From State to Civil Society: Transitional Justice and Democratization in Indonesia

Abstract

This thesis examines the implementation of transitional justice measures in post-authoritarian Indonesia, starting from the beginning of the political transition in 1998 until its consolidation in 2009 and beyond. It does so by, first, assessing the procedural and substantive aspects of transitional justice implementation. Following this assessment, the thesis, second, analyses the factors within democratic transition that either facilitated or hindered the adoption and implementation of transitional justice measures. The thesis argues that state-sponsored transitional justice in Indonesia has been successful only in terms of procedure, and even then only problematically so, but a total failure in substance. This outcome resulted from the nature of the political transition in Indonesia from 1998 onwards. Indonesia’s transition involved a combination of a rupture, or replacement, style of transition and a compromise, or transplacement. The replacement features motivated the government and political elite to agree to the adoption of transitional justice measures. In the period of transition, when it lacked political legitimacy, the new government needed transitional justice to distance itself from the image of the predecessor repressive regime and to gain public trust, both domestically and internationally. However, the transplacement nature of the political transition, which involved bargaining between elements of the old regime and reformers, contributed to the failure to achieve the objectives of transitional justice. Even though transitional justice failed at the state level, more positive outcomes have occurred at the community and local levels. Civil society groups and regional governments have initiated partial transitional justice, suggesting that improving justice outcomes can also take place from the bottom up, or from the margins, rather than being entirely dependent upon top-down, or state-centred initiatives.