Democratisation, decentralization, and local party politics in post-Soeharto Indonesia

Abstract

This thesis seeks to understand how the fall of an authcritarian regime and the following adoption of democratic reforms and the implementation of decentralization have affected the behaviour of political parties at the grassroots, with an emphasis on the day-to-day political practices of new political actors. Drawing on the recent political developments in Yogyakarta, Central Java, it scrutinizes, critiques, and further develops existing theories of democratisation and clarifies the uncertain relation between formal democrat1c institutions and local political practices in post-Soeharto Indonesia. This study focuses on the interaction of formal political institutions and newly emerging patterns of political life at the local level. It identifies a large gulf in Indonesian society between formal democracy- i.e., the formal institution of the political system- and substantive democratisation -i.e., institutionalisation of democratic practices in the day-today political behaviour of political actors. It argues that though undoubtedly more democratic than under the New Order regime, post-Soeharto Yogyakarta has also shown indications of 'undemocratic consolidation,' such as the reactivated, transformed, and decentralized political corruption and violence. It lays emphasis on the society's authoritarian legacies and, in particular, the inclination of local politicians to abuse their new powers for their own benefit. It also analyses the growth of public disillusionment in Yogyakarta, as euphoric expectations of a democratic society gave way to the revived popular scepticism and even cynicism about multi-party parliamentary politics. The overall argument of the thesis is that while changes in Indonesia's formal institutional arrangements have democratised some spheres of political life, they have also fostered the institutionalisation of undemocratic practices within local political institutions. More broadly, it argues that the change in formal institutional arrangements is, in and of itself, not sufficient to ensure the consolidation of democratic values, attitudes, and behaviour at the grassroots, and thus emphasizes the significance of going beyond simplistic and teleological assumptions about the positive effects of formally democratic institutions to a more sober recognition that the consolidation of new democracies is not a preordained conclusion and that authoritarian practices are resistant to change.