Diprose, R; McRae, D; Hadiz, V
(Taylor & Francis (Routledge), 2019)
There has been an accentuation of Indonesian democracy’s illiberal
characteristics during the course of reformasi. The religious
and nativist mobilisation that surrounded the controversial 2017
Jakarta gubernatorial elections was only one manifestation of the
sort of pressures leading to such accentuation. This article surveys
the impacts of a stronger recent turn towards illiberalism across
diverse areas of policy making in Indonesia, including decentralisation,
civil–military relations, economic and foreign policy, as well
as in the approaches to recognising past abuses of human rights.
We find clear variation in its impacts, produced by differing constellations
of old and new forces and what is at stake politically
and economically in each arena of competition, as well as the
salience of coherently expressed public pressure for reform. In
particular, where the state and market have failed to address social
injustices, more illiberal models have emerged, some under the
guise of populist discourses that nonetheless continue to serve
predatory elite interests and shift attention away from the inequalities
in society. Such developments could be observed all the way
to the 2019 presidential contest.