Military Retirees in Politics: a Study on the Rise of Purnawirawan in Indonesian Political Parties 1998-2014
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Military Retirees in Politics: A Study on the Rise of Purnawirawan in Indonesian Political Parties 1998-2014 Inauguraldissertation zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Dr.rer.pol. im Fach Politische Wissenschaft vorgelegt von Muhammad Faishal Aminuddin Eingereicht an der Fakultät für Wirtschafts - und Sozialwissenschaften der Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. Aurel Croissant Zweitgutachter: Prof. Dr. Jeffrey Haynes Heidelberg, 2018 Erklarung zur Vorlage bei der Fakultat fur Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften. Hiermit erklare ich, dass meine Dissertation uber das Thema: “Military Retirees in Politics: A Study on the Rise of Purnawirawan in Indonesian Political Parties 1998-2014” 1. Selbstandig angefertigt und andere Quellen und Hilfsmittel als die angegebenen nicht benutzt wurden, 2. In dieser oder einer anderen Form noch an keiner anderen Fakultat vorgelegt worden ist, 3. Als Ganzes oder Teile daraus noch nicht anderweitig als Prufungsarbeit bei einer akademischen oder Staatsprufung verwendet worden ist. Name des Promovenden: Muhammad Faishal Aminuddin Geburtsort, Geburtsdatum: Lamongan, Ost-Java, Indonesia, 22 November 1981 Unterschrift: i Abstract Studies of civil-military relations and political parties in democratic Indonesia which gives deeper attention to the role of the military retirees (purnawirawan) in the democratization are still rare. The few studies that have been carried out only explore their role in the political contestation of presidential elections as key actors in supporting candidates and mobilizing votes. This study explains the meaning of the rise of purnawirawan’s involvement, not only in the political contestation, but also the extent of their contribution to the development of political parties and their performance in legislative institutions and public offices in the government. Overall the study investigates the contribution of their roles in the early democratic transition and the consolidation period. Three aspects were analyzed. The first aspect was political parties that had a large number of purnawirawan. From the dataset produced by this study, there were four political parties that became the units of analysis, namely PDI-P, Golkar, Democratic Party and Gerindra. The second aspect was the roles of purnawirawan from those four parties in the elections and legislative institutions. The third aspect was the roles of purnawirawan with the parties and non-parties background within the central and local governments. This study limits the research period from 1998 to 2014. In this period, there were five elections. The discussion begins with the period from 1998-2004 as the background of the emergence of purnawirawan in the direct elections and the presidential contest which began in 2004 where full-time participation in the political contestation took place massively. There are three hypotheses in this research. The first is that trends of purnawirawan’s participation in politics and political parties were the effects of structural changes resulting from the military reform and the multi-party systems. The second is that Purnawirawan contributed to the uniqueness of the development of party organizations that combined thin military values with a model of civilian organization. The third is that the role of purnawirawan in political parties and public offices was driven by the importance of continuing military doctrines to influence the state policy-making processes. This study is an intersection between the study of party organizations and the study of civil military relations in emerging democracy. The analytical framework developed combines the theories of the development of political parties and civilian control over the military to test the causal relationship between the involvement of purnawirawan in political parties, their performance in the parliament and the government, as well as their contribution to the democratization in Indonesia. There are three important findings of this study. The first finding is that in the multi-parties system, purnawirawan worked hard not only to gain positions in the parliament and the government, but also to build political parties as political vehicles. This confirms that they were important actors in the party development. The second finding is that some parties established by purnawirawan were able to ii survive in the elections and obtain parliamentary seats. The parties were managed with a democratic vision, but still colored by militaristic characters. The third finding is that purnawirawan’s political participation in the democracy of Indonesia was driven by their personal interests to be posted in public offices and their responsibility as state guardians in the form of civilian politicians. iii Acknowledgements This study would never have been completed without the help of many people. First of all, I would like to thank Professor Aurel Croissant as a "doktorvater" who guided from the beginning until the completion of this work. Without his assistance, challenges, encouragement, directions and patience, I would never have finished this study. I also would like to thank Professor Jeffrey Haynes for his willingness to be the second supervisor for the study and for his constructive comments. In addition, thanks to Professor John T. Sidel, who gave critical comments at the early stage of this work and suggested the use of the term purnawirawan, rather than ‘military retiree’. Also, thanks to Professor Thomas Koenig, who was willing to be one of the examiners of my dissertation. This study was result of my PhD project which was funded by the Ministry of Higher Education and Research of the Republic of Indonesia and began in 2012. Under the Overseas Scholarship (BLN-Dikti) for 3.5 years, I could stay in Heidelberg to do the project. In carrying out the field research, collecting source materials, conducting in-depth interviews and preparing datasets, I was assisted by many research assistants and colleagues in the Department of Political Science, Universitas Brawijaya, who were coordinated by Fajar Ramadlan. To all of them, thank you. In writing chapters and doing academic tasks at Bergheim, I was assisted a lot by Philip Lorenz, David Kuehn, Thomas Wencker, Stefan Giersdorf and Seyed Hossein Zarhani. I am also indebted to some people and their family: Rodon Pedrason, Aditya Batara Gunawan, Michael Handrijanto and Anton Novenanto. For their help in the long processes of writing, discussion and data and references collection, I also would like to thank Yandry Kurniawan, Marcus Mietzner, Syahrul Hidayat, Panji A. Permana, Evan A. Laksmana and Terence Lee. For all of those who also helped and gave assistance during the completion of this work that I cannot mention one by one on this limited page, I also would like to say thank you very much. In the end, I have to thank my wife, Silvia Kurnia Dewi, who accompanied me during the hard times in Eppelheim. Thanks to my children, Aquela Balqisia Sifha, Aurela Neckaria Sifha and Alaric Sabbathea Sifha, who always become a motor of hope and living energy amidst all the fatigue, burden, boredom and despair which I often experience. I dedicate this work to them. iv Table of Contents Erklarung .......................................................................................................................................................... i Abstract ........................................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................................... v List of Acronyms and Abbreviations ............................................................................................. viii List of Table ................................................................................................................................................. xii List of Figures ............................................................................................................................................xiii CHAPTER I Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Background ............................................................................................................................................ 1 1.2 Research Questions ........................................................................................................................... 4 1.3 Literature Review ............................................................................................................................... 5 1.4 Thesis Organization ......................................................................................................................... 16 CHAPTER II Theory and Methodology ..................................................................................................................... 18 2.1 Political Party: Formation and Development ...................................................................... 19 2.2 Assessing Political Party Performance in New Democracies ...................................... 23 2.3 Analytical Framework and Hypotheses ................................................................................