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A consolidated patrimonial democracy? Democratization in post-Suharto Indonesia

2006; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 13; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13510340600579284

1743-890X

Douglas Webber,

Cambodian History and Society

Abstract In fewer than eight years Indonesia, the world's most populous majority Muslim country, has made a remarkable transition from an authoritarian to a democratic political system. Against heavy odds, and despite bleak prognoses that this process and the country itself would collapse, Indonesia has meanwhile developed many attributes of a consolidated democracy. As indicated by pervasive and endemic corruption, what has emerged in Indonesia, however, is a patrimonial democracy in which the rule of law is weak and the government's effective capacity to govern is limited. Although patrimonialism has deep roots in Indonesian political history, there are none the less growing signs that in particular electoral competition will 'improve' Indonesian democracy and push it in a more liberal direction. A new and rare Muslim democratic star may thus be rising in the Far East. Keywords: democratizationIndonesiapatrimonialismcorruptionIslammilitary Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Natasha Hamilton Hart, Anthony Smith, several anonymous reviewers of Democratization, Francesco Cavatorta, Frédéric Volpi, Ellen Lust-Okar and the other participants in the ECPR (European Consortium of Political Research) workshop on 'Post-Cold War Democratization in the Muslim World', University of Granada, 14–19 April 2005 for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. The author alone remains responsible for its contents. Notes 1. See, for example, the titles of the articles by Paul Dibb and Peter Prince, 'Indonesia's Grim Outlook', Orbis, Vol. 45, No. 4 (2001), pp. 621–36; Justine A. Rosenthal, 'Southeast Asia: Archipelago of Afghanistans?', Orbis, Vol. 47, No. 3 (2003), pp. 479–93; Theodore Friend, 'Indonesia in Flames', Orbis, Vol. 42, No. 3 (1998), pp. 387–407; and David Rohde, 'Indonesia Unraveling?', Foreign Affairs, Vol. 80, No. 4 (2001), pp. 110–24. 2. On the issue of the 'quality' of democracy in countries that have made recent democratic transitions, see Wolfgang Merkel and Aurel Croissant, 'Conclusion: Good and Defective Democracies', Democratization, Vol. 11, No. 5 (2004), pp. 199–213. 3. Robert A. Dahl, On Democracy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 84–91. 4. Carsten Q. Schneider and Philippe C. Schmitter, 'Liberalization, Transition and Consolidation: Measuring the Components of Democratization', Democratization, Vol. 11, No. 5 (2004), pp. 61–2. 5. Ibid., pp. 67–8. 6. As is customary in the analysis of Indonesian politics, I distinguish between different political blocs primarily according to whether parties prioritize the achievement of secular national goals (such as economic development) or religious ones. A secular-nationalist bloc is dominated by the PDIP and Golkar. A Muslim-nationalist bloc comprises parties (PKB – National Awakening Party and PAN – National Mandate Party) that basically share the same political agenda as the secular-nationalist parties, but were created by former leaders of the two biggest Muslim organizations in the country, the NU (Nahdlatul Ulama – Revival of Religious Scholars) and the Muhammadiyah and appeal especially to members or sympathizers of these organizations. The Islamist bloc of parties, especially the PPP (United Development Party) and the PKS (Justice and Prosperity Party), have a common goal of introducing (differing conceptions of) Islamic law in Indonesia. Given the predominance of santri (pious or devout) Muslims in the Indonesian population today (see the main text), the secular-nationalist parties would obviously not be as strong as they are unless most santri Muslims voted for them. 7. W. Merkel, 'Embedded and Defective Democracies', Democratization, Vol. 11, No. 5 (2004), pp. 49 and 51; and A. Croissant, 'From Transition to Defective Democracy: Mapping Asian Democratization', Democratization, Vol. 11, No. 5 (2004), p. 165. Adam Przeworski has defined 'tutelary democracies' as regimes in which 'the military extricates itself from the direct performance of government and withdraws into barracks, but withdraws intact and contingently', remaining 'in the shadows' while elections take place and elected representatives govern, 'ready to fall upon anyone who transgresses too far in undermining their values and their interests'–see Przeworski, 'Democracy as a Contingent Outcome of Conflicts', in Jon Elster and Rune Slagstad (eds), Constitutionalism and Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 60–1. 8. Anthony Smith, 'Indonesia: Transforming the Leviathan', in John Funston (ed.), Government and Politics in Southeast Asia (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2001), p. 93; Bambang Harymurti, 'Challenges of Change in Indonesia', Journal of Democracy, Vol. 10, No. 4 (1999), p. 75; and Geoffrey Robinson, 'Indonesia: On a New Course?', in Muthiah Alagappa (ed.), Coercion and Governance: The Declining Political Role of the Military in Asia (Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), pp. 230–1. 9. Robinson (note 8), pp. 233–4. 10. Straits Times (Singapore), 'Indonesia seeks to raise defence spending', 25 March 2005. 11. Robinson (note 8), p. 229 and Lee Kim Chew, 'Indonesian military turning its back on reforms', Straits Times, 28 February 2003. 12. Kees van Dijk, A Country in Despair: Indonesia between 1997 and 2000 (Jakarta: KITLV Press, 2001), p. 527; Kevin O'Rourke, Reformasi: The Struggle for Power in Post-Soeharto Indonesia (Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin), pp. 81–2, 294 and 336; The Economist, 'Uprooting graft', 30 April 2005; Straits Times, 25 March 2005. 13. Robinson (note 8), pp. 251–5. 14. There is, however, growing evidence that, in exchange for better government funding, the military is prepared to wind down the scope of its business activities. After the Indonesian Parliament adopted a law in 2004 requiring the military to hand over its business interests to the government by 2009, the head of the military pledged in April 2004 that the military would end its role in business in the next two years. 15. Harold Crouch, 'The key determinants of Indonesia's political future', text of a lecture delivered at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) Forum on Regional Strategic and Political Developments, Singapore, 25 July 2002, p. 10; Goenawan Mohamad, former editor of Tempo magazine, programme director, Sekolah Tinggi Filsafat Driyarkara, interview with the author, Jakarta, 19 February 2003; Franz Magnis-Suseno, programme director, Sekolah Tinggi Filsafat Driyakara, interview with the author, Jakarta, 21 February 2003; Jusuf Wanandi, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, interview with the author, Jakarta, 9 January 2002. 16. Schneider and Schmitter (note 4), p. 68. 17. Hence, J. Linz and A. Stepan, in Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p.5, understand by 'democratic consolidation' a state of affairs in which democracy has become '"the only game in town" … routinized and deeply internalized in social, institutional, and even psychological life, as well as in calculations for achieving success'. They distinguish between behavioural, attitudinal and constitutional dimensions of democratic consolidation. Behaviourally, they argue, democracy becomes the only game in town 'when no significant political groups seriously attempt to overthrow the democratic regime or secede from the state'. Democracy is consolidated attitudinally when 'the overwhelming majority of the people believe that any further political change must emerge from within the parameters of democratic formulas and constitutionally when 'all actors in the polity become habituated to the fact that political conflict will be resolved according to the established [i.e. democratic] norms'. If democratic consolidation is so conceptualized, Indonesia may fall some distance short of being a consolidated democracy, depending in particular on the significance that is attributed to terrorist groups such as the JI (Jemaah Islamiyah) or independence movements that have taken up arms against the central government such as the GAM (Free Aceh Movement) in Aceh and the degree to which the military is regarded as having accepted the new democratic system. 18. See Barrington Moore Jr, The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966), p. 418; and Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyn Huber Stephens and John D. Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. 8, 76–7 and 207 ff. 19. See Table 4 in Croissant (note 7), p. 167. 20. O'Rourke (note 12), pp. 348–51 and 376–7; Robert Hefner, 'Indonesian Islam at the Crossroads', in: Islam in Modern Indonesia, proceedings of a joint conference sponsored by the United States – Indonesia Society and The Asia Foundation, Washington, DC, 7 February 2002, pp. 20–2; Sukardi Rinakit, Director, Centre of Political Studies, interview with the author, Jakarta, 20 February 2003; Magnis-Suseno, interview. 21. The Economist, 'Time to deliver: A survey of Indonesia', Supplement, 11 December 2004. 22. See, for example, Robert J. Barro, 'Determinants of Democracy', Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 107, No. 6 (1999), pp. 158–83; and Sanford Lakoff, 'The Reality of Muslim Exceptionalism', Journal of Democracy, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2004), pp. 133–9. 23. Clifford Geertz, The Religion of Java (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1960); Hussin Mutalib, 'Political Islam in Southeast Asia: Shar'iah Pressures, Democratic Measures?', in H. Mutalib (ed.), Islam and Democracy: The Southeast Asian Experience (Singapore: Konrad- Adenauer-Stiftung/Centre for Contemporary Islamic Studies, 2004), p. 24; Hasyim Muzadi, 'Same Faith, Different Names: Islam and the Problem of Radicalism in Indonesia', in Thang D. Nguyen and Frank-Jürgen Richter (eds), Indonesia Matters: Diversity, Unity and Stability in Fragile Times (Singapore: Times Editions, 2003), pp. 91–2. 24. Thomas Stamford Raffles, The History of Java, Vol. II (London: Black, Parbury and Allen/John Murray, 1817), p. 2. 25. Geoff Forrester, 'A Jakarta Diary, May 1998', in G. Forrester and R.J. May (eds), The Fall of Soeharto (Bathurst: Crawford House, 1998), pp. 56–7 and Adam Schwarz, A Nation in Waiting: Indonesia's Search for Stability (St Leonards, NSW: George Allen and Unwin, 1999), pp. 10–11. 26. R. W. Hefner, Civil Islam: Muslims and Democratization in Indonesia (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp. 18 and 128–66. 27. With reputedly some 35 million members, the NU is the largest voluntary Muslim organization in the world. 28. Masdar Farid Mas'udi, official, NU Society for the Advancement of the Pesantren (religious boarding schools), interview with the author, Jakarta, 19 February 2003. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid. 31. Azyumardi Azra, rector, State Institute for Islamic Studies, Jakarta, interview with the author, Jakarta, 11 January 2002. 32. Paige Johnson Tan, 'Half-Hearted Reform: Electoral Institutions and the Struggle for Democracy in Indonesia' (book review), Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 2, No. 1 (2004), pp. 176. 33. Irwan Prayitno, proceedings of a conference held at the Institute for Defence and Strategic Studies, The Future of Indonesia's Islam: The Quest for An Equilibrium (Singapore, 17 June 2002), p. 9; and International Crisis Group, Indonesia: Violence and Radical Muslims, Indonesia Briefing (Jakarta/Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2001). 34. Terror Free Tomorrow, A Major Change of Public Opinion in the Muslim World: Results from a New Poll of Indonesians (Bethesda, MD: Terror Free Tomorrow), p. 4. 35. Public opinion survey results cited by R. William Liddle and Saiful Mujani, 'The real face of Indonesian Islam', New York Times, 11 October 2003. 36. Terror Free Tomorrow (note 34), p. 9; and 'The End of Political Religion?', Tempo, 5 April 2004, p. 15. 37. Linz and Stepan (note 17), pp. 55–65. 38. Ibid., pp. 52–4. 39. Wimar Witeolar, No Regrets: Reflections of a Presidential Spokesman (Jakarta/Singapore: Equinox, 2002), p. 190. 40. For example, Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), Rueschemeyer et al. (note 18), and Merkel and Croissant (note 2). 41. Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to First (Singapore: Times Editions, 2000), p. 313. 42. M. Steven Fish, 'Mongolia: Democracy Without Prerequisites', Journal of Democracy, Vol. 9, No. 3 (1998), pp. 127–41. 43. R. William Liddle, 'Indonesia: Suharto's Tightening Grip', in Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner (eds), Democracy in East Asia (Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), p. 200. 44. Schwarz (note 25), A Nation in Waiting, p. 269. 45. Ibid., p. 144. 46. A. Schwarz, 'Indonesia after Suharto', Foreign Affairs, Vol. 76, No. 4 (1997), pp. 127 and 133. 47. Ikrar Nusa Bhakti, 'Trends in Indonesian Student Movements in 1998', in Forrester and May (note 25), 174. 48. Bhakti (note 47), p. 176; O'Rourke (note 12), p. 132; Ed Aspinall, 'Opposition and Elite Conflict in the Fall of Soeharto', in Forrester and May (note 25), p. 144. 49. Susan Berfield and Dewi Loveard, 'Ten Days that Shook Indonesia', Asiaweek, 24 July 1998. 50. Forrester, 'Introduction', in Forrester and May (note 25), p. 21. 51. Schwarz (note 25), p. 364. 52. Forrester, 'A Jakarta Diary', in Forrester and May (note 25), p. 46. 53. Wanandi, interview with the author. 54. Olle Tornquist, 'Dynamics of Indonesian Democratisation', Third World Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 3 (2000), pp. 383 ff. 55. Ibid. On such transitional pacts in general, see Guillermo O'Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), p. 37. 56. Crouch (note 15), p. 7; J. Wanandi, 'Indonesia: A Failed State?', The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 3 (2002), pp. 135 and 145. 57. The Economist, 'Time to Deliver', p.15. 58. 'Govt pledges funds for the poor free from corruption', The Jakarta Post, 2 March 2005. 59. As quoted in 'Minister wages war on slack bureaucrats', Straits Times, 13 June 2003. The poor qualifications of many Indonesian civil servants are widely attributed to the allegedly widespread practice of selling government jobs to the highest bidder in the Suharto era. 60. The Asia Foundation, Democracy in Indonesia: A Survey of the Indonesian Electorate 2003 (Jakarta: The Asia Foundation, 2003). 61. The Partnership for Governance Reform in Indonesia, A National Survey of Corruption in Indonesia: Final Report 2001 (Jakarta, 2001). 62. The International Foundation for Election Systems, National Public Opinion Survey 2003 (Jakarta, 2003) and 'Public opinion survey conducted in Indonesia, 2–9 September 2004' (Jakarta, 2004). 63. Transparency International, The Transparency International Global Corruption Barometer (Berlin: Transparency International, 2003). 64. For details of sources of estimates of the extent of corruption in the Indonesian police force and judicial system, see Ulla Fionna and Douglas Webber, 'Politics, Legal Systems and Corruption in Indonesia: A Historical Overview' (Fontainebleau/Singapore: INSEAD Background Note 04/2002-5002), p. 11. 65. Ibid. 66. Cf. Croissant (note 7). 67. Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, Vol. 2, edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 1028–31. First published in 1914. 68. Benedict R. O'G. Anderson, 'The Idea of Power in Javanese Culture', in Anderson, Language and Power: Exploring Political Culture in Indonesia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), pp. 46–8 and 59–61. On this topic, see also Lucian W. Pye, Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimensions of Authority (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 111–19. 69. Anderson (note 68), p. 48; and Benedict R. O'G. Anderson, 'Old State, New Society: Indonesia's New Order in Comparative Historical Perspective', Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 42, No. 3 (1983), pp. 482–3) 70. Lee Kuan Yew (note 41), p. 304. 71. H. Crouch, 'Patrimonialism and Military Rule in Indonesia', World Politics, Vol. 31, No. 4 (1979), p. 577. 72. Weber (note 67), p. 1095. 73. Remark made to the author by the Chief Executive Offier of the Indonesian subsidiary of a foreign-owned insurance company, in an interview, Jakarta, 2001. 74. W. Witoelar, No Regrets: Reflections of a Presidential Spokesman (Jakarta/Singapore: Equinox), p. 193. 75. On the impact of longevity on the prospects of democratic consolidation, see Schneider and Schmitter (note 4), p. 85. 76. International Crisis Group, Aceh: Why Military Force will not Bring Lasting Peace, Asia Report No. 17 (Jakarta/Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2001), pp. 12–14 and 17–19. 77. See, for example, the International Crisis Group, Aceh: A New Chance for Peace, Asia Briefing No. 40 (Jakarta/Brussels: International Crisis Group), 15 August 2005. 78. Hidayat Nurwahid (chairman of the PKS), ' "We want to change the national leadership" ', Tempo, 19 April 2004, pp. 30–3. 79. Prayitno (note 33), p. 23; 'Proof's in the free pudding', Tempo, 5 April 2004, pp. 18–19. 80. M. C. Ricklefs, 'Religion is a necessity in Indonesian politics', Straits Times, 26 October 2004. See also The Economist, 'Time to deliver', pp. 12 and 15. 81. On the concept of 'illiberal democracy', see Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003). 82. Linz, 'The Perils of Presidentialism', Journal of Democracy, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1990), pp. 51–69. 83. Crouch (note 71), pp. 583–5. 84. Abubakar Hara, 'The Difficult Journey of Democratization in Indonesia', Contemporary Southeast Asia, Vol. 23, No. 2 (2001), p. 319. For a discussion of Golkar in this regard, see also Charles U. Zazie, 'Indonesia's New Political Spectrum', Asian Survey, Vol. XXXIX, No. 2 (1999), pp. 252–6. 85. Maxwell Lane, as quoted in: 'Rift widens between Indonesian public and politicians', Straits Times, 15 July 2004. 86. 'Bambang's people power', Straits Times, 14 September 2004. 87. John McBeth, 'Indonesian voters making wise choices', Straits Times, 20 July 2005. 88. Tornquist (note 54). For a similar analysis of this issue, see also Vedi R. Hadiz, 'Retrieving the Past for the Future? Indonesia and the New Order Legacy', Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science, Vol. 28, No. 2 (2000), pp. 10 and 15. 89. 'Labor movement in Indonesia still weak', Jakarta Post, 15 January 2003. 90. Mas'udi, interview. 91. Lex Rieffel, 'Indonesia's Quiet Revolution', Foreign Affairs, Vol. 83, No. 5 (2004), p. 109. 92. 'Indonesia steps up the struggle against graft, The Financial Times, 19 July 2004. 93. As quoted in: 'Greater democracy key to success for Asia, says Anwar', Straits Times, 8 April 2005.