Abstract
In this collection, the authors aim to provide an overview of Indonesian state and society by bringing together in one volume history, politics, economics, and international affairs. Overall, the authors succeed in their aim of offering a “comprehensive and up-to-date” overview with some limitations. Due to the ambitious scope of this collection, spanning many decades and areas of scholarship, this collection should be considered an introductory text for students or scholars seeking an entry point to the Indonesian context.
In chapter 1, the authors start out by asking the reader to consider whether Indonesia is “an underrated country” in terms of geopolitics, when compared with countries of a similar size and (economic) strength like Brazil, Russia, or India. The tentative answer to this question is that although not necessarily underrated, the economic, demographic, and geographic significance of Indonesia is not well understood internationally. It is this gap in understanding that the collection seeks to fill.
In order to answer this question, in chapters 2 to 8, the authors analyse Indonesia’s internal affairs focusing on Indonesia’s transition as a nation state from pre-independence, to independent authoritarian state (Sukarno’s Guided Democracy and Suharto’s New Order), to post-authoritarian (reformasi period), to today’s contemporary democracy. The authors then circle back in chapter 9 to reflect on Indonesia’s place in global affairs.
One of the strengths of the collection is the provision of comparative perspectives throughout, positioning Indonesia’s transition both regionally and globally. Such comparative perspectives reveal much about the development of regional and global geo-politics from colonisation to the Cold War and beyond, as well as highlighting the intersection of local, national and global identities and influences within Indonesia.
A further strength of this collection is that the authors write from a contemporary, forward-looking perspective. For instance, the authors point out that today’s youth (18–30 years old) – the single largest group in Indonesia – “were born after the fall of the New Order [authoritarian period] or have no real memory of it.” On the one hand, it cannot be ignored that Indonesia’s history is defined by periods of authoritarianism and, relatedly, immeasurable atrocities committed against marginalised communities and groups. On the other hand, major legal and political reforms since 1998, including decentralisation and democratisation, mean that Indonesian youth – as well as incoming cohorts of Indonesia-focused students and researchers – are living in and engaging with a different Indonesia to that of older generations. As such, the authors position young people as agents of “political transformation” moving forward. Indeed, young people in Indonesia have recently been seen in action with student protests in 2019, the largest since mass demonstrations in 1998.
The authors also emphasise the “continuity of actors” between the previous authoritarian governments and today’s democratic government, and the resulting vulnerability or, at least, lingering fear of a return to authoritarianism (albeit, in a different form). It is these continuing complexities and tensions that the authors explore in more detail throughout the text.
Much of the collection is dedicated to exploring the lasting legacies of Suharto’s New Order government and the proceeding era reformasi (the reform era). In particular, the persistence of “cronyism and nepotism in government and business” has proven to be a structural barrier to reform across social, political, and economic portfolios. For example, the authors illustrate how many perpetrators of historical state violence continue to hold places in President Joko Widodo’s current government.
Despite such continuities, the authors emphasise that the transition from authoritarianism to a decentralised democratic government should not be downplayed, especially considering the extensive constitutional reforms that characterised the reformasi period. In addition, reformasi brought about a proliferation of human rights and rights protection mechanisms as well as a strengthening of legal infrastructure including the establishment of the Constitutional Court.
Nevertheless, the political compromise necessary to push through such sweeping constitutional reform has meant that the Indonesian constitutional framework has been left wanting in many ways. The flow-on effects of the reformasi period, in terms of constitutional reform, are relevant to almost all areas of Indonesian law and policy and is thus important foundational knowledge for anyone seeking to conduct analysis in the Indonesian context.
Similarly, scholars or commentators starting out in the field or students seeking to orientate themselves with respect to civil conflicts in Indonesia can learn a lot from the authors’ summary of inter-religious, inter-ethnic, and secessionist violence across the archipelago, which continue to affect domestic relations, legal arrangements, and politics today. For example, one cannot begin to understand the special regional autonomy arrangement in Indonesia’s westernmost Aceh Province and the implications that this has politically (for Aceh’s unique independent political parties) and legally (for the implementation of Islamically inspired local regulations) without first understanding the civil conflict between the Acehnese and the central Indonesian Government, and the subsequent 2005 peace deal. The same goes for understanding the ongoing conflict in the easternmost Papua province – the “longest-running violent dispute” between the central Indonesian government and a local population to date.
Given the broad scope of the collection, the information provided on these conflicts and associated human rights violations does not extend to their specificities but provides an entrance point. In saying this, the authors draw out important patterns, such as similarities in the state’s campaigns of repression, the presence of rich deposits of national resources in the regional provinces, and the presence of distinct regional ethnic, linguistic, and religious identities. Another pattern is the ongoing lack of accountability for state violence, despite the presence of an Indonesian human rights legal infrastructure, including the ability to establish ad hoc human rights courts.
Understanding patterns related to the “failure[s] of transitional justice and reconciliation” is essential in order to understand the contemporary struggle of Indonesian human rights activists and civil society groups, spanning issues such as anti-Chinese racism and discrimination against women and the LGBTIQ-community. The barriers to access to justice are multi-faceted and can be pieced together across the chapters of this collection, ranging from rising inequality between the rich and the poor, weak legal institutions, questionable freedom of speech protections, and conservative religious interpretations, amongst other challenges.
As Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, the role of Islam in relation to state and society is of constant interest, with Indonesia often positioned as a “model Muslim democracy.” Sometimes analyses on the topic of Islam and the dangers of extremism risk being reductionist; however, to the credit of the authors, this collection does not stereotype or seek to over-simplify the influence of Islam in Indonesia. For example, in the political sphere, the authors explain how engagement with Islam is a core issue that distinguishes political parties, in addition to differing views on decentralisation and centre–regional relations.
While acknowledging the relevance of religion and centre–regional relations, the authors do not overstate the role of either, explaining that political positions on these issues “should not be seen as absolute,” but rather are part of a larger picture. This is illustrated by the fact that explicitly Islamic parties have tended to poll poorly in Indonesian elections, compared to non-Islamic parties that strategically embrace aspects of an Islamic agenda. The relationship between religion and politics continues to be a live issue as seen during the Ahok trial and the 2019 elections. This being said, the collection shies away from in-depth analysis of the role and nature of Islam in Indonesia and the complexities of decentralisation, possibly due to it being introductory in nature.
Lastly, there is a notable effort in the collection to avoid Java-centrism (i.e. a focus on the political centre and most densely populated island in Indonesia to the exclusion of the regions), which often afflicts writings about Indonesia. For example, when discussing the topics of demography, health, education, employment, and poverty, the authors note that due to “regional disparities, there are significant local differences” across Indonesia. However, Indonesia’s diversity in terms of ethnicity, language, and culture across the archipelago is not detailed in any depth in the collection.
Returning to the central question of Indonesia’s “transition,” while this collection provides an overview of periods of transition in Indonesia from pre-independence to the present day, it should not be implied that there is necessarily a developmental “end point” at which such a transition will be objectively complete. 1 Rather, the notion of “transition” in the book’s title can be taken to mean that the development of any country’s state and society is a complex journey that can only begin to be understood by first analysing past political, economic, and social transitions. Having analysed Indonesia’s internal affairs, by the end of the book readers are better equipped to answer the question posed by the authors in the opening chapter – so, is Indonesia underrated? In short, Indonesia’s potential on the global stage may as yet be unfulfilled due to ongoing domestic challenges.