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    Where are the Women? Gender Perspectives in Indonesia’s 2024 Presidential Race
    Fahadi, PR ; Savirani, A ; Setiawan, K (The University of Melbourne, 2024-01-30)
    The absence of women from any of the presidential tickets in this year’s Indonesian elections underscores a deeper political and policy malaise in addressing gender inequality.
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    Arbitrary Detention in Indonesia: Buru Prison Island, 1969-1979
    Setiawan, KMP (BRILL, 2022-01-01)
    Between 1969 and 1979 Indonesia'.s New Order regime consigned some 12,000 leftist political prisoners to a penal settlement on the island of Buru in eastern Indonesia. The prisoners were sent there without trial as part of a mass detention campaign undertaken by the state security organisation, Kopkamtib. Once on the island, they were expected to create a new, viable settlement by clearing jungle and planting crops. The authorities had no intention of releasing the prisoners, but rather expected then to settle on the island for good. In order to enhance the '.normalcy'. of the settlement, the authorities persuaded and coerced the families of some prisoners to move to Buru. Although conditions were better in Savanajaya, the settlement allocated to families, than in other parts of the penal colony, the family members of detainees were subject to many of the same rules of detention. Prisoners and their families suffered both from difficult conditions on Buru and from harsh ill-treatment by camp guards. Under international pressure, the New Order regime dismantled the settlement in 1979, and most of the detainees returned to Java.
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    Vulnerable but Resilient: Indonesia in an Age of Democratic Decline
    Setiawan, KMP (Routledge, 2022-11-25)
    Recent years have seen a consensus emerging that Indonesian democracy is in regression. Nonetheless, there continue to be developments that point towards Indonesia’s democratic resilience. This article examines key events of the past year that support resilience, including the passing of the landmark Law on Sexual Violence, the rejection of rumoured plans to extend President Joko Widodo’s term in office and a moderation of polarisation. At the same time, Indonesian democracy remains vulnerable, illustrated by legal developments that undermine executive accountability, ongoing militarisation in Papua, as well as persistent pressure in areas of freedom of expression and minority rights. The article will conclude with an examination of Jokowi’s efforts to secure his presidential legacy, particularly through infrastructure development and foreign policy. The article identifies two sources for democratic resilience—public opinion and elite support—and argues that while democratic decline continues, the process of regression is more uneven than commonly emphasised in assessments of Indonesian politics.
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    Gender equity reversals and women’s responses to COVID-19 in rural Indonesia
    Diprose, R ; Setiawan, KMP ; Beech Jones, B (Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, 2023)
    In Indonesia and globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has reversed some of the gains made from the collective struggle to close the gender gap. For instance in 2021, reversals in gender parity were apparent, especially in women’s economic opportunities and political empowerment, increasing the time needed to close the global gender gap by a generation from 99.5 to 135.6 years.
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    Defending a Vulnerable yet Resilient Democracy: Civil Society Activism in Jokowi's Indonesia
    Setiawan, KMP ; Tomsa, D (SAGE Publishing, 2023-12-01)
    For the first two decades after the end of the authoritarian New Order regime, Indonesian civil society was widely hailed as a bulwark against elite attempts to roll back the country's democratic achievements. More recent assessments, however, have highlighted how polarisation, socio-religious conservatism and growing state repression have increasingly restricted civil society's ability to defend Indonesian democracy against further backsliding. In the face of these growing pressures, political activists have nonetheless demonstrated adaptability, resourcefulness and resilience, and, despite the narrowing space for dissent and protest, occasionally succeeded in halting and even reversing anti-democratic trends. In this article, we focus on two segments of civil society – women's rights groups and environmental activists – to illustrate under what circumstances progressive political activism in contemporary Indonesia can still be effective in upholding diagonal accountability and defending human rights.
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    Ordinary Laws and Extraordinary Crimes: Criminalising Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity in the Draft Criminal Code?
    Setiawan, K ; Lindsey, T ; Pausacker, H (Routledge, 2020)
    Every Thursday since 2007, survivors of human rights violations, their family members and representatives of human rights organisations gather in front of the Presidential Palace in Jakarta. After the end of authoritarianism in 1998, Indonesia witnessed many political and legal reforms. The failures of the Indonesian human rights system are perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that twenty years after the fall of authoritarianism, justice is yet to be delivered for crimes committed under the repressive regime of President Soeharto. Until legislative reform in the area of human rights took place after 1998, Indonesian law included very few provisions for the protection of human rights in general. Legal provisions criminalising serious human rights crimes were absent altogether. The proposed inclusion of gross human rights violations in the Draft Criminal Code has been mainly driven by a desire to fully codify Indonesian criminal law, rather than to improve the prosecution of serious human rights crimes.
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    Arbitrary Detention in Indonesia: Buru Island, 1969-1979
    Setiawan, K ; Cribb, R ; Twomey, C ; Wilson, S (Brill, 2022)
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    Politics in Contemporary Indonesia: Institutional Change, Policy Challenges and Democratic Decline
    Setiawan, KMP ; Tomsa, D (Routledge, 2022-01-01)
    In Politics in Contemporary Indonesia, Ken M.P. Setiawan and Dirk Tomsa analyse the most prominent political ideas, institutions, interests and issues that shape Indonesian politics today. Guided by the overarching question whether Indonesia still deserves its famous label as a ‘model Muslim democracy’, the book argues that the most serious threats to Indonesian democracy emanate from the fading appeal of democracy as a compelling narrative, the increasingly brazen capture of democratic institutions by predatory interests, and the narrowing public space for those who seek to defend the values of democracy. In so doing, the book answers the following key questions: • What are the dominant political narratives that underpin Indonesian politics? • How has Indonesia’s institutional framework evolved since the onset of democratisation in 1998? • How do competing political interests weaken or strengthen Indonesian democracy? • How does declining democracy affect Indonesia’s prospects for dealing with its main policy challenges? • How does Indonesia compare to other Muslim-majority states and to its regional neighbours? Up-to-date, comprehensive and written in an accessible style, this book will be of interest for both students and scholars of Indonesian politics, Asian Studies, Comparative Politics and International Relations.