School of Social and Political Sciences - Research Publications
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ItemConflict dynamics and agonistic dialogue on historical violence: a case from Indonesia(ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2018)This article contends that the type of high-level political consensus needed to reach a peace agreement is often insufficient for rebuilding and transforming wider social relations. Consensus-focused processes tend to suppress divergent views and experiences of conflict, particularly among grassroots conflict actors, and risk deepening social divides by homogenising diverse memories of past violence, with potentially dangerous consequences. In response to these concerns this article advances an understanding of agonistic dialogue and explores an example of such dialogue in communal conflict in Indonesia. Building on an understanding of effective dialogue as sustained, intensive and relational, this article also underscores the need for effective dialogue to have politico-institutional support and to be locally driven and owned by actors who are legitimate and trusted in the eyes of conflict protagonists.
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ItemNetworking change from the grassroots up(ANU Press, 2019)Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s track record of considering gender representation in ministerial appointments is lauded in global circles. Women’s empowerment activists praise these appointments, seeing them as a means of signalling to the wider populace that barriers to women taking up leadership positions are slowly being reduced. But they also note that such efforts need to be more widely applied and more pervasive to reduce gender inequality in Indonesia. Indonesian civil society organisations play a key role in chipping away at social norms and structural barriers to gender equality. They provide the crucial link between ‘high-level’ policy and concrete changes on the ground by supporting large networks of subnational women’s organisations and groups. While there are many examples of change, reducing the structural barriers to gender equality is a long-term project involving slow, hard-fought gains.
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ItemDecentralization, Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict Management in Indonesia(Informa UK Limited, 2009-03)The impact of decentralization on conflict dynamics is as important as its impact on service delivery and growth, as violent conflict can undo development gains. This paper argues that the impact of decentralization has been twofold. It has relieved centre-periphery tensions around longstanding grievances towards nationalist agendas in Indonesia. The evidence suggests, through examining the case of conflict affected Central Sulawesi, that decentralization has also to some extent addressed long-standing inter-group tensions and horizontal inequalities at the local level, particularly where geographically concentrated ethno-religious groups have previously been marginalised from government. It has also reduced grievances by increasing local autonomy and participation in decision making through direct elections of district heads, now a hotly contested arena of local politics. However, significant structural and institutional change can result in new tensions, particularly when poorly planned for or monitored. Decentralization has stimulated changes in population demographics in some areas in Indonesia resulting in ethno-religious segregation through splitting of sub-national administrative units into increasing numbers of regions. Groups with previous minority status have found safe-haven as majorities, setting the scene for how future rights of access and representation play out. Tensions run high when high-stakes local elections are contested along sensitive identity lines, or when district governments are not inclusive of minorities in their regions. This is not to say that the demographic, structural, and institutional changes with decentralization will necessarily lead to violent conflict, but rather due attention should be given to ensuring appropriate conflict management mechanisms are in place.
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ItemTwo Decades of Reformasi in Indonesia: Its Illiberal Turn(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.
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ItemPast Communal Conflict and Contemporary Security Debates in Indonesia(Taylor & Francis (Routledge), 2019)This article explores the links between communal violence in Poso, Central Sulawesi, at the onset of democratisation in Indonesia and contemporary politico-security dynamics. Poso regained national attention in recent years when East Indonesia Mujahidin jihadis set up a base in the region and declared allegiance to ISIS and joint police-military operations ensued. The article argues that scale and “performance” of the security operations – to weed out a small group of poorly resourced armed men – connects local-nationalglobal dynamics and keeps the threat of terrorism and insecurity at the forefront of public discussion in Indonesia. This has served the interests of those advocating for a greater role for the Indonesian military in domestic affairs through revisions to the Anti-Terrorism Law and for better resourcing for the military. Yet, the evidence suggests there has been little local support for the ideology of the East Indonesia Mujahidin and the risk of widespread engagement or violence is low, especially given that the local discontent which initially drove the conflict has dissipated. Such developments raise questions as to whether Indonesia risks a return to the illiberal past when the military dominated many aspects of civic and political life and in some cases acted with impunity.
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ItemTransnational policy influence and the politics of legitimation(Wiley, 2019)Many domains of transnational policy are now governed through dynamic, multilevel governance processes, encompassing transnational, national, and subnational scales. In such settings, both membership of policy communities and distributions of authority within them become more fluid and openly contested—increasing the importance of the politics of legitimation as a basis for distributing influence over policy processes and outcomes. Drawing on insights from theories of organizational and institutional legitimation, this article theorizes three distinctive strategies of policy influence exercised by transnational actors in multilevel governance settings, through which strategic efforts to legitimize transnational actors and forums are deployed as means of transnational policy influence. The three strategies involve: transnational field building, localized network building, and role adaptation. The effects of these influencing strategies on policy processes and outcomes are illustrated with reference to the case of Indonesian land governance, in which highly dynamic, contested, and multiscalar governance processes lend our theorized strategies particular salience.