Organizer: Ehito Kimura, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Chair and Discussant: Kent H. Eaton, Naval Postgraduate School

Moving beyond the "rise of local politics" in Indonesia, the papers on this panel emphasize how national and local political actors are linked together through vertical institutions and interactions, including political parties and elite alliances (Kimura), agricultural commodity chains (Danzer), political ‘intermediary forces’ (Ito), and financial transfer arrangements and other mechanisms of upward accountability (Jung). These vertical linkages cut across the horizontal political arenas at the local, regional, and national levels, and ensure that political contests at one level are intimately tied with contests at other levels. Political actors at one level are likewise connected through their economic and political relationships with actors at other levels.

Collectively, the papers show that the causal force of vertical linkages is both downward and upward, with local politics shaping national outcomes, not just vice versa. In addition, these vertical interactions are not necessarily zero sum or conflictual, as the image of "tug-of-war" between the regions and the center often suggests; rather, local and national political actors can interact in ways that serve their mutual benefit. Finally, the papers explore the interface between these vertical linkages and the horizontal politics of ethnic group competition, electoral competition between regional rivals or national parties, and regional bureaucracy.

Empirically, the papers are based on recent fieldwork undertaken in a widely dispersed number of localities in Sumatra, Java, and Sulawesi. Theoretically, they give explicit attention to the explanatory power of alternative social-scientific paradigms, particularly historical institutionalism and rationalism. The panel will be organized to maximize discussion.

Ehito Kimura, University of Wisconsin-Madison

This paper explores the rising claims for autonomy in Indonesia, particularly the demand for new provinces and sub-provincial districts, or what is known as pemekaran wilayah. The number of provinces has increased from 26 in 1999 to 33 today. The number of districts (municipalities and cities) has increased from around 290 to nearly 450 over the same period. What explains this sudden rise in new administrative units and what implications does it have for the study of the Indonesian state?

To address these questions, the paper employs a historical institutionalist approach looking at the practice of state building under Suharto's New Order regime and trying to understand the ways in which those legacies interact with more recent institutional reforms. It argues that administrative borders that were ossified during Suharto's rule are coming undone through a confluence of factors including ethnic revivalism, local elite mobilization, and national
party politics.

Theoretically, this paper inserts a relational dimension into the study of local politics. The literature on state formation and state society relations often assumes a zero sum relationship between the central state and the local state or societal elites: a strong center implies a weak periphery and vice versa. In fact, the phenomenon of pemekaran suggests a more complex relationship where local leaders are often strengthened, if not constituted by national level elites. This implies a positive – sum relationship where both sides make can make relative gains.

Eunsook Jung, University of Wisconsin, Madison

This paper seeks to explain sub-national variation in poverty alleviation in Indonesia and its relationship to decentralization. Why have some regions been successful in reducing the percentage of their populations living below the poverty line while others have experienced an increase in the number of poor? South Sumatra and Sulawesi, with strong records of poverty alleviation during the Suharto era, have witnessed higher levels of poverty since decentralization; yet Kalimantan (except for East Kalimantan), with a comparatively worse record in poverty alleviation under Suharto, has succeeded in reducing the percentage living in poverty by one half. I argue that these variations cannot be explained simply by reference to levels of regional economic development or economic growth rates. Rather, I argue that political variables help to explain this variation. The paper examines central-regional relations during the Suharto era and during the period following decentralization, and examines the changes in regional policies for poverty alleviation. I hypothesize that the character of the relationship between local and national elites and the strength of civil society network in local politics shape outcomes in poverty alleviation. This paper contributes to scholarly discussions of political economy and decentralization.

Takeshi Ito, Yale University

This study, taking democratic ideas seriously, deals with why democracy does not make sense to the majority of Indonesians to which they are supposed to serve. The accomplishments of democratic reform from above since 1998 are striking?Free and fair elections, freedoms of association and expression, separation of executive and legislative powers, and decentralization of central authority.  Such institutional reform, however, does not promise a sign of democratic deepening.  This is particularly evident at the local level where the course of democratic reform has been stalled or redirected by intermediary forces who take advantage of the weakening of the center.    Fragmented state authority in the post-transitional period gave rise to the continuity of old habits? Rampant corruption, communal violence, organized crimes, and street justice, where people are unable to receive adequate attention as carriers of subjective rights.  

This study, based on historical analysis and fieldwork in West Java, aims to show in two steps the links between state making, citizenship, and democracy. First, two historical developments (low ratio of the populace to land and indirect rule) in the course of state making produced powerful intermediary forces which inhibited the expansion of citizenship.  Second, the legacy of ?"low-intensity citizenship" continues after independence; the intermediary forces have survived post-colonial transformations by integrating themselves into quasi-state apparatus of the new state.  Taken together, I argue that democracy must be historicized, and placed in the context of power.  The current process of Indonesia's democratization is understood in the context of fragmented state authority and low-intensity of citizenship, both of which have historical origins.

Erick M. Danzer, University of Wisconsin, Madison

This paper uses a commodity chain framework to understand how decentralization has affected both the politics and performance of two of Indonesia's major agro-export sectors: coffee and cocoa. The commodity chain, as vertical institution connecting farmers in remote areas to exporters, domestic industry, and international markets, necessarily slices across traditional levels of political analysis. The framework emphasizes both the vertical interaction between private actors along the chain, and the horizontal interaction between those actors and agents of the state co-located at local, regional, and national levels.

From this perspective, Indonesia's political transition has had two major effects. First, the removal of controls on political organization has given rise to competing associations representing interests at each level of the chain: farmers, exporters, and domestic agro-industry. These new groups have become the major actors in sector politics, especially in debates over agricultural taxation.

Second, decentralization has simultaneously shifted authority downward and dispersed it over a larger number of government units. While the New Order's management of agriculture—based on technocratic concerns with economic performance and political concerns with patronage distribution—was "rational" in the sense of being aligned with the objectives of development and survival, decentralization has allowed districts and provinces to pursue policies that are individually rational but collectively detrimental for agricultural growth. The most visible case has been the regional scramble to raise agricultural taxation; because the authority underlying these policies is dispersed, the policies have proven very difficult to change.