Indonesia in the 1980s: A time of transition (original) (raw)
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Indonesia’s Political and Economic Transition : IPE Analysis of The New Order (1965-1998)
The rapid growth of East Asian economies in the last quarter of the 20-century has often been described as the “East Asian Miracle” (Stiglitz, 1996, p.1). According to Stiglitz (1996) the progress in these developing countries was certainly not a miracle but among others the result of particular policies and government intervention. The purpose of this research paper is to discover what is really behind the “East Asian Miracle” and what are the secrets of, for example, the Indonesian “miracle”?. And to respond to the research question – what have been the impacts of the new order regime in Indonesia?. The methodology of this research is based upon the qualitative content analysis. Furthermore, this paper discusses the political and economic transition that Indonesia went through at the time of President Suharto’s new order from 1965 to 1998. Our research reveals that Suharto obviously established an authoritarian ruling system in the country and used the strong economy and state to justify his dictatorial behaviour and leadership. However, this situation changed insofar as the New Order has evoked major political changes in the post-Suharto Era, while the economic arena remained more or less the same.
2013
This dissertation tackles one central problem: What were the intellectual and social origins of New Order Indonesia (1966-1998)? The analytical lens that this study employs to examine this society is the Indonesian middling classes’ pursuit of modernity. The dissertation comes in two parts. Part One reconstructs the evolution of the Indonesian middling classes and their search for progress. Part Two uses three case studies to analyze the middling classes’ search for Indonesian modernity under the New Order. The first explores the top-down modernization undertaken by President Soeharto’s assistants at the National Development Planning Board, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology. The second case study investigates the “bottom-up” modernization performed by the Institute for Economic and Social Research, Education, and Information. The third case study deals with how several authors used popular fiction to criticize the kind of Indonesian modernity that emerged in the New Order era. This research yields several findings. First, the Indonesian middling classes championed a pragmatic, structural-functional path to modernity. Second, to modernize the country rapidly and safely, the modernizers proceeded in an eclectic and pragmatic manner. Third, between the Old and the New Order, there existed strong continuity in ideas, ideals, skills, and problems. Fourth, the middling classes’ modernizing mission was fraught with contradictions, naïvetés, ironies, and violence, which had roots in the nationalist movement in the first half of the twentieth century. The New Order was neither wholly new nor an aberration from the “normal” trajectory of Indonesia’s contemporary history. The sort of modernity that the Indonesian middling classes ended up creating was Janus-faced.
The implosion of the New Order in 1998 led to a more democratic political system in Indonesia with elections at all levels of government. A year later, Indonesia also embarked on an ambitious decentralization program that initiated a fundamental restructuring of the country's political institutions on a scale unprecedented since the 1960s. Yet, scholars are still trying to identify clear patterns in the accumulation and exercise of power in this new political environment.