14 results in Political Reform in Indonesia after Soeharto
Frontmatter
- Harold Crouch
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- Political Reform in Indonesia after Soeharto
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6 - POLITICS, CORRUPTION AND THE COURTS
- Harold Crouch
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- Political Reform in Indonesia after Soeharto
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Summary
The experience of many post-authoritarian regimes suggests that judicial reform usually faces huge obstacles and cannot be achieved quickly. The courts had been integral components of the authoritarian regime with the role of serving its needs. Among their main functions were the provision of a cover of legitimacy for political repression while ensuring that regime leaders and their supporters enjoyed a large degree of impunity from the working of the law. Political oversight of the courts was the norm and most judges absorbed the values of the system. In many countries, the “justice sector”, including judges, prosecutors and police, was no different to the rest of the bureaucracy in that it was poorly paid and characterized by pervasive corruption.
Although the fall of the New Order opened the way to substantial democratic reforms, reform of the courts proved difficult, as indicated especially by their initial failure to tackle ubiquitous corruption that was increasingly exposed in the new democratic environment. In addition to the demand for democracy, one of the main slogans of the post-1998 reform movement called for the end of “KKN” (Korupsi, Kolusi, Nepotisme: Corruption, Collusion, Nepotism). As we shall see, very little was attempted during the early post-authoritarian years to curb corruption. Soeharto's centralized network was partly dismantled, but its fragmented remnants formed their own networks around sections of the bureaucracy, the newly liberated political parties and regional governments. Much of the post-1998 political and economic elite, therefore, had been deeply involved in the practices of the Soeharto regime and had no enthusiasm for a campaign against KKN.
It could hardly be expected, in these circumstances, that the courts would reform themselves. The courts during the New Order had never been insulated from the corruption of the regime and the majority of judges had been integrated quite comfortably into the system. Of course, some judges had preserved their integrity under authoritarian rule and others, even if they had succumbed to the pressures of the past, at least aspired to restore public respect for the judiciary in the new circumstances. The critical impetus for judicial reform, however, had to come from outside the judiciary itself from freely elected governments and legislatures, as well as the press and NGOs, backed by public opinion.
8 - RESOLVING THE SEPARATIST CHALLENGE IN ACEH
- Harold Crouch
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- Political Reform in Indonesia after Soeharto
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Summary
As discussed in Chapter 4, the fall of the Soeharto regime was followed by rising assertiveness in the regions outside Java that resented what they saw as excessive central domination while the weak Habibie government, challenged on all sides, was aware of its limited capacity to repress outbreaks of resistance to central rule. Indonesian leaders, including senior military officers, were alarmed by what seemed to be parallels with the break-up of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia while public debate began to touch on what had previously been “unimaginable” — the disintegration of the republic. The leading candidate for secession was, of course, East Timor, where Indonesia's occupation since 1975 continued to meet with armed resistance within the territory and widespread condemnation among the international community. In a dramatic effort to settle the East Timor problem once and for all, President Habibie proposed the holding of a referendum in East Timor which led, in 1999, to an overwhelming vote in favour of independence, a massacre of supporters of independence by pro-Indonesia militias and the withdrawal in chaotic circumstances of the Indonesian administration and military. The referendum resolved the East Timor issue but it stimulated further demands in Papua and Aceh — the next two most probable candidates for secession — for their own referenda.
In fact, there was no realistic prospect that the Indonesian government would agree to release Aceh from the republic. Indonesia's national ideology, Panca Sila (Five Principles), formulated by Soekarno and upheld by Soeharto, portrayed Indonesia as a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural nation in which all ethnic and religious communities have a recognized place. The government saw itself as the successor of the Netherlands East Indies and therefore the inheritor of all its territory, including Aceh (but not East Timor). It argued further that the people of Aceh had identified with the nationalist struggle against Dutch colonialism and were an integral part of the Indonesian nation. In the wake of the collapse of the New Order, this vision was challenged by ethnic and religious violence leading to heightened fears of national disintegration, especially after the secession of East Timor. Indonesia's self-image, encapsulated in the national motto Bhinekka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity), would be further devastated if one of its original regions were to follow East Timor's example.
1 - INTRODUCTION
- Harold Crouch
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- Political Reform in Indonesia after Soeharto
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Summary
Indonesia was in a parlous condition in 1998. Only a few years earlier, in the mid-1990s, it had often been portrayed as one of the Third World's success stories. President Soeharto's military-backed New Order was certainly authoritarian but it had underwritten political stability for almost three decades since the bloody upheaval surrounding the collapse of President Soekarno's Guided Democracy in 1965–66. Over the next three decades, that political stability had provided the foundation for average annual economic growth of 7 per cent that had raised per capita income to over US$1,000 and transformed Indonesia by the mid-1990s into a “near-NIC” on the brink of achieving Newly Industrializing Country (NIC) status. But the Asian Monetary Crisis — spreading from Thailand in July 1997 — brought rapid growth to a sudden halt. Tied to a maze of patronage networks, the Soeharto regime had been much less able than other regional governments to take the firm measures necessary to avert the crisis or at least mitigate its consequences. Indonesia's economy was in disarray with a virtual halt to investment and sharply rising unemployment — aggravated fortuitously by the impact on agriculture of drought caused by El Nino climatic conditions. As beggars re-appeared in large numbers on the streets of Jakarta and other cities, crime rates rose and looting became commonplace, while anti-Chinese rioting spread through Java and on other islands. Finally, massive student demonstrations triggered two days of anti-Chinese rioting in Jakarta in May 1998 that forced the resignation of President Soeharto and marked the end of his New Order.
The timing of the collapse of Indonesia's authoritarian regime was clearly not a direct result of domestic social and political change driven by economic growth but rather the opposite — the sudden interruption and indeed reversal of that growth in response to unexpected external factors. The Indonesian case, however, did not mean that the level of economic development is unimportant for understanding the fall of an authoritarian regime and transformation in the direction of democratization. As argued by Rueschmeyer, Stephens and Stephens, “An agrarian society before or in the incipient stages of penetration by commercial market relations and industrialization is unlikely to gain or sustain a democratic form of government.”
9 - REFORM IN UNPROMISING CIRCUMSTANCES
- Harold Crouch
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- Political Reform in Indonesia after Soeharto
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Summary
The collapse of an authoritarian regime opens wide the prospect of political reform. As Grindle and Thomas point out, “many reforms emerge and are considered in which policy elites believe that a crisis exists and that they must ‘do something’ about the situation or they will face grave consequences”. But “doing something” does not guarantee that political reforms will be implemented. A crisis can force elites to take action but it doesn't determine the exact nature of that action. Even when the fall of an authoritarian regime leads to a “democratic transition”, new or revived democratic institutions are not necessarily able to implement effective reforms. This study has focused on six institutional areas where reform has been attempted with varying degrees of success or failure. The starting point for Indonesia's crisis was the Asian Monetary Crisis that originated in Thailand in mid-1997 and quickly spread to several other Asian countries. Although five countries suffered severely, none was hurt as badly as Indonesia. Several Asian heads of government lost office in the wake of the crisis, but it was only in Indonesia that the political system itself was fundamentally changed. Many civil society organizations and even members of the Soeharto regime had been pressing for gradual political change before the upheaval in May 1998 but it was only after the lifting of New Order political controls following the demise of the regime that far-reaching political reform suddenly appeared possible.
Circumstances, however, were not especially propitious. The massive economic collapse that precipitated the fall of Soeharto's authoritarian regime led to a breakdown in order through much of the country. Huge anti-government protests continued in Jakarta and many regional capitals, rioting and ethnic violence became common, and the economic decline continued as investors and businesspeople withdrew capital from Indonesia. But there was no cohesive alternative elite ready to take over power. Although the fallen president and his hard-core supporters were removed, the initial post-authoritarian government was headed by Soeharto's hand-picked vice president and consisted largely of Golkar hold-overs from the previous cabinet while the bureaucracy and the military remained intact.
3 - REFORMING THE CONSTITUTION AND THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM
- Harold Crouch
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- Political Reform in Indonesia after Soeharto
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Summary
The fall of an authoritarian regime provides the opportunity for democratic reformers to establish democratic institutions. Democratization usually requires the drastic amendment of the old constitution or the drafting of a completely new one while existing electoral laws need to be overhauled. Post-authoritarian regimes, however, are not always dominated by democratic reformers. The implementation of political reforms is not necessarily smooth and must often be adjusted to suit interests surviving from the authoritarian regime and new political forces emerging in the wake of its collapse. In Indonesia's case, as described in Chapter 2, the new Habibie government consisted mainly of carry-overs from the Soeharto regime, while the legislature produced by the “managed” 1997 general election continued to be dominated by Soeharto's Golkar party and its military allies. The path to democratic reform, therefore, was by no means clear, yet it was this government and legislature that initiated the process of democratic transformation leading to Indonesia's first free elections in more than four decades. The 1999 elections, however, did not produce strong and cohesive government but institutions fragmented between competing parties and factions. Reflecting a common view, the Australian legal scholar, Tim Lindsey, noted that “Few believed that the current MPR, an institution with a justified reputation for party political in-fighting and horse trading, could produce the majority necessary to resolve debates that have divided Indonesia since independence in 1945.”
These institutions, nevertheless, embarked on further reform which resulted in a fundamental revision of the constitution and further development of the electoral laws. The British political scientist, Andrew Ellis, concluded that “the MPR made decisions of substance, the most important of which being the move to a separation of powers principle and a conventional presidential system”. This chapter seeks to explain how substantial reforms were adopted by unpromising institutions. By 2004, when the second post-authoritarian elections were held, most of the arguments between rival parties and factions over the provisions of the constitution and the electoral laws had given way to a consensus that was broadly acceptable to most major groups and conformed to recognized democratic standards. This did not mean, however, that all challenges had been overcome, but the remaining problems lay less in the institutional framework than in the performance of many of the politicians democratically elected to the reformed institutions.
Bibliography
- Harold Crouch
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- Political Reform in Indonesia after Soeharto
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Contents
- Harold Crouch
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Preface
- Harold Crouch
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Summary
Three decades of authoritarian rule in Indonesia came to a sudden halt in 1998. The collapse of the Soeharto regime was accompanied by massive economic decline, widespread rioting, communal conflict, and fears that the nation was approaching the brink of disintegration. Although the fall of Soeharto opened the way towards democratization, conditions were by no means propitious for political reform. This book asks how political reform could proceed despite such unpromising circumstances. It examines electoral and constitutional reform, the decentralization of a highly centralized regime, the gradual but incomplete withdrawal of the military from its deep political involvement, the launching of an anti-corruption campaign despite entrenched corruption in the courts, and the achievement of peace in two provinces that had been devastated by communal violence and regional rebellion.
The focus of this book is on political reforms during the decade after Soeharto's fall. These reforms were initially driven by the need to respond to the national crisis that brought down the New Order regime but were also shaped by specific circumstances and constellations of political forces in the six fields discussed in this book. The book tries to present the “big picture” of political reform but its main contribution most probably lies in the detailed tracing of reform in each of the six policy areas. Although reforms took place more or less simultaneously in an evolving national context, the pace and nature of specific reforms varied considerably. Political reform was not inevitable but depended on a continuing struggle between those who saw benefit in further reform and those who felt disadvantaged by it. Step-by-step political reform during the last decade has made significant advances but, as this book shows, is by no means complete and, in some areas, could still be vulnerable to reversal. It should also be noted that a study of contemporary political reform is inevitably no more than a “work in progress”. Even as this manuscript went to press, new developments raised new questions but hopefully will not fatally undermine my main arguments. I hope that readers will find the final product both informative and interesting.
2 - THE FALL OF THE NEW ORDER AND THE “REFORMASI” GOVERNMENTS
- Harold Crouch
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- Political Reform in Indonesia after Soeharto
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Summary
This chapter will provide an overview of national-level political developments from the chaotic conditions that accompanied the fall of President Soeharto to the attainment of a degree of normality under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Reform was launched after President Habibie had suddenly been catapulted into the presidency by the events of May 1998. Habibie had no reputation as a reformer but he quickly understood that the crisis demanded drastic reforms. His successors, Abdurrahman Wahid and Megawati Soekarnoputri, had been part of the growing moderate opposition to Soeharto but neither was able to form strong coherent governments committed to continuing reform. The “crisis-ridden” reforms forced on Habibie lost momentum after the worst of the crisis had passed. Facing fragmented legislatures — the DPR and MPR — formed after the free 1999 elections, Abdurrahman and Megawati were more concerned with maintaining legislative support than embarking on radical reform. Nevertheless, although Abdurrahman's failure to maintain that support eventually led to his dismissal, significant political reforms were adopted by the DPR and the constitution was overhauled by the MPR during Megawati's tenure. By the time Yudhoyono won the presidency in 2004, the authoritarian political structures of the New Order had been transformed into institutions that met international standards of formal democracy. But, while legislative institutions had been able to reform themselves, major obstacles stood in the way of further reform of the military and the judiciary. Although dubbed the Reformasi era, the achievements of the post-Soeharto governments were quite mixed.
THE NEW ORDER AND THE FALL OF SOEHARTO
When President Soeharto was forced from power in May 1998, he had ruled over one of the world's most durable authoritarian regimes for more than three decades. Backed by the military, Soeharto's New Order combined repression with co-optation to prevent the rise of organized political challenges. Blessed by an abundance of natural resources, particularly oil, the Indonesian economy had grown steadily until 1997. By the 1990s it was no longer the “basket case” that it had been in the mid-1960s but moving towards “newly-industrializing- country” status. Indonesian society had been transformed with the emergence of an educated middle class in an increasingly urbanized, although still predominantly non-urban, population.
7 - RESOLVING COMMUNAL VIOLENCE IN MALUKU
- Harold Crouch
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- Political Reform in Indonesia after Soeharto
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Summary
The collapse of the New Order lifted the lid on simmering communal tensions in many regions of Indonesia. During the New Order violent conflicts between local ethnic and religious communities had broken out from time to time, but from 1998 to the early 2000s the extent and intensity of violence increased sharply. Rioting in cities and towns caused many casualties and damage to property but usually lasted no more than a few days. In several regions, however, conflicts took the form of one-sided massacres while in others they were more akin to civil war. By the early 2000s, the number of lives lost in these conflicts had exceeded ten thousand and well over a million refugees had been forced to flee their homes to which many never returned. In East Timor, Aceh and Papua, the weakening of central authority provided the opportunity for the resurgence of existing separatist movements, one of which is discussed in the case study of the Aceh conflict in Chapter 8. In West and Central Kalimantan, Poso and Maluku, communal conflict intensified to a level that was beyond the capacity of the state to contain, as will be illustrated by the case of Maluku in this chapter. These regions — whether afflicted by separatist or communal conflict — were overwhelmed by crises in which the state ceased to function effectively. If they had been independent countries, they would have been classified as “failed states” but in fact, of course, they — except East Timor — remained part of the Republic of Indonesia. As we will see in the cases of both Aceh and Maluku, these regional conflicts had local origins but were also linked to political rivalries at the national level.
Maluku had been perceived as a peaceful region in which relations between Muslims and Christians were relatively harmonious. A complex combination of disparate factors, however, contributed to the breakdown of order in Maluku after the fall of the New Order regime. Demographic change had upset the balance between the two religious communities, the holding of free elections exacerbated uncertainty about the new constellation of power, national politics under Soeharto had encouraged increased Muslim assertiveness, divided religious loyalties immobilized local security forces, and radical Muslim groups outside Maluku sent militia forces to fight alongside their co-religionists.
4 - STRUGGLES OVER REGIONAL GOVERNMENT
- Harold Crouch
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- Political Reform in Indonesia after Soeharto
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Since the 1980s, many developing countries have embarked on decentralization in a wide variety of circumstances and for diverse reasons. In some countries decentralization was part of an ongoing programme to raise the efficiency of public administration, but in others it was associated with fundamental changes in the structure of government. The fall of a centralized authoritarian regime, for example, often led not only to constitutional and electoral reform but also the re-structuring of centre-region relations. Democratization extended naturally from the centre to the regional and local levels, although the degree and form of decentralization varied considerably. While most countries decentralized incrementally, Indonesia's initial reform was dubbed a “big bang” that transformed the highly centralized unitary structure of the New Order into one that was highly decentralized. Observers described it as “the most daring decentralization policy in developing countries” based on “the most radical decentralization laws in Asia and the Pacific”.
This chapter opens with a brief description of the centralized New Order regime before discussing the drastic “big bang” decentralization measures introduced after Soeharto's fall. Despite their previous support for virtually unfettered central domination of the regions, Golkar and its military partner, which together constituted an overwhelming majority in the unreformed DPR elected in 1997, quickly reversed their position on centre-region relations and supported radical reform legislation proposed by President Habibie. The 1999 regional autonomy laws were adopted in the shadow of a national crisis and the prospect of national disintegration — circumstances that Grindle and Thomas would call “crisis-ridden”. But by the time that the 1999 laws were replaced in 2004 concerns about national disintegration had largely abated and “politics-as- usual” had been more or less restored, to borrow another term from Grindle and Thomas. The rushed adoption and implementation of the 1999 laws had led to much confusion and controversy that generated resistance inspired by ideological, pragmatic and interest-based considerations. The revised 2004 laws were the product of “normal” bargaining and compromise between the major parties in the legislature. Although they restored some of the central government's authority, the new laws fell far short of the centralization of the Soeharto regime while further entrenching decentralization by introducing direct elections of provincial and district heads. Finally, the chapter raises the question of the vulnerability of regional governments to elite “capture” and its implications for democratic accountability.
Index
- Harold Crouch
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- Political Reform in Indonesia after Soeharto
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5 - MILITARY REFORM: WITHDRAWING FROM “PRACTICAL POLITICS” AND STEPS TOWARD CIVILIAN CONTROL
- Harold Crouch
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Summary
Democratic military reform, following the fall of a military-backed authoritarian regime, involves a series of conceptually distinct steps although in reality they often overlap. First, the military must withdraw from its political role as a dominant or major force in the government and concentrate on its professional military functions. Second, the civil government has to establish control over the military which should loyally carry out the policies determined by that government. And third, if “democratic civilian control” is to be achieved, the military must accept its obligation to be accountable through the government to an elected legislature and public opinion. As Muthiah Alagappa argues, “Ultimately, success in democratic civilian control will hinge as much if not even more on the consolidation of democracy and development of state capacity than on the specific measures instituted to control the military”. The actual path towards military reform, however, is always affected by the specific circumstances of the country undergoing reform.
The collapse of Soeharto's New Order and the launching of Reformasi posed huge challenges for civil-military relations. How would the post- Soeharto regime deal with the military and, no less important, how would the military adjust to completely new circumstances? Advocates of military reform often envisage a Western-style professional military that takes its orders from a democratically elected civilian government and is primarily concerned with the defence of the nation against foreign military threats. The Indonesian military, of course, with its origins among the nationalist fighters who conducted the successful guerilla war against the Dutch colonial power in the late 1940s, had never conformed to the apolitical Western model. Like the Dutch colonial military, its main purpose was to maintain order and put down rebellion within it own territory. It was also structured in such a way as to provide political support for the incumbent president. During the New Order, the military was closely integrated with the Soeharto regime and served as the ultimate guarantor of its longevity.
Democratic political reform required that the military be dislodged from the position it held during the New Order. Unlike military-dominated governments in countries where the military had acquired power in a relatively recent coup, the New Order regime had been thoroughly penetrated over several decades by active and retired military officers who occupied key positions at all levels of civil government, stretching from the national cabinet to provincial and district administration.