Marcus Mietzner

The book description text is repeated (2 times, one after the other). Rather than you reading through the description to determine where the repeat starts, please replace the description with the following: Around the globe, populists have used the decline of established political parties and widespread societal fears of globalization to launch increasingly successful electoral campaigns. Indonesia is no exception. In the 2014 presidential elections, two populists even competed against each other--albeit with vastly different concepts of populism. Prabowo Subianto, the wealthy former son-in-law of ex-autocrat Suharto, offered a classic populist paradigm based on anti-foreign rhetoric, condemnation of the status quo, appeal to the poor, and neo-authoritarian reform plans. By contrast, his opponent, the down-to-earth former carpenter and Jakarta governor, Joko Widodo ("Jokowi"), advanced a new form of technocratic populism that was inclusive, nonconfrontational, and primarily focused on improving the quality of public service delivery. This study explores the dynamics of the electoral contest between Prabowo and Jokowi, and analyzes what they tell us about the conditions under which populist campaigns are launched and succeed or fail. It shows that Prabowo's campaign was ultimately defeated because Indonesia's post-Suharto democracy was not in a state of acute, life-threatening crisis. However, the issue also illuminates Jokowi's struggle to establish his populist rule after his inauguration as president, with oligarchic forces and other members of the old elite forcefully trying to intrude into his new government.

Jokowi's Rise, Democracy, and Political Contestation in Indonesia

Reinventing Asian Populism

Since the mid-2000s, the quality of democracy around the world has been in decline, and Southeast Asia is no exception. This Element analyzes the extent, patterns and drivers of democratic deconsolidation in the three Southeast Asian countries that boast the longest history of electoral democracy in the region: Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. While the exact deconsolidation outcomes differ, all three nations have witnessed similar trends of democratic erosion. In each case, long-standing democratic deficiencies (such as clientelism, politicized security forces and non-democratic enclaves) have persisted; rising wealth inequality has triggered political oligarchization and subsequent populist responses embedded in identity politics; and ambitious middle classes have opted for non-democratic alternatives to safeguard their material advancement. As a result, all three polities have descended from their democratic peaks between the late 1980s and early 2000s, with few signs pointing to a return to previous democratization paths.

Democratic Deconsolidation in Southeast Asia

Dirk Tomsa

Edward Aspinall

The presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (2004–14) was a watershed in Indonesia's 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 Indonesia's 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.

Indonesia's Decade of Stability and Stagnation

The Yudhoyono Presidency

Based on a decade of research in Indonesia, this book provides an in-depth account of the military's struggle to adapt to the new democratic system after the downfall of Suharto's authoritarian regime in 1998. Unlike other studies of the Indonesian armed forces, which focus exclusively on internal military developments, Mietzner's study emphasizes the importance of conflicts among civilians in determining the extent of military involvement in political affairs. Analysing disputes between Indonesia's main Muslim groups, Mietzner argues that their intense rivalry between 1998 and 2004 allowed the military to extend its engagement in politics and protect its institutional interests. The stabilization of the civilian polity after 2004, in contrast, has led to an increasing marginalization of the armed forces from the power centre. Drawing broader conclusions from these events for Indonesia's ongoing process of democratic consolidation, the book shows that the future role of the armed forces in politics will largely depend on the ability of civilian leaders to maintain functioning democratic institutions and procedures.

From Turbulent Transition to Democratic Consolidation

Military Politics, Islam, and the State in Indonesia

Are political parties the weak link in Indonesia's young democracy? More pointedly, do they form a giant cartel to suck patronage resources from the state? Indonesian commentators almost invariably brand the country's parties as corrupt, self-absorbed, and elitist, while most scholars argue that they are poorly institutionalized. This book tests such assertions by providing unprecedented and fine-grained analysis of the inner workings of Indonesian parties, and by comparing them to their equivalents in other new democracies around the world. Contrary to much of the existing scholarship, the book finds that Indonesian parties are reasonably well institutionalized if compared to their counterparts in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and other parts of Asia. There is also little evidence that Indonesian parties are cartelized. But there is a significant flaw in the design of Indonesia's party system: while most new democracies provide state funding to parties, Indonesia has opted to deny central party boards any meaningful subsidies. As a result, Indonesian parties face severe difficulties in financing their operations, leading them to launch predatory attacks on state resources and making them vulnerable to manipulation by oligarchic interests.

Political Parties in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia

Money, Power, and Ideology

Alternately lauded as a democratic success story and decried as a flawed democracy, Indonesia deserves serious consideration by anyone concerned with the global state of democracy. Yet, more than ten years after the collapse of the authoritarian Suharto regime, we still know little about how the key institutions of Indonesian democracy actually function. This book, written by leading democracy experts and scholars of Indonesia, presents a sorely needed study of the inner workings of Indonesia...

Marcus Mietzner

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