298 Kurniawati Hastuti Dewi Reading from Its Title, the Book Deliberately
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298 book reviews Kurniawati Hastuti Dewi (2015) Indonesian Women and Local Politics: Islam, Gender and Networks in Post- Suharto Indonesia. Kyoto cseas Series on Asian Studies 14. nus Press and Kyoto University Press. 336 pages. isbn: 978 9971 69 842 3 (paperback). Reading from its title, the book deliberately locates itself at the intersection of gender studies and local politics in Indonesia. Both areas are equally important in the context of current Indonesia. By far, it is the world largest and the most stable Muslim democracy where assessing the position of women is one of its critical points. The adoption of direct local elections for subnational heads in 2005 marked the peak of political decentralisation making local politics with their variations more interesting, rather than the traditional focus on democratic transition viewed from the country level perspective. This book has clearly found a unique and attractive niche in the highly competitive market of research. The book centres on explaining the successful rise of women to local power in three regencies in the Indonesian island of Java. They are Rustriningsih (Kebumen), Siti Qomariah (Pekalongan) and Ratna Ani Lestari (Banyuwangi). All of them are Muslims wearing the Islamic hijab as a symbol of piety. Rustriningsih, a long-term cadre of the nationalist Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (pdip), was two-term Regent of Kebumen and Vice-Governor of Central Java, but later on failed in her bid to be a governor because the party’s central board refused her a nomination. Siti Qomariyah was one-term Regent of Pekalongan supported by the tradi- tionalist Muslims (nu) based pkb party. She ran for a second term, but lost the bid to a candidate she defeated in the previous direct local election. Ratna Ani Lestari was one-term Regent of Banyuwangi, failed in securing party nomination to run for a second term. Later on, she was convicted for a corruption case committed during her term as a Regent. After the introductory chapter, the next two short chapters (2 and 3) are intended to serve as a literature review and provide theoretical frameworks before detailing the story of the three Javanese female regents. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 are allocated to providing detailed accounts of the three female regents’ ascendance to local power. The last chapter offers a comparative analysis and conclusion. This book nicely demonstrates how women agency in (local) politics in post-authoritarian New Order Indonesia has dramatically shifted from the (rather) cynical concept of New Order’s “state ibuism”, which can be seen as women sub-ordination. It stressed the role of women as wives and mothers in support of their husbands’ career for the sake of the bigger interest of the state © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi: 10.1163/15685314-04401018 book reviews 299 (Suryakusuma, 2011). This study shows how “democratisation” since the late 1990s and “Islamisation” primarily driven by the dakwah movement since the 1980s have played important roles in nurturing women agency in local politics anecdotally represented by the success story of the three female regents. While democratisation, without doubt, has opened wider opportunities for women, the book, however, does not highlight the other side of the story, as democratisation has also exposed a setback due to the rise of conservative Islam. The case of local sharia law (Perda Syariah) victimising women as found in Aceh, and open and proud campaign for polygamous marriages are two clear examples. The book’s subtitle, “Islam, gender and networks in post-Suharto Indonesia”, is clearly intended to serve as the theoretical framework for the three case studies. However, it is far from a solid framework. Since Indonesia is a young democracy with a majority Muslim population, Islam and networks are always factored in any political endeavours. They are not unique to the chosen cases. Gender is also far from unique in the selected cases as, for example, it cannot be treated as one of determining factors explaining the victory of the three female regents. The entire study is more on providing detailed accounts of the success story of three Javanese women climbing to the top job in the three districts— this is, in fact, the key contribution of the book. Islam, gender and networks are probably more suitable to be seen as a common platform where the three cases could be nicely placed, but not unique. The book could have also been better grounded in the study of Indonesian local politics. Rustrinigsih (Chapter 4) was elected as the Regent of Kebumen for two consecutive terms, both in the 2000 indirect election of regency through the district parliament and in the 2005 direct local elections by popular votes. The different nature of the two local elections (2000 and 2005) is, however, left largely unaddressed. To what extent could the considered factors (family ties, networks, individual capital and branding) play out differently in two local elections? To what extent does “gender” serve as a determining factor in the two different electoral mechanisms or it is just a random factor? The use of comparative benchmark could also be useful when discussing policies on women issues. For example, the discussion on women-related social development progress (e.g., maternal mortality rate, p. 102) in Kebumen could have been compared with similar progress in other districts in Central Java headed by non-female regents. The editing of the book could have been done much better. Expressing total fertility rate in percentage (p. 37) is an awkward mistake, while “gender” is part of the book’s subtitle. The indirect election of the Pekalongan regent through its local parliament in 2001 is referred to as “the 2001 direct election of Asian Journal of Social Science 44 (2016) 279–300.