Local Politics in Indonesia, 1999-2010: A Literature Review (original) (raw)

Since the resignation of President Suharto in 1998, Indonesia has undergone a massive process of decentralisation and democratisation. Political power no longer concentrates at the national level, but is decentralised in local domains. Furthermore, in the cases of Aceh and Papua, the central government has had to give relatively broader autonomy in those regions in comparison with other regions of Indonesia. Nowadays, political processes do not unfold in a monolithic manner; rather they are dispersed due to the considerable progress of democratisation in society. Political processes are no longer determined in, and by, Jakarta, the capital city. Furthermore, the current political process represents the role of multiplying actors in which bureaucracy is no longer the only dominant one. Simultaneously, many actors who formally have no authority are, in fact, able to exert their in uence on the day-to-day policy process. In short, state power has undergone a breakdown and been dispersed along a centrifugal pattern which creates heterogeneous centres of power. Thererefore, exploration of the literature on local politics in Indonesia is an interesting and academically rewarding exercise. is paper attempts to map out the existing literature on the post-1999 political landscape at the local level. is literature review is made up by ve key questions: (1) How is localising of power in Indonesia understood? (2) How does power operate at local levels? (3) What are the forces that shape Indonesian local politics? (4) What are the prominent manifestations in Indonesian local politics? (5) What are alternative political forces that possibly represent the setting up of the street demonstrations? (6) What is the type of democratic governance format explored in the existing literature?