisations describe important elements of the post-1998 polity, they do not tell the full story. At the same time that patronage-driven career politicians have staked their claims in the newly democratic state, a large number of civil society activists also started to play an active role in formal politics. This article illustrates how human rights advocates, women activists and labour leaders have tried to promote their causes not from the margins of civil society, but from within the power centre of political institutions. To be sure, some activists-turned-politicians have failed in this effort, but others have initiated key pieces of legislation that led to ground-breaking reforms. In comparative terms, the article demonstrates that Indonesian activists have created an effective political niche for themselves, avoiding both the patterns of state co-optation so prevalent in South Korea and the anti-system attitudes of activist politicians in Malaysia.

Indonesian Politics in 2014: Democracy’s Close Call

Indonesian democracy experienced a near miss in 2014, when Jakarta governor Joko Widodo (Jokowi) defeated former general Prabowo Subianto by a margin of 6.3% in the presidential election. Both candidates were populists who rose to prominence in the context of public disillusionment with incumbent president Yudhoyono; Prabowo, however, condemned Indonesias democratic system and promised to take Indonesia in a more authoritarian direction. We trace democracys close call through five phases: the dying months of Yudhoyonos presidency, the rise of populist alternatives, the parliamentary elections of April 2014, the July presidential campaign, and the aftermath. We attribute the strength of Prabowos campaign to superior organisational and financial support, while Jokowis victory rested upon strong identification with him among poor and rural voters. Also determining the outcome was the fact that public satisfaction with democracy remained strong, undermining the effectiveness of Prabowos authoritarian-populist message. Nevertheless, democracys future remains uncertain, given that Prabowo and his supporters now control a sufficiently large number of parliamentary seats to continue promoting a rollback of democratic reforms.

Political Opinion Polling in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia: Catalyst or Obstacle to Democratic Consolidation?

The introduction of democratic elections in Indonesia after the downfall of Soeharto’s authoritarian New Order regime in 1998 has triggered intensive scholarly debates about the competitiveness, credibility and representativeness of these ballots. The main focus of such discussions has understandably been on the primary actors in the elections – parties, individual candidates and voters. But this concentration on voting behaviour and electoral outcomes has shifted attention away from another development that is at least as significant in shaping Indonesia’s new democracy: that is, the remarkable proliferation of opinion pollsters and political consultants.The central role of opinion polls in post-Soeharto politics – and the diversity of views expressed in them – have challenged many of the conventional wisdoms held about the Indonesian electorate. The picture that emerges from the rapid spread of opinion polls in recent years, and from their profound impact on the political elite, points to an increasingly sophisticated (and diversified) electorate. The rise of opinion polls as key elements in electoral politics has been so fast and so consequential that Indonesia now faces the same dilemmas typically associated with the dominance of pollsters in consolidated Western democracies.This article discusses the implications of the rising importance of opinion polling for Indonesia’s consolidating democracy.

Military Businesses in Post-Suharto Indonesia: Decline, Reform and Persistence

One of the most crucial challenges for transitional or consolidating democracies is establishing effective government control over the armed forces (Diamond & Plattner, 1996). Without such control, the armed forces (or factional elements within them) retain the capacity to sabotage democratic reforms – most notably elections, the creation of independent legislatures and judiciaries, as well as the expansion of civil liberties. Many states undergoing democratic transitions try to impose control over their militaries by removing them from political decision-making, placing pro-reform officers in key positions and strengthen civilian institutions (Cottey, Edmunds, & Forster, 2002b). If militaries played a particularly strong role in the authoritarian regime that ruled prior to the democratic transition, new government leaders may also opt to make concessions to the officer corps, such as amnesty for past human rights abuses or some form of continued role in security affairs (Mainwaring, 1989). But one field that is often overlooked by civilian officials in democratizing states is the importance of gaining control over the military’s finances. More often than not, institutional reforms are being carried out that fail to curtail the military’s access to or even direct possession of vast monetary resources. With these resources, militaries become independent of the official defense budget allocations provided by the state, and can thus finance operations that run counter to the interests of the government (Brommelhorster & Paes, 2003). Hence, even states that have successfully introduced electoral reforms and made other important institutional changes can still see their democratization processes undermined by militaries with sufficient financial autonomy to pursue their own agendas.

The Yudhoyono Presidency: Indonesia's Decade of Stability and Stagnation

The presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (2004-14) was a watershed in Indonesias modern democratic history. Yudhoyono was not only the first Indonesian president to be directly elected, but also the first to be democratically re-elected. Coming to office after years of turbulent transition, he presided over a decade of remarkable political stability and steady economic growth. But other aspects of his rule have been the subject of controversy. While supporters view his presidency as a period of democratic consolidation and success, critics view it as a decade of stagnation and missed opportunities. This book is the first comprehensive attempt to evaluate both the achievements and the shortcomings of the Yudhoyono presidency. With contributions from leading experts on Indonesias politics, economy and society, it assesses the Yudhoyono record in fields ranging from economic development and human rights, to foreign policy, the environment and the security sector.

Ideology, money and dynastic leadership: The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, 1998-2012

Most comparative theorists of democracy have described Asias political parties as highly personalized, weakly rooted and ideologically hollow. Indonesia has not been exempted from this assessment, with many authors identifying parties as the weakest link in the countrys young democracy. But a more systematic analysis of Indonesian parties offers a different perspective. This article uses analytical tools developed by Paul Webb and Stephen White to assess the popular legitimacy, organizational rootedness and systemic functionality of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle. The discussion shows that, despite well known deficiencies, the party has a clearly defined constituency, possesses moderately strong roots in society and plays an important role in interest aggregation and articulation. Accordingly, this case study sheds a new light on deeply entrenched stereotypes of party politics in Asia and other transitional democracies.