Old State and New Empire in Indonesia: Debating the Rise and Decline Of

ThirdWorld Quarterly, Vol 18, No 2, pp 321± 361, 1997 Oldstate and new empire in Indonesia:debating the rise and declineof Suharto’ s NewOrder MARK TBERGER As theMarch 1998 presidential election (which was precededby a general electionin May 1997) approaches there is everyindication that President Suhartoof Indonesia will be elected to his seventh ® ve-yearterm. There was speculationthat the long-serving former general might retire after the death of hiswife in April 1996. 1 However,in June 1996 his commitment to continue as presidentof Indonesia into the next century was apparentlyhighlighted by his government’s blatantintervention in the affairs ofthe Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI)tosuccessfully oust the party leader, Megawati Sukarnoputri. Since herelection to the top job in the PDI atthe end of 1993,Megawati (daughter of Indonesia’s ®rst president,Sukarno) had become a powerfulsymbol of demo- craticopposition. It was widelyexpected that she intendedto standfor president in1998, a postto which Suharto has previouslybeen elected unopposed by the People’s ConsultativeAssembly which meets every® veyears. Her popularity was con®rmed by the fact that her ouster precipitated one of the most violent urbanuprisings in the history of Indonesia’ s NewOrder. An armed assault by elementsof the Indonesian army on PDI headquartersin Jakarta on 27 July led toa dramaticoutpouring of opposition as Megawati’s youthfulsupporters took tothe streets. Although some observersand participants hoped that this was the beginningof a `peoplepower’ revolution similar to that which overthrew PresidentFerdinand Marcos ofthePhilippines in 1986, order was soonrestored, withthe Indonesian military taking advantage of theuprising to round up arange ofdissidents. At the same time,the cynicism and heavy-handedness of the governmenthighlighted the fact that there are cracks inthe edi® ce ofthe New Order.2 Morebroadly, although it continues to display considerable staying power,Suharto’ s NewOrder in Indonesia has beenin decline since the second halfof the1980s. Against the background of thegrowing debate about the future ofSuharto’ s regime,a re-examinationof the origins and rise ofthe New Order canilluminate the character and direction of the impending political transition in Indonesia.This is thesubject of the ® rst halfof this article. By contrast the secondhalf focuses directlyon the debate about the decline of the Suharto regimeand engages critically with the question of whether the New Order will eventuallybe followed by some formof capitalist democratic modernity. MarkT Berger is atthe School of Humanities,Murdoch University, Perth,WA 6150,Australia. 0143-6597/97/020321-41$7.00 Ó 1997Third World Quarterly 321 MARK TBERGER Fromempire tonation? Debating the rise ofSuharto’ s NewOrder Themost widespread explanation for the rise andlongevity of the New Order focuses onthe patrimonial character of Indonesian politics and/ oron the sustainedcapitalist development which the archipelago has experiencedduring Suharto’s rule.Certainly New Order Indonesia has experiencedrapid economic growth,with an average annual economic growth rate of 6% for the past 30 years.3 Inhis recent book, Adam Schwarz has arguedthat the history of New OrderIndonesia has demonstratedthat a `patrimonialpolitical structure’ is not necessarily` fatalto capitalist economic development’ . 4 Atthe same time, becauseof decades of economic growth there is atendencyto assume thatthe colonialand early post-colonial periods have become irrelevant. Much recent analysisof Indonesia hopes, if not assumes, thatover time patrimonialism (whichis seen asalegacyof both the colonial and the pre-colonial era) willfade andthe process ofdemocratisation and the rationalisation of government± busi- ness relationswill take root as aresultof, or at least as aconcomitantto, the country’s spectacularcapitalist development. However, the emphasis here will beonthe way in which the colonial era casts alongshadow. This article begins witha surveyof the debate on the rise ofthe New Order and the dynamics of politicalchange in Indonesia. The early in¯ uence of classical modernisation theory,followed by revisionist approaches which emphasised the need for and eventhe inevitability of authoritarianism,will be discussed. The deployment and popularityof thenotion of patrimonialismwill also be outlinedin relationto the rise ofthe New Order. The in¯ uence of the concept of bureaucratic authoritari- anismon attemptsto explain the emergence and consolidation of theNew Order willthen be examined.This will be followedby adiscussionof the debate about thehistorical signi® cance and particular character of the state in the transition fromthe colonial era, to the early nationalist period and then to the New Order era.Building on thedebate about the origins of the New Order state, the ® rst part ofthis article will then provide an examination of the history of Dutch colonialism,the process ofdecolonisation and the ® rst 20years ofthe history ofthe new nation of Indonesia after 1945, which paved the way for the New Order.An analysis of the consolidation of the New Order in the 1960s and early1970s will then be provided, emphasising that an important part of the explanationfor the rise ofthe New Order, and its longevity and overall character,can be found in the powerful institutional and social legacy of the Dutchcolonial state. 5 Oldsocieties and new states: North American liberalism and the pursuit of modernityin Indonesia After1945, in the context of rising nationalism, decolonisation and the Cold War,the number of nation-states world-wide expanded dramatically. In a short periodof timecolonial boundaries, often built up over decades if not centuries, becamenational boundaries. State power was transferredto, or eventually seized by,nationalist elites and movements throughout much of Asia and Africa. The internationalrecognition of these new nations, and their incorporation into the 322 OLD STATE AND NEW EMPIRE ININDONESIA UnitedNations± Cold War system quicklyserved to confer sovereignty and legitimacy. 6 Againstthe backdrop of thepost-1945 expansion of thenation-state system,the professional social science discourses worked to naturalise the new nationalboundaries. This was apparentin the case ofmodernisation theory, whichemerged in North America, and around the world, as oneof the most signi®cant trends in the social sciences afterWorld War II. After 1945 it was widelyassumed inNorthAmerican government and area-studies circles that the povertyof the new nations facilitated the spread of international communism. It was alsoassumed thatNorth American-style modernisation would usher in economicprosperity and democracy, undercut the possibility of anti-capitalist revolution,and lead to theemergence of stable nations in Asia and elsewhere in theso-called Third World. 7 Althoughvarious revised versions of modernisation theoryremain predominant in the context of the continued international power ofAnglo-American liberalism, what is nowregarded as classicalmodernisation theoryreached its peak in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In the context of the powerfulin¯ uence of classical modernization theory, a growingnumber of analystsof post-1945 politics in Southeast Asia and beyond perceived tradition andits constitutive elements (ethnicity and religion) as increasinglyirrelevant as thenew nations that emerged after WWII pursued political modernity. 8 In the case ofIndonesiait was hoped,if notcon® dently expected, that ethnic loyalties andso-called primordial sentiments would fade, and new loyalties to the modern nationof Indonesia would become the central aspect of everycitizen’ s identity. 9 Thisapproach is apparentin a bookedited by Clifford Geertz entitled Old Societiesand New States: The Quest for Modernityin Asia and Africa . Interestingly,although the book as awholeis clearlyworking from a classical modernisationframework, Geertz’ s analysisof Indonesia already re¯ ected a degreeof concernabout the success ofwhat he calledthe ` integrativerevolution’ (thiswas representedas aprocess bywhich primordial loyalties to region, ethnicity,religion and language were not so muchdone away with as subsumed intoa widernational consciousness) which he perceivedas underwayin thenew nationsof Asia and Africa. Writing at the time of the rebellions in the Outer Islandsand the trend towards authoritarianism under Sukarno in the late 1950s andearly 1960s, Geertz perceived Indonesia as `analmost classic case of integrativefailure’ . Helamented that ` everystep toward modernity’ had simply strengthenedthe tendency towards ` anunstable amalgam of military coercion andideological revivalism’ . 10 Theincreasing perception, by theearly 1960s, that Indonesiawas driftingfrom the modern democratic path was apparentin the detailedempirical work of HerbertFeith and Daniel Lev. Their analysis re¯ ected anemphasis on inter-elite politics which evaluated the Indonesian trajectory in terms ofitsinability to recapitulate an idealised version of theAnglo-American roadto modernity. 11 Anearly result of the perceived failure of classicalmodernisation theory was theemergence in the1960s of apolitics-of-orderapproach which coincided with thetrend towards military regimes in Asia and elsewhere. This work projected animage of the military as theonly force which had the administrative and technicalskills to facilitate political and economic modernisation. 12 Samuel Huntingtonwas themost prominent exponent of this shift from classical 323 MARK TBERGER modernisationtheory

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