Manajemen | Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji 00074910600873682
Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies
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Book reviews
To cite this article: (2006) Book reviews, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 42:2,
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Date: 18 January 2016, At: 21:42
Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Vol. 42, No. 2, 2006: 263–80
BOOK REVIEWS
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Adriaan Bedner and Nicole Niessen (eds) (2003) Towards Integrated
Environmental Law in Indonesia?, CNWS Publications, Leiden, pp. 165. €20.00.
Towards Integrated Environmental Law in Indonesia examines the overly complex
and poorly coordinated regulation, administration and enforcement of environmental law in Indonesia.
The book begins with Jan Michiel Otto’s ‘Incoherence in Environmental Law‘, an
intellectual piece that discusses the meaning of ‘harmonisation’ and ‘integration’
in the context of environmental law. Next, Marius Aalders writes on private-sector
‘Self-regulation and Compliance with Environmental Law from a Global Perspective’. In this chapter, Aalders discusses the conditions in which business entities in
developed and developing countries might be expected to self-regulate their conduct with respect to the environment. He then ponders whether developed countries’ environmental laws and international standards are likely to be transplanted
when developed countries establish industries in developing countries.
A highlight of this book is the following chapter—Robert Cribb’s ‘Environmentalism in Indonesian Politics’. In this fascinating essay, Cribb discusses the uses
and abuses of environmentalism under Soeharto’s New Order. He shows that
environmentalism was embraced by the regime as part of its ideology of pancasila,
mainly to justify state control over natural resources. Ironically, however, environmentalism later provided a vehicle for opposition to the Soeharto regime, as
members of the elite were criticised for mass timber logging and involvement in
enterprises that contributed to industrial pollution.
In an informative chapter that probably should have come earlier in the book,
Julia Arnscheidt provides an important outline of the national-level framework
for environmental policy making in Indonesia. She discusses the various ministries and government agencies responsible for environmental issues and the problems of coordination among them, noting that ‘Indonesia’s current environmental
policy is far from integrated’ (p. 58).
Next is Asep Warlan Yusuf’s chapter about Indonesia’s conflicting laws on spatial
planning and environmental management. Warlan’s article is instructive, but would
have been strengthened by a discussion of legal methods commonly employed in
Indonesia to resolve inconsistencies between two or more statutes and between
statutes and ‘lower-level’ laws, such as government, presidential and ministerial
regulations and decisions. For example, Indonesia’s hierarchy of laws should have
been covered either in his article or in the book’s introduction. Under the hierarchy,
government, presidential and other lower-level regulations are trumped by statutes
enacted by Indonesia’s parliament if there is inconsistency between them. Principles
used to resolve competing legislation include the lex specialis derogat lex generalis
ISSN 0007-4918 print/ISSN 1472-7234 online/06/020263-18
DOI: 10.1080/00074910600873682
© 2006 Indonesia Project ANU
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principle (if two statutes are applicable to the case at hand, the more specific of the
two is applied) and the lex posteriori derogat lex priori principle (if two statutes conflict with each other, then the more recently enacted one prevails).
Nicole Niessen’s article has great relevance to other chapters and should also
have come earlier in the book. She describes Indonesia’s primary environmental
law—the Environmental Management Act (EMA) (Law 23/1997)—and compares it
to its 1982 predecessor and to international standards. She notes that the EMA seems
to provide ‘all necessary ingredients for a comprehensive and integrated approach’
(p. 66). However, like other ‘basic’ Indonesian laws, the EMA is ‘not sufficiently
detailed for immediate implementation’ (p. 66) and the implementing regulations
it anticipates have not been forthcoming (pp. 78–9). The result, she concludes, is
uncertainty in even the most fundamental areas of environmental law.
In the following chapter, Adriaan Bedner discusses the EMA’s enforcement
provisions. He argues that the EMA has ‘introduced opportunities for both
administrative and criminal enforcement action’, but has neither ‘integrated
nor harmonised the regulatory framework’ for environmental law (p. 80). ‘The
result is conflicting and overlapping sanctioning authorities, confusion as to how
administrative sanctions relate to criminal sanctions, the undermining of the position of the accused in environmental criminal cases, and a lack of clarity about
the Minister for Environment’s authority to engage in criminal investigations as
related to other agencies’ (p. 80).
David Nicholson’s chapter provides a welcome contrast to the book’s integration
theme. His engaging chapter covers the civil enforcement of environmental law
through public interest litigation generally, and in Indonesia in particular. Notable is his coverage of landmark environmental cases in which NGOs were granted
standing to litigate on behalf of the public interest in environmental preservation,
such as the the case brought by the NGO Walhi (Environmental Forum) against PT
Pakerin and others, for pollution following the 1997–98 forest fires.
In the final chapter of the book, Takdir Rahmadi describes Indonesia’s Forestry
Law and discusses how it sits with the EMA. This chapter details the complex legal
regime governing forestry issues and exploitation in Indonesia, and the variety of
officials charged with administering and enforcing it. The author notes that the
EMA and the Forestry Law are ‘fairly harmonious’. However, the maze of lowerlevel regulations in this area of law is causing great confusion and inefficiency, and
is hindering administration and enforcement. For example, a variety of government
officials have authority to provide and revoke similar types of forestry permits, and
to impose sanctions for breaches of permit conditions and environmental laws.
The book is quite short at 122 pages, not including its appendices, index, bibliography and endnotes. Unfortunately, it has a handful of editing errors and
does not contain notes on the contributors. It would have benefited from some
variety in addition to that provided by Cribb and Nicholson, such as a chapter
explaining the failure of environmental law in Indonesia for reasons other than
the lack of ‘integration’. Further, a chapter on the general systemic problems that
impede enforcement in many other areas of Indonesian law may have assisted
readers unfamiliar with the Indonesian legal system to see the legal complexity
and enforcement problems of environmental law in context.
However, this book fills a critical lacuna in the literature on Indonesian environmental law. As Bedner notes in his introduction, many of the existing Indo-
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nesian-language resources on environmental law lack critical analysis, exceptions
being some of the work by Indonesian NGOs. English-language scholarly work
on other areas of Indonesian law has increased in recent years, much of it written
or supported by Professor Tim Lindsey of the University of Melbourne, who has
taken the baton from the recently retired Professor M.B. Hooker of the Australian
National University and Daniel S. Lev of the University of Washington. However, very little of this new literature has focused on environmental law—which
is surprising, given that in recent years Indonesia has suffered many environmental disasters, such as severe floods and forest fires. For this reason, and for its
attempts to deal with the curly legal ramifications of decentralisation, this book
should be commended.
Simon Butt
Asian Law Group and University of Melbourne
Scott Pearson, Carl Gotsch and Sjaiful Bahri (2004)
Applications of the Policy Analysis Matrix in Indonesian Agriculture,
Yayasan Obor Indonesia, Jakarta, pp. 368. Rp 80,000.
Advocates of policy interventions in a particular market usually point to the existence of market failures as evidence that either an expansion or a reduction in
production of the commodity concerned may generate net social gains. A variation on this kind of argument is to point to existing government policies that
distort market behaviour but that, for political or other reasons, cannot be eliminated. Either of these circumstances can mean that private and social returns
from the production of a particular commodity diverge. When net social gains
from increasing production are positive, policies designed to achieve an increase
in production may therefore produce a net social gain, whereas when net social
gains are negative the reverse applies. The Policy Accounting Matrix (PAM), as
expounded and illustrated in this book, is an application of these ideas. The book
is intended as a resource for training programs using the PAM approach to agricultural policy, or for use by individual researchers wishing to apply its methods.
This book, published in both English and Indonesian, is an output of a research
and teaching program in Indonesia funded by the US Agency for International
Development, .
The PAM approach to agricultural policy analysis was earlier expounded in
Monke and Pearson (1989) and applied to Indonesian rice policy in a chapter by
Paul Heytens in Pearson et al. (1991). The essence of the PAM is the empirical
quantification of two types of definitional identities. The first identity, represented
by the rows of the matrix, is that profit is equal to revenue minus cost. This identity
is applied first to the private evaluation of an activity and thus it evaluates revenues and costs at the market prices facing the agent concerned. Then the identity
is applied to the social evaluation of the same activity, which differs from the first
in that it substitutes efficiency prices (shadow prices) reflecting social opportunity
costs for market prices. The second type of identity, represented by the columns
of the matrix, is a definition of efficiency. It states that if the social benefits exceed
the social costs then more of that activity is socially efficient.
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The rows of the PAM are named, respectively, private, social and divergence.
The columns are revenue, input cost, factor cost and profit. The first row of the
PAM states simply that private revenue from an activity minus input cost (meaning purchased inputs) minus factor cost (meaning primary factors of production—land, labour and capital) is equal to private profit. The second row repeats
this identity, but with the same categories (revenue, input cost, factor cost and
profit) evaluated at social prices (efficiency or shadow prices). The third row is
simply the difference between the first two and is thus labelled ‘divergence’.
Since it is simply a set of identities, the PAM itself has no behavioural content.
Its purpose is simply to provide a systematic framework that organises arguments
about social benefits and costs coherently. For example, if the social value of the output of a particular industry exceeds its private value (market price), because, say,
of the existence of an externality, this does not necessarily imply that increasing its
production is socially desirable. If the social cost of its production also exceeds private costs, expanding the production of the good could produce a net social gain or
a net loss. Applying the PAM approach facilitates the calculations involved. Obviously, the generality of these concepts is such that they could be applied to any type
of industry, but this book applies them to Indonesian agriculture.
The book begins with a general discussion of agricultural policy analysis, focusing on the example of price policy in the Indonesian rice industry. The next four
chapters expound the PAM concepts summarised above, and the next three discuss the application of these concepts to benefit–cost analysis and environmental
economics, and the communication to policy makers of the results obtained from
a PAM. Eight case studies written by Indonesian researchers at provincial universities follow. They apply the PAM approach to such issues as tariff policy for rice,
the impact of irrigation development, soybean farming systems, and the broiler
industry. There is then a (surprisingly critical) discussion of these case studies
and the lessons that may be drawn from them, and finally a computer tutorial
intended to assist practitioners in constructing a PAM.
The limitations of the PAM as a tool for policy analysis are not well discussed
in the book, and some of them can be noted here. First, suppose that social costs of
an activity (say, rice production) are found to exceed social benefits. This is what
the case study on rice tariffs argues. If correct, this means that a marginal contraction of rice production would be socially desirable. But policy interventions are
seldom marginal. Would elimination of the existing tariff (equivalent to roughly
30% of c.i.f. prices) be socially desirable, or would this reduce rice production too
much? The PAM does not tell us. Furthermore, much of the debate about agricultural policy interventions turns on income distributional arguments—the claim
that some people warrant special treatment because, say, they are poor. Again, the
debate about Indonesian rice tariffs illustrates this. But the PAM framework is not
well suited to analysing income distributional issues. Finally, the PAM approach
as illustrated here looks at commodity markets one by one. But what happens
in the rice market affects the corn market, on both the supply and the demand
side, and the partial equilibrium thinking embodied in the PAM approach ignores
such relationships. These limitations do not invalidate the PAM approach, but it is
desirable that they be understood.
Despite these qualifications, the PAM is a simple but useful framework for
organising information on the effects of policy interventions, and this book pro-
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267
vides a clearly written and accessible account of it. For policy analysts concerned
with Indonesian agriculture, it can be recommended. It also provides a reference
that university-level teachers in Indonesia will find useful for courses on agricultural policy.
Peter Warr
ANU
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References
Monke, Eric A. and Pearson, Scott R. (1989) The Policy Analysis Matrix for Agricultural
Development, Cornell University Press, Ithaca NY and London.
Pearson, Scott, Falcon, Walter, Heytens, Paul, Monke, Eric and Naylor, Rosamund (1991)
Rice Policy in Indonesia, Cornell University Press, Ithaca NY and London.
Riyana Miranti and Denis Hew (eds) (2004) APEC in the 21st Century,
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore,
pp. 303. Paper: S$39.90/US$28.50.
The chapters in this volume are based on presentations to the 2001 APEC (Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation) Roundtable hosted by the Institute of Southeast
Asian Studies (ISEAS) in Singapore. By the time of publication, some of the comments about progress and problems in APEC had become somewhat dated, and
some of the papers were already available in other publications. Volumes based on
conferences need to be published considerably more quickly if they are intended
to influence policy makers. On the other hand, some of the chapters, especially
chapter 8 on trade and investment patterns in East Asia, contain valuable summaries of facts, figures and policies that make the volume very useful for other
researchers.
Chapters 1 to 3 suffer from the delay in publication. They list problems faced
by APEC in implementing its agenda for trade and investment liberalisation and
facilitation and economic and technical cooperation, but do not offer significant
insights into how these might be addressed. Chapter 1, by Ippei Yamazawa, seeks
to isolate APEC’s specific contribution to trade liberalisation. He concludes that
most of what is happening can be attributed to World Trade Organization (WTO)
commitments. That tends to undervalue the contribution of APEC. As a voluntary process of cooperation, APEC, as such, does not make decisions. However,
APEC commitments, consultations and peer pressure can encourage Asia Pacific
governments to move in the direction of ‘opening to the outside world’. It does not
matter whether the actual decisions are made unilaterally or in the course of WTO
negotiations. Yamazawa’s disappointment with the pace of liberalisation contrasts
with the description of significant East Asian trade and investment liberalisation in
chapter 8 by Kawai and Urata.
Chapters 4 and 5 deal with preferential trading arrangements (PTAs), which
are proliferating worldwide, including in the Asia Pacific region. Chapter 5,
by Gonzalez-Vigil, is an excellent overview of formal economic integration in
the western hemisphere. This chapter focuses on the effects of bilateral and
sub-regional agreements on the participants themselves, which are assessed
to be generally, albeit modestly, positive. Chapter 4, by Findlay, Pangestu and
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Haflah Piei, takes a broader view. The authors note that discriminatory trading arrangements are not suitable for, and thus not effective in terms of liberalising, trade in the sensitive products that are blocking progress in WTO
negotiations. At the same time, PTAs are setting up pressures for economies
like those in ASEAN to compete against each other for preferential access
to protected markets of the currently largest economies, essentially at each
other’s expense.
Chapter 4 emphasises that the net costs or benefits of individual PTAs cannot
be assessed in isolation. Each negotiation encourages further departures from the
fundamental WTO principle of non-discrimination. Such ‘trading with favourites’, as the authors characterise the current PTA fashion, is causing systemic damage to the WTO-based trading order, threatening to replace it with one shaped by
the biggest economies.
To sum up, this is a useful volume for those interested in regional economic
cooperation in the Asia Pacific, and reflects the helpful role of the annual ISEAS
APEC Roundtables in the evolution of this process.
Andrew Elek
Tinderbox, Tasmania
John Weiss (ed.) (2005) Poverty Targeting in Asia,
Asian Development Bank Institute and Edward Elgar Publishing,
Cheltenham, pp. 304. Cloth: £65.00 (web price £58.50).
There have been a number of books and articles written on theoretical aspects of
poverty targeting. This book, perhaps the first to provide extensive empirical coverage of poverty targeting in Asia, is a welcome contribution and a timely initiative. It contains seven chapters: an overview of experience with poverty targeting
in Asia; country chapters presenting experience in five Asian countries (India,
Indonesia, China, Thailand and the Philippines); and a final chapter on microfinance and poverty reduction in Asia.
Given the complexity of the subject and the diversity of the country experiences, we must congratulate Weiss on his excellent summary in chapter 1 of
the basic concept of poverty targeting and the experience of the five countries.
Despite some typographical errors on pages 2 and 3, the section on the theory and
classification of targeting is a useful guide to the remainder of the book. For busy
readers, this chapter, particularly the section on errors in targeting, will be most
valuable.
The country chapters commence with Srivastava’s elaboration of India’s experience in poverty targeting. He focuses on five major direct-targeted poverty
interventions: a rural employment program; a self-employment scheme; a rural
housing scheme; an old-age pension scheme; and a drought-prone areas program.
Targeting instruments varied from self-selection for the first two programs to location targeting for the last. As might be expected in a vast country like India, with
numerous poverty reduction programs, both successes and failures occurred.
Srivastava concludes, however, that ‘in general, the picture [of poverty targeting
in India] is highly disappointing’.
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Perdana and Maxwell do an excellent job in presenting Indonesia’s experience in poverty targeting. They cover the whole range of important programs,
including Inpres Desa Tertinggal (IDT, the Neglected Villages program), and
programs in employment creation, community empowerment, food security
(the Special Market Operations/Rice for the Poor program), education, and
health. The chapter provides various examples of under-coverage and leakage
(to the non-poor) in these programs. Citing Sumarto et al. (1997), for instance, it
shows that slightly over 40% of the poor in Central Java and West Nusa Tenggara did not benefit from the IDT project. Unfortunately, the authors are not
careful enough in quoting poverty incidence estimates from the central statistics
agency (BPS). BPS provides the estimates as percentages of poor people. However, Perdana and Maxwell treat these estimates as percentages of ‘households’
(e.g. on p. 82). In fact, the percentage of poor people and the percentage of poor
households can be very different. For instance, in the Philippines in 1994, 40.6%
of people were poor, but only 35.5% of families (very similar to households)
were poor (Asian Development Bank, 1998, Compendium of Social Statistics in
the Philippines). This chapter will be very useful to Indonesian policy makers
now implementing the cash transfer program to poor households to compensate them for the 2005 fuel price rises.
Wang Sangui’s systematic and easy-to-read chapter shows that, unlike other
countries, China has only one major targeting instrument—locational or regional
targeting—which channels all the poverty funds to poor counties. The author
indicates that targeting effectiveness has declined over time and that leakage has
become more important than under-coverage. Recently, the village has replaced
the county as the targeting unit, but counties still administer poverty reduction
funds. Through this process leakages are expected to decline, as non-poor villages
in poor counties are no longer eligible for poverty funds, while poor villages in
non-poor counties qualify for such funds.
Warr and Sarntisart find that in Thailand, unlike other countries, a number of
targeted poverty reduction projects implemented before the Thaksin government
came to power—such as cash transfers to poor families and the elderly, and the
poverty alleviation program—did not have clear definitions of recipient groups.
It is interesting to learn that the Thaksin government’s Grass Roots Economic and
Social Security Program was not explicitly targeted towards the poor. This chapter concludes that social services expenditure in Thailand does not favour poorer
provinces; indeed, poor provinces currently receive somewhat lower levels of
poverty-related expenditure per person than non-poor provinces. In his introduction, Weiss says of Thailand that ‘there is no evidence of … successful targeting at
poorer provinces’.
Balisacan and Edillon examine several poverty reduction programs, such as the
Tulong sa Tao program, in which provision of credit was a key element, and the
combined KALAHI–CIDSS (‘direct poverty alleviation’ and Comprehensive and
Integrated Delivery of Social Services) programs. The authors argue that there
was incomplete coverage and leakage (e.g. in the Tulong sa Tao program, only
one-third of beneficiaries were really from low-income groups) and that CIDSS
has not yet resulted in any significant decline in poverty.
The last chapter, which seems rather out of place given the book’s title, discusses the role and impact of micro-finance on poverty in Asia. In general, most
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studies show positive impacts on poverty from different types of micro-finance
projects, although the benefits may be smaller for the core poor or the poorest.
The book provides useful lessons from targeted poverty interventions in five
Asian countries. It is a ‘must read’ for researchers and students, but also, and
especially, for policy makers, implementing agencies and non-government organisations involved in poverty reduction programs in developing countries.
Abuzar Asra
Asian Development Bank, Manila
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Reference
Sumarto, S., Usman, S. and Mawardi, S. (1997) ‘Agriculture’s role in poverty reduction:
bringing farmers to the policy formulation process’, Agriculture Sector Strategy Review,
Ministry of Agriculture, Jakarta, ADB TA 2660-INO, Study B, 4 November.
Syarif Hidayat and Carunia Mulya Firdausy (2003) Beyond Regional Autonomy:
Local State-Elites’ Perspectives on the Concept and Practice of Decentralisation
in Contemporary Indonesia, Pustaka Quantum, Jakarta, pp. 219.
Decentralisation and regional autonomy have become critical issues in the
process of regional development in Indonesia, especially since a major new
decentralisation policy was introduced in 1999. There are significant differences
between the new decentralisation policy as stipulated in Laws 22/1999 and
25/1999 and the old policy stipulated in Law 5/1974. Syarif Hidayat and Carunia Firdausy attempt in chapter 1 of this book to interpret the perspectives of
‘local state-elites‘ (senior bureaucrats and politicians at local government level)
in distinguishing, clarifying and implementing the old and the new decentralisation and regional autonomy policy. Why the focus on local state-elites? The
authors, borrowing the argument of Alagappa (1995: 28), state that elite groups
have greater control over power resources than the general public and are more
engaged in the political process, and hence shared norms and consent are more
important among the elite.
The second chapter surveys the international literature on why developing
countries undertake decentralisation, how they have implemented their decentralisation programs, and what problems they have encountered. The authors
identify two basic reasons why developing countries undertake decentralisation: political and administrative (economic). The political argument contends
that decentralisation will strengthen local accountability, improve political
skills and enhance national integration. The administrative argument states
that decentralisation will enhance local governments’ ability to provide public
goods and services.
In chapter 3 the authors elaborate Indonesia’s experience of decentralisation
policy by reviewing several studies that describe its implementation during three
periods: the Old Order, the New Order and the post-New Order periods. For
example, it reviews J.D. Legge’s Central Authority and Regional Autonomy in Indonesia: A Study in Local Administration 1950–60 (1963), which concludes that the
core problem of regionalism in Indonesia during the 1950s was the existence of a
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271
contradiction between the need to satisfy the regions and the need to establish a
strong and stable government. What is lacking in this chapter is a comparison of
decentralisation policies and practices during these three periods. It would have
been useful to have attempted such a comparison.
The rest of the book describes the authors’ analysis of the perspectives of local
state-elites, based on in-depth interviews with local bureaucrats and politicians
in West Kalimantan and East Nusa Tenggara. The main results are as follows. On
the local state-elites’ view of the central–local government power relationship,
the authors conclude that the majority of local bureaucrats and politicians interviewed in the two research sites favour defining decentralisation as ‘the transfer
of government affairs from central to local governments’. Most respondents (at
both the provincial and district level) regard the formulation of central–local government power relations given in article 7 of Law 22/1999 as superior to that of
the previous Law 5/1974.
The interviews confirm the common belief that most regions welcome the
adoption of the new formula for centre–local financial transfers. Nevertheless
there are complaints about the implementation of this new formula: first, there is
little transparency in the process of determining the formula, and second, almost
no guidance is provided on the practical implementation of the formula.
On local administration, respondents acknowledge that increasing numbers of
taxes, fees and other restrictions distort markets and deter investment. They also
observe that under decentralisation inadequate physical and human resources
have created problems in administrative management.
Finally, the authors admit that, since the research is based on only two provinces, it would be wrong to claim that its findings reflect the views of local stateelites about decentralisation and local autonomy in Indonesia more generally.
However, the book could have been improved if the authors had clearly described
the methods by which they arrived at their conclusions. Since the responses of the
local bureaucrats and politicians are heterogeneous and even contradictory, careful elaboration of the research method is critical, yet the authors provide minimal
discussion of this.
Despite these remarks, Syarif Hidayat and Carunia Firdausy’s book makes
interesting reading. Its particular strength lies in the comprehensiveness of its literature reviews. It is also one of the few books to report an evaluation of the new
decentralisation policy from the perspective of local state-elites.
B. Raksaka Mahi
University of Indonesia, Jakarta
Reference
Alagappa, Muthiah (1995) Political Legitimacy in Southeast Asia, Stanford University Press,
Stanford CA.
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Edward Aspinall (2005) Opposing Soeharto:
Compromise, Resistance, and Regime Change in Indonesia,
Stanford University Press, Stanford CA, pp. 344.
Paper: US$22.95; Cloth: US$60.00.
Soeharto came to power in 1965, after an attempted coup against Sukarno. The
Indonesian Communist Party was banned and tens of thousands of its members
were slaughtered. From then on, Soeharto, backed by the military, controlled state
power for 33 years, until 1998.
At first, Soeharto ruled Indonesia democratically (1965–72). Later, from 1972 to
1978, he became more and more authoritarian. With the suppression of student
protests in Bandung in 1978, he began to rule Indonesia autocratically. This continued until 1998, when he was forced to resign by various elements of civil society. During this time, he became linked with corrupt activities involving members
of his family and other associates.
During Soeharto’s time, especially from 1972 to 1998, political opposition was
suppressed. Soeharto asked the Indonesian people to support fully the program
he called the ‘Trilogy of Development’ (economic growth, political stability and
income redistribution). In practice, political stability was strongly emphasised ‘in
order to create an environment conducive to economic growth’, and political stability was achieved through heavy control by the state.
This is the period dealt with in this book. During this time, political parties
were tightly controlled by the government. Not only did one need a permit from
the government to establish a political party, but to be the chairperson of a political party also required endorsement by the president. It was the same with social
organisations such as NGOs, the Legal Aid Foundation, and the print and electronic media. If the government found these groups had done something that
might disturb socio-political stability, they were likely to be banned.
In this situation, people had to be very cautious if they disagreed with the government or Soeharto—whether they simply wanted to make the system more
democratic, or wanted to replace Soeharto or change the political system. Even
reading a poem that criticised the existing undemocratic politics could be considered a subversive activity that could result in a gaol term. All these activities were
regarded as opposing Soeharto.
Although not open, and not on a large scale, there was opposition to Soeharto
during that period. The book describes in great detail the activities and the actors
of this movement, what they did and who they were. They were called a ‘protoopposition’. Many of them were students and academics, and also members of
various NGOs with ‘non-political’ programs designed to improve the wellbeing
of society.
Obviously, to write about these kinds of covert activities is not an easy task. One
has to be close to the actors and have open and regular communication with them.
Aspinall was the right person to do this. With his pleasant personality and his fluent Indonesian, he was indeed a ‘participant’ observer in this ‘proto-opposition’
movement. The strength of the book is therefore that it is able to give us a close
and detailed account of the proto-opposition movement during Soeharto’s time.
However, this strength can also be considered a weakness. The book’s detailed
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descriptions do not make it an easy read for those with insufficient background in
Indonesian contemporary politics. Also, it may not satisfy those who are looking
for a theoretical analysis of what was happening. Theories are discussed only at
a general level.
Edward Aspinall is now a Fellow in the Department of Political and Social
Change in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian
National University. The field research for this book, which is based on his PhD
dissertation, was done in the 1990s. I have no doubt that the book will make a
significant contribution to understanding of the socio-political dynamics of Indonesia during Soeharto’s time.
Arief Budiman
University of Melbourne
Vedi R. Hadiz and Daniel Dhakidae (eds) (2005)
Social Science and Power in Indonesia,
Equinox Publishing (Asia), Jakarta, and Institute of Southeast
Asian Studies, Singapore, pp. xxi + 281. Cloth: US$19.95.
This collection of essays deals with a topic that has an impact on all who work
within academic disciplines normally associated with the social sciences: the relationship between political power holders and social science. This relationship is
generally characterised as asymmetrical, with the former having a huge influence
on the workings of the latter. The neo-liberal oriented political surge that followed
the end of the Cold War has not been to the advantage of the social sciences,
as advocates of neo-liberalism are more inclined to favour disciplines that bring
about immediate rewards for the commercial sectors, and these are generally to be
found outside the social sciences. This has meant funding cuts and down-sizing of
staff and even whole institutions in this part of the academic world, thus endangering a balanced social and political development within individual societies
over time, through lack of understanding of the complex interplay among societal
institutions.
The present book provides a good illustration of the impact of neo-liberal style
policies on the Indonesian social sciences. By concentrating exclusively on this
country and employing Soeharto’s New Order regime (1965–98) as its main point
of departure, with occasional excursions into the early post-colonial and postNew Order eras, it presents a highly pertinent case study of this intricate relationship. Those not familiar with Indonesian politics during the New Order regime
and beyond should not despair, as there are ample descriptions of how the heavily structured and politicised New Order society functioned and subsequently
altered after the system change in 1998.
The chapter by Ariel Heryanto argues that the social sciences and social scientists during the New Order period openly served the official interests of the
government, and there was no public discussion of the political implications of
this. What would be interesting, according to Heryanto, is a study of ideology in a
social science setting, where ideas about neutrality in method, objectivity of data,
scientific deduction, the universality of values and meaning, and the autonomy of
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scientific institutions are respected, either as myth or in practices protected by law
and morality. It is only through such studies that we might be able to debunk the
myths about academic work and thus expose the ideological interests of different
academic institutions and social science practices. The ‘devil’ is thus not to be
found on the outside but rather on the inside, in social science itself. This insight is
shared by another of the book’s authors, Aris Ananta, who discusses how statistical data can be manipulated to support an agenda driven by political imperatives
and executed by academics in the name of objective science.
Such an approach to assessing the role of social science in a societal context presupposes that the individual researcher is also a member of the society in which
she or he is living. As social beings we are composed of several inter-related
but different identities that are employed according to the societal context, and
we carry perceptions from one state of being over and into another as we move
through different social settings. It is thus impossible to be politically neutral in a
social science context, and the impact of the surrounding societal ‘spill-overs’ on
research in the social sciences goes beyond direct political prescription.
This impact manifests itself in the form of self-imposed constraints on what
kind of research one should concentrate on if one wants to obtain government
research grants or to position oneself politically within the university hierarchy,
as discussed in the chapter by Hery Nugroho. The author aptly labels this the
political economy of higher education. These self-imposed constraints have as
a negative consequence that important issues in society are not studied for fear
of jeopardising the individual researcher’s career or the department’s political
standing in the eyes of university boards and political power holders in the
surrounding society. The overall effect of this is a politically passive academia
that is afraid of providing critical inputs to society, and thus reinforces the position of the existing political elite, with possible detrimental effects on society at
large. Topics such as inter-ethnic relations, class affiliations and religious matters are obvious cases of this problem in an Indonesian context, since they have
been and perhaps still are seen by the power holders as the prerogative of the
state—to be investigated not by academic institutions but rather by politically
guided or government-controlled organisations. Several of the book’s contributors, including Vedi Hadiz, Daniel Dhakidae, Hilmar Farid, Meuthia G. Rochman and Rochman Achwan, deal with this issue.
In fairness, it must be said that during the post-Soeharto era Indonesia has
moved forward in terms of loosening the stranglehold of the political establishment on the social sciences. However, as Alexander Irwan states in his contribution, the remnants of the New Order are still there in the background, both in
the form of government policies and within the social sciences themselves. This
is perhaps the greatest hindrance to creating an autonomous, critical and constructive social science, free of state politicking and the growing influence of market forces, that is capable of supporting the emerging democracy in Indonesia.
There are many signs that the relationship between political power holders and
the social sciences is becoming more positive, but the question is how the social
sciences will relate to an emerging alliance between the political establishment
and an ever-encroaching global market economy. That will be something to keep
a sharp and critical eye on, lest the Indonesian social sciences become subject
to yet another powerful counter-force in the form of a neo-liberal based alliance
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275
between power hungry politicians and entrepreneurial business. Anyone interested in the subjects discussed above should read this book. It has my warmest
recommendation.
Michael Jacobsen
Copenhagen Business School
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Peter Boomgard and David Henley (eds) (2004)
Smallholders and Stockbreeders: Histories of Foodcrop and Livestock Farming
in Southeast Asia, KITLV Press, Leiden, pp. vii + 344. Paper: €30.
This book attempts to deal with some neglected aspects of agricultural history, and
is the ‘first coordinated attempt to collect and analyse, for several areas in Southeast Asia, historical data pertaining to … livestock keeping’ (p. 1). It is organised
in two parts, ‘Foodcrops’ and ‘Livestock’.
In their introduction, the editors identify three perspectives on the history of
foodcrop and livestock farming in Southeast Asia that characterise the contents
of the volume: the cultural–technical, political–economic and economic–demographic
perspectives. This categorisation is presented to assist their analytical overview of
the book rather than to attribute a single perspective to any of its chapters.
In the cultural–technical approach, ‘the essential reasons for geographical diversity in agricultural practices are the diversity of human cultures and the specificities of local technologies[,] … in turn … often related to the characteristics of the
natural environments’ (p. 5). Among the findings attributed to this perspective,
Christie’s chapter on the agricultural economies of early Java and Bali challenges
evolutionary theories which assume that ‘rice farming is a higher and more civilized form of agriculture than sago or root crop cultivation and must therefore be
of more recent origin’ (p. 6). Similarly, Ellen, writing on the historical diffusion of
the ‘complex traditional technology’ of sago production, demonstrates that there
are no linear models in food processing innovations. Livestock industries are a
major cause of deforestation, as Clarence-Smith and Bankoff show in chapters
about horse breeding in mainland Southeast Asia and the Philippines respectively, with clearing undertaken to create pastures and to deny cover to predators
of livestock, especially horses.
Among the findings attributed to the political–economic approach—’political
relationships, more than technological, cultural, or demographic circumstances,
determine how farmers behave’—the clearest examples are the rapid increase in
rice production in the Mekong delta in the 1990s (Le Coq, Trébuil and Dufumier);
the highly productive farming systems of early Java and Bali (Christie); and the
rapid switch from dry to wet rice in the highlands of Sarawak in the 1960s, with
the opening of new markets following changes in Malaysian infrastructure policy
(Janowski).
The economic–demographic approach is characterised by ‘an awareness that …
[farmers’] assessment of the usefulness of any given innovation … depends on
their economic situation‘ (p. 7). Within this approach, the two main driving forces
are the Boserupian mechanism (‘the incentive to intensify labour, capital and
technological inputs is provided by an increasing scarcity of farmland caused by
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population growth or immigration, which obliges farmers to invest in new techniques’) and the ‘market pull’ model, ‘in which the adoption of innovations and
the application of additional capital and labour to the land is prompted not by
population pressure, but by increases in the profitability of surplus production, or
the emergence of markets for new products’ (p. 7).
Not surprisingly from an economist’s point of view, most agricultural changes
are interpreted through these two forces, especially the ‘market pull’ factor. On a
Southeast Asia scale, what I would call a ‘horse cycle’ is clearly demand driven:
in the early 20th century, increased urban demand for horses for transportation
(and racing) is followed by an ultimate drop in demand as horses are replaced by
bicycles and other vehicles (Bankoff, Clarence-Smith, Boomgaard).
One subsidiary objective of the book is to clarify the links between husbandry
and agricultural change. Barwegen, writing about Java between 1850 and 2000,
shows that ‘the buffalo disappeared increasingly [from] the scene because of
loss of habitat, largely caused by population growth. Changing agricultural
techniques made it possible to plough with less strong and heavy animals,
and later the buffalo came under threat from the paddy tractor’ (p. 301). (This
reviewers’ research indicates that paddy tractors have also led to some decline
in cattle husbandry in Sulawesi in recent years, especially in Balinese migrant
farms.) Boomgaard’s chapter on buffalo and cattle in Indonesia from 1500 to
1850 offers the example of rice intensification increasing the demand for animal
manure and plough animals, thus contributing to a rise in buffalo numbers in
Java between 1820 and 1850.
There are fascinating cases of population increase having an impact on livestock systems. The shortage of pastures leading to a decline in buffalo numbers
in Java and the increasing adoption of cattle are certainly linked to population
growth (Barwegen, Boomgaard). Still in Java, shortage of pasture encourages
stall-feeding, and this, too, favours a shift to cattle, which are less difficult to stallfeed (Barwegen). Demographic growth combined with economic development
leads to innovations and investment in paved roads, more suitable for cattle than
for water buffalo, so cattle numbers grow faster than buffalo numbers in Java after
1850 (p. 11). This strong application of the Boserupian mechanism to livestock in
Southeast Asia is among the book’s most interesting sets of findings, especially
when it comes to production shifts.
In the Philippines (1885–1935), Doeppers observes ‘a major shift in the geography of (cattle meat) market integration’—‘a massive displacement from Luzon
to places more distant from the city’ (p. 320). In early modern Indonesia, Boomgaard talks of constant shifts from one horse-producing area to another, evidence
of ‘horse breeding crowded out of the more densely settled areas [in Java] and
”outsourced” in part to more sparsely populated islands elsewhere in Indonesia’
(p. 11).
This aspect could have been explored further. What is described for cattle
raising in the Philippines looks very similar to the ‘rise and decline of various export crops’ in Southeast Asia and well beyond. Shifts in production are
common when farming and husbandry systems rely on natural resources, often
tropical forests. This is the worldwide principle of shifting cultivation, frequently described in the case of annual crops, but which also applies to perennial crops and husbandry.
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Boomgaard raises some key questions. ‘Is it plausible to assume that horse raising was the reason that people were attracted to some areas in the first place? ...
Did its very success attract so many people that the horses were crowded out? Or
was this population growth plain and simple, without a causal link to horse raising?’ (p. 329).
Concerning tree crops, numerous cases discussed in the book demonstrate that
production shifts are related to a structural migratory pattern based on forest consumption, with a direct link between commodity cycles and population changes.
Regarding livestock, the same link is obvious in the modern times of Amazonia.
In Southeast Asia, I would be ready to believe in an historical process of successful
horse and cattle breeding attracting more and more migrants, leading to too much
pressure on natural resources and recurrent geographical shifts.
François Ruf
Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique
pour le développement (CIRAD), Paris
Susan Blackburn (2004) Women and the State in Modern Indon
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To cite this article: (2006) Book reviews, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 42:2,
263-280, DOI: 10.1080/00074910600873682
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Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Vol. 42, No. 2, 2006: 263–80
BOOK REVIEWS
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Adriaan Bedner and Nicole Niessen (eds) (2003) Towards Integrated
Environmental Law in Indonesia?, CNWS Publications, Leiden, pp. 165. €20.00.
Towards Integrated Environmental Law in Indonesia examines the overly complex
and poorly coordinated regulation, administration and enforcement of environmental law in Indonesia.
The book begins with Jan Michiel Otto’s ‘Incoherence in Environmental Law‘, an
intellectual piece that discusses the meaning of ‘harmonisation’ and ‘integration’
in the context of environmental law. Next, Marius Aalders writes on private-sector
‘Self-regulation and Compliance with Environmental Law from a Global Perspective’. In this chapter, Aalders discusses the conditions in which business entities in
developed and developing countries might be expected to self-regulate their conduct with respect to the environment. He then ponders whether developed countries’ environmental laws and international standards are likely to be transplanted
when developed countries establish industries in developing countries.
A highlight of this book is the following chapter—Robert Cribb’s ‘Environmentalism in Indonesian Politics’. In this fascinating essay, Cribb discusses the uses
and abuses of environmentalism under Soeharto’s New Order. He shows that
environmentalism was embraced by the regime as part of its ideology of pancasila,
mainly to justify state control over natural resources. Ironically, however, environmentalism later provided a vehicle for opposition to the Soeharto regime, as
members of the elite were criticised for mass timber logging and involvement in
enterprises that contributed to industrial pollution.
In an informative chapter that probably should have come earlier in the book,
Julia Arnscheidt provides an important outline of the national-level framework
for environmental policy making in Indonesia. She discusses the various ministries and government agencies responsible for environmental issues and the problems of coordination among them, noting that ‘Indonesia’s current environmental
policy is far from integrated’ (p. 58).
Next is Asep Warlan Yusuf’s chapter about Indonesia’s conflicting laws on spatial
planning and environmental management. Warlan’s article is instructive, but would
have been strengthened by a discussion of legal methods commonly employed in
Indonesia to resolve inconsistencies between two or more statutes and between
statutes and ‘lower-level’ laws, such as government, presidential and ministerial
regulations and decisions. For example, Indonesia’s hierarchy of laws should have
been covered either in his article or in the book’s introduction. Under the hierarchy,
government, presidential and other lower-level regulations are trumped by statutes
enacted by Indonesia’s parliament if there is inconsistency between them. Principles
used to resolve competing legislation include the lex specialis derogat lex generalis
ISSN 0007-4918 print/ISSN 1472-7234 online/06/020263-18
DOI: 10.1080/00074910600873682
© 2006 Indonesia Project ANU
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principle (if two statutes are applicable to the case at hand, the more specific of the
two is applied) and the lex posteriori derogat lex priori principle (if two statutes conflict with each other, then the more recently enacted one prevails).
Nicole Niessen’s article has great relevance to other chapters and should also
have come earlier in the book. She describes Indonesia’s primary environmental
law—the Environmental Management Act (EMA) (Law 23/1997)—and compares it
to its 1982 predecessor and to international standards. She notes that the EMA seems
to provide ‘all necessary ingredients for a comprehensive and integrated approach’
(p. 66). However, like other ‘basic’ Indonesian laws, the EMA is ‘not sufficiently
detailed for immediate implementation’ (p. 66) and the implementing regulations
it anticipates have not been forthcoming (pp. 78–9). The result, she concludes, is
uncertainty in even the most fundamental areas of environmental law.
In the following chapter, Adriaan Bedner discusses the EMA’s enforcement
provisions. He argues that the EMA has ‘introduced opportunities for both
administrative and criminal enforcement action’, but has neither ‘integrated
nor harmonised the regulatory framework’ for environmental law (p. 80). ‘The
result is conflicting and overlapping sanctioning authorities, confusion as to how
administrative sanctions relate to criminal sanctions, the undermining of the position of the accused in environmental criminal cases, and a lack of clarity about
the Minister for Environment’s authority to engage in criminal investigations as
related to other agencies’ (p. 80).
David Nicholson’s chapter provides a welcome contrast to the book’s integration
theme. His engaging chapter covers the civil enforcement of environmental law
through public interest litigation generally, and in Indonesia in particular. Notable is his coverage of landmark environmental cases in which NGOs were granted
standing to litigate on behalf of the public interest in environmental preservation,
such as the the case brought by the NGO Walhi (Environmental Forum) against PT
Pakerin and others, for pollution following the 1997–98 forest fires.
In the final chapter of the book, Takdir Rahmadi describes Indonesia’s Forestry
Law and discusses how it sits with the EMA. This chapter details the complex legal
regime governing forestry issues and exploitation in Indonesia, and the variety of
officials charged with administering and enforcing it. The author notes that the
EMA and the Forestry Law are ‘fairly harmonious’. However, the maze of lowerlevel regulations in this area of law is causing great confusion and inefficiency, and
is hindering administration and enforcement. For example, a variety of government
officials have authority to provide and revoke similar types of forestry permits, and
to impose sanctions for breaches of permit conditions and environmental laws.
The book is quite short at 122 pages, not including its appendices, index, bibliography and endnotes. Unfortunately, it has a handful of editing errors and
does not contain notes on the contributors. It would have benefited from some
variety in addition to that provided by Cribb and Nicholson, such as a chapter
explaining the failure of environmental law in Indonesia for reasons other than
the lack of ‘integration’. Further, a chapter on the general systemic problems that
impede enforcement in many other areas of Indonesian law may have assisted
readers unfamiliar with the Indonesian legal system to see the legal complexity
and enforcement problems of environmental law in context.
However, this book fills a critical lacuna in the literature on Indonesian environmental law. As Bedner notes in his introduction, many of the existing Indo-
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265
nesian-language resources on environmental law lack critical analysis, exceptions
being some of the work by Indonesian NGOs. English-language scholarly work
on other areas of Indonesian law has increased in recent years, much of it written
or supported by Professor Tim Lindsey of the University of Melbourne, who has
taken the baton from the recently retired Professor M.B. Hooker of the Australian
National University and Daniel S. Lev of the University of Washington. However, very little of this new literature has focused on environmental law—which
is surprising, given that in recent years Indonesia has suffered many environmental disasters, such as severe floods and forest fires. For this reason, and for its
attempts to deal with the curly legal ramifications of decentralisation, this book
should be commended.
Simon Butt
Asian Law Group and University of Melbourne
Scott Pearson, Carl Gotsch and Sjaiful Bahri (2004)
Applications of the Policy Analysis Matrix in Indonesian Agriculture,
Yayasan Obor Indonesia, Jakarta, pp. 368. Rp 80,000.
Advocates of policy interventions in a particular market usually point to the existence of market failures as evidence that either an expansion or a reduction in
production of the commodity concerned may generate net social gains. A variation on this kind of argument is to point to existing government policies that
distort market behaviour but that, for political or other reasons, cannot be eliminated. Either of these circumstances can mean that private and social returns
from the production of a particular commodity diverge. When net social gains
from increasing production are positive, policies designed to achieve an increase
in production may therefore produce a net social gain, whereas when net social
gains are negative the reverse applies. The Policy Accounting Matrix (PAM), as
expounded and illustrated in this book, is an application of these ideas. The book
is intended as a resource for training programs using the PAM approach to agricultural policy, or for use by individual researchers wishing to apply its methods.
This book, published in both English and Indonesian, is an output of a research
and teaching program in Indonesia funded by the US Agency for International
Development, .
The PAM approach to agricultural policy analysis was earlier expounded in
Monke and Pearson (1989) and applied to Indonesian rice policy in a chapter by
Paul Heytens in Pearson et al. (1991). The essence of the PAM is the empirical
quantification of two types of definitional identities. The first identity, represented
by the rows of the matrix, is that profit is equal to revenue minus cost. This identity
is applied first to the private evaluation of an activity and thus it evaluates revenues and costs at the market prices facing the agent concerned. Then the identity
is applied to the social evaluation of the same activity, which differs from the first
in that it substitutes efficiency prices (shadow prices) reflecting social opportunity
costs for market prices. The second type of identity, represented by the columns
of the matrix, is a definition of efficiency. It states that if the social benefits exceed
the social costs then more of that activity is socially efficient.
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The rows of the PAM are named, respectively, private, social and divergence.
The columns are revenue, input cost, factor cost and profit. The first row of the
PAM states simply that private revenue from an activity minus input cost (meaning purchased inputs) minus factor cost (meaning primary factors of production—land, labour and capital) is equal to private profit. The second row repeats
this identity, but with the same categories (revenue, input cost, factor cost and
profit) evaluated at social prices (efficiency or shadow prices). The third row is
simply the difference between the first two and is thus labelled ‘divergence’.
Since it is simply a set of identities, the PAM itself has no behavioural content.
Its purpose is simply to provide a systematic framework that organises arguments
about social benefits and costs coherently. For example, if the social value of the output of a particular industry exceeds its private value (market price), because, say,
of the existence of an externality, this does not necessarily imply that increasing its
production is socially desirable. If the social cost of its production also exceeds private costs, expanding the production of the good could produce a net social gain or
a net loss. Applying the PAM approach facilitates the calculations involved. Obviously, the generality of these concepts is such that they could be applied to any type
of industry, but this book applies them to Indonesian agriculture.
The book begins with a general discussion of agricultural policy analysis, focusing on the example of price policy in the Indonesian rice industry. The next four
chapters expound the PAM concepts summarised above, and the next three discuss the application of these concepts to benefit–cost analysis and environmental
economics, and the communication to policy makers of the results obtained from
a PAM. Eight case studies written by Indonesian researchers at provincial universities follow. They apply the PAM approach to such issues as tariff policy for rice,
the impact of irrigation development, soybean farming systems, and the broiler
industry. There is then a (surprisingly critical) discussion of these case studies
and the lessons that may be drawn from them, and finally a computer tutorial
intended to assist practitioners in constructing a PAM.
The limitations of the PAM as a tool for policy analysis are not well discussed
in the book, and some of them can be noted here. First, suppose that social costs of
an activity (say, rice production) are found to exceed social benefits. This is what
the case study on rice tariffs argues. If correct, this means that a marginal contraction of rice production would be socially desirable. But policy interventions are
seldom marginal. Would elimination of the existing tariff (equivalent to roughly
30% of c.i.f. prices) be socially desirable, or would this reduce rice production too
much? The PAM does not tell us. Furthermore, much of the debate about agricultural policy interventions turns on income distributional arguments—the claim
that some people warrant special treatment because, say, they are poor. Again, the
debate about Indonesian rice tariffs illustrates this. But the PAM framework is not
well suited to analysing income distributional issues. Finally, the PAM approach
as illustrated here looks at commodity markets one by one. But what happens
in the rice market affects the corn market, on both the supply and the demand
side, and the partial equilibrium thinking embodied in the PAM approach ignores
such relationships. These limitations do not invalidate the PAM approach, but it is
desirable that they be understood.
Despite these qualifications, the PAM is a simple but useful framework for
organising information on the effects of policy interventions, and this book pro-
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267
vides a clearly written and accessible account of it. For policy analysts concerned
with Indonesian agriculture, it can be recommended. It also provides a reference
that university-level teachers in Indonesia will find useful for courses on agricultural policy.
Peter Warr
ANU
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References
Monke, Eric A. and Pearson, Scott R. (1989) The Policy Analysis Matrix for Agricultural
Development, Cornell University Press, Ithaca NY and London.
Pearson, Scott, Falcon, Walter, Heytens, Paul, Monke, Eric and Naylor, Rosamund (1991)
Rice Policy in Indonesia, Cornell University Press, Ithaca NY and London.
Riyana Miranti and Denis Hew (eds) (2004) APEC in the 21st Century,
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore,
pp. 303. Paper: S$39.90/US$28.50.
The chapters in this volume are based on presentations to the 2001 APEC (Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation) Roundtable hosted by the Institute of Southeast
Asian Studies (ISEAS) in Singapore. By the time of publication, some of the comments about progress and problems in APEC had become somewhat dated, and
some of the papers were already available in other publications. Volumes based on
conferences need to be published considerably more quickly if they are intended
to influence policy makers. On the other hand, some of the chapters, especially
chapter 8 on trade and investment patterns in East Asia, contain valuable summaries of facts, figures and policies that make the volume very useful for other
researchers.
Chapters 1 to 3 suffer from the delay in publication. They list problems faced
by APEC in implementing its agenda for trade and investment liberalisation and
facilitation and economic and technical cooperation, but do not offer significant
insights into how these might be addressed. Chapter 1, by Ippei Yamazawa, seeks
to isolate APEC’s specific contribution to trade liberalisation. He concludes that
most of what is happening can be attributed to World Trade Organization (WTO)
commitments. That tends to undervalue the contribution of APEC. As a voluntary process of cooperation, APEC, as such, does not make decisions. However,
APEC commitments, consultations and peer pressure can encourage Asia Pacific
governments to move in the direction of ‘opening to the outside world’. It does not
matter whether the actual decisions are made unilaterally or in the course of WTO
negotiations. Yamazawa’s disappointment with the pace of liberalisation contrasts
with the description of significant East Asian trade and investment liberalisation in
chapter 8 by Kawai and Urata.
Chapters 4 and 5 deal with preferential trading arrangements (PTAs), which
are proliferating worldwide, including in the Asia Pacific region. Chapter 5,
by Gonzalez-Vigil, is an excellent overview of formal economic integration in
the western hemisphere. This chapter focuses on the effects of bilateral and
sub-regional agreements on the participants themselves, which are assessed
to be generally, albeit modestly, positive. Chapter 4, by Findlay, Pangestu and
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Haflah Piei, takes a broader view. The authors note that discriminatory trading arrangements are not suitable for, and thus not effective in terms of liberalising, trade in the sensitive products that are blocking progress in WTO
negotiations. At the same time, PTAs are setting up pressures for economies
like those in ASEAN to compete against each other for preferential access
to protected markets of the currently largest economies, essentially at each
other’s expense.
Chapter 4 emphasises that the net costs or benefits of individual PTAs cannot
be assessed in isolation. Each negotiation encourages further departures from the
fundamental WTO principle of non-discrimination. Such ‘trading with favourites’, as the authors characterise the current PTA fashion, is causing systemic damage to the WTO-based trading order, threatening to replace it with one shaped by
the biggest economies.
To sum up, this is a useful volume for those interested in regional economic
cooperation in the Asia Pacific, and reflects the helpful role of the annual ISEAS
APEC Roundtables in the evolution of this process.
Andrew Elek
Tinderbox, Tasmania
John Weiss (ed.) (2005) Poverty Targeting in Asia,
Asian Development Bank Institute and Edward Elgar Publishing,
Cheltenham, pp. 304. Cloth: £65.00 (web price £58.50).
There have been a number of books and articles written on theoretical aspects of
poverty targeting. This book, perhaps the first to provide extensive empirical coverage of poverty targeting in Asia, is a welcome contribution and a timely initiative. It contains seven chapters: an overview of experience with poverty targeting
in Asia; country chapters presenting experience in five Asian countries (India,
Indonesia, China, Thailand and the Philippines); and a final chapter on microfinance and poverty reduction in Asia.
Given the complexity of the subject and the diversity of the country experiences, we must congratulate Weiss on his excellent summary in chapter 1 of
the basic concept of poverty targeting and the experience of the five countries.
Despite some typographical errors on pages 2 and 3, the section on the theory and
classification of targeting is a useful guide to the remainder of the book. For busy
readers, this chapter, particularly the section on errors in targeting, will be most
valuable.
The country chapters commence with Srivastava’s elaboration of India’s experience in poverty targeting. He focuses on five major direct-targeted poverty
interventions: a rural employment program; a self-employment scheme; a rural
housing scheme; an old-age pension scheme; and a drought-prone areas program.
Targeting instruments varied from self-selection for the first two programs to location targeting for the last. As might be expected in a vast country like India, with
numerous poverty reduction programs, both successes and failures occurred.
Srivastava concludes, however, that ‘in general, the picture [of poverty targeting
in India] is highly disappointing’.
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Perdana and Maxwell do an excellent job in presenting Indonesia’s experience in poverty targeting. They cover the whole range of important programs,
including Inpres Desa Tertinggal (IDT, the Neglected Villages program), and
programs in employment creation, community empowerment, food security
(the Special Market Operations/Rice for the Poor program), education, and
health. The chapter provides various examples of under-coverage and leakage
(to the non-poor) in these programs. Citing Sumarto et al. (1997), for instance, it
shows that slightly over 40% of the poor in Central Java and West Nusa Tenggara did not benefit from the IDT project. Unfortunately, the authors are not
careful enough in quoting poverty incidence estimates from the central statistics
agency (BPS). BPS provides the estimates as percentages of poor people. However, Perdana and Maxwell treat these estimates as percentages of ‘households’
(e.g. on p. 82). In fact, the percentage of poor people and the percentage of poor
households can be very different. For instance, in the Philippines in 1994, 40.6%
of people were poor, but only 35.5% of families (very similar to households)
were poor (Asian Development Bank, 1998, Compendium of Social Statistics in
the Philippines). This chapter will be very useful to Indonesian policy makers
now implementing the cash transfer program to poor households to compensate them for the 2005 fuel price rises.
Wang Sangui’s systematic and easy-to-read chapter shows that, unlike other
countries, China has only one major targeting instrument—locational or regional
targeting—which channels all the poverty funds to poor counties. The author
indicates that targeting effectiveness has declined over time and that leakage has
become more important than under-coverage. Recently, the village has replaced
the county as the targeting unit, but counties still administer poverty reduction
funds. Through this process leakages are expected to decline, as non-poor villages
in poor counties are no longer eligible for poverty funds, while poor villages in
non-poor counties qualify for such funds.
Warr and Sarntisart find that in Thailand, unlike other countries, a number of
targeted poverty reduction projects implemented before the Thaksin government
came to power—such as cash transfers to poor families and the elderly, and the
poverty alleviation program—did not have clear definitions of recipient groups.
It is interesting to learn that the Thaksin government’s Grass Roots Economic and
Social Security Program was not explicitly targeted towards the poor. This chapter concludes that social services expenditure in Thailand does not favour poorer
provinces; indeed, poor provinces currently receive somewhat lower levels of
poverty-related expenditure per person than non-poor provinces. In his introduction, Weiss says of Thailand that ‘there is no evidence of … successful targeting at
poorer provinces’.
Balisacan and Edillon examine several poverty reduction programs, such as the
Tulong sa Tao program, in which provision of credit was a key element, and the
combined KALAHI–CIDSS (‘direct poverty alleviation’ and Comprehensive and
Integrated Delivery of Social Services) programs. The authors argue that there
was incomplete coverage and leakage (e.g. in the Tulong sa Tao program, only
one-third of beneficiaries were really from low-income groups) and that CIDSS
has not yet resulted in any significant decline in poverty.
The last chapter, which seems rather out of place given the book’s title, discusses the role and impact of micro-finance on poverty in Asia. In general, most
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studies show positive impacts on poverty from different types of micro-finance
projects, although the benefits may be smaller for the core poor or the poorest.
The book provides useful lessons from targeted poverty interventions in five
Asian countries. It is a ‘must read’ for researchers and students, but also, and
especially, for policy makers, implementing agencies and non-government organisations involved in poverty reduction programs in developing countries.
Abuzar Asra
Asian Development Bank, Manila
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Reference
Sumarto, S., Usman, S. and Mawardi, S. (1997) ‘Agriculture’s role in poverty reduction:
bringing farmers to the policy formulation process’, Agriculture Sector Strategy Review,
Ministry of Agriculture, Jakarta, ADB TA 2660-INO, Study B, 4 November.
Syarif Hidayat and Carunia Mulya Firdausy (2003) Beyond Regional Autonomy:
Local State-Elites’ Perspectives on the Concept and Practice of Decentralisation
in Contemporary Indonesia, Pustaka Quantum, Jakarta, pp. 219.
Decentralisation and regional autonomy have become critical issues in the
process of regional development in Indonesia, especially since a major new
decentralisation policy was introduced in 1999. There are significant differences
between the new decentralisation policy as stipulated in Laws 22/1999 and
25/1999 and the old policy stipulated in Law 5/1974. Syarif Hidayat and Carunia Firdausy attempt in chapter 1 of this book to interpret the perspectives of
‘local state-elites‘ (senior bureaucrats and politicians at local government level)
in distinguishing, clarifying and implementing the old and the new decentralisation and regional autonomy policy. Why the focus on local state-elites? The
authors, borrowing the argument of Alagappa (1995: 28), state that elite groups
have greater control over power resources than the general public and are more
engaged in the political process, and hence shared norms and consent are more
important among the elite.
The second chapter surveys the international literature on why developing
countries undertake decentralisation, how they have implemented their decentralisation programs, and what problems they have encountered. The authors
identify two basic reasons why developing countries undertake decentralisation: political and administrative (economic). The political argument contends
that decentralisation will strengthen local accountability, improve political
skills and enhance national integration. The administrative argument states
that decentralisation will enhance local governments’ ability to provide public
goods and services.
In chapter 3 the authors elaborate Indonesia’s experience of decentralisation
policy by reviewing several studies that describe its implementation during three
periods: the Old Order, the New Order and the post-New Order periods. For
example, it reviews J.D. Legge’s Central Authority and Regional Autonomy in Indonesia: A Study in Local Administration 1950–60 (1963), which concludes that the
core problem of regionalism in Indonesia during the 1950s was the existence of a
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contradiction between the need to satisfy the regions and the need to establish a
strong and stable government. What is lacking in this chapter is a comparison of
decentralisation policies and practices during these three periods. It would have
been useful to have attempted such a comparison.
The rest of the book describes the authors’ analysis of the perspectives of local
state-elites, based on in-depth interviews with local bureaucrats and politicians
in West Kalimantan and East Nusa Tenggara. The main results are as follows. On
the local state-elites’ view of the central–local government power relationship,
the authors conclude that the majority of local bureaucrats and politicians interviewed in the two research sites favour defining decentralisation as ‘the transfer
of government affairs from central to local governments’. Most respondents (at
both the provincial and district level) regard the formulation of central–local government power relations given in article 7 of Law 22/1999 as superior to that of
the previous Law 5/1974.
The interviews confirm the common belief that most regions welcome the
adoption of the new formula for centre–local financial transfers. Nevertheless
there are complaints about the implementation of this new formula: first, there is
little transparency in the process of determining the formula, and second, almost
no guidance is provided on the practical implementation of the formula.
On local administration, respondents acknowledge that increasing numbers of
taxes, fees and other restrictions distort markets and deter investment. They also
observe that under decentralisation inadequate physical and human resources
have created problems in administrative management.
Finally, the authors admit that, since the research is based on only two provinces, it would be wrong to claim that its findings reflect the views of local stateelites about decentralisation and local autonomy in Indonesia more generally.
However, the book could have been improved if the authors had clearly described
the methods by which they arrived at their conclusions. Since the responses of the
local bureaucrats and politicians are heterogeneous and even contradictory, careful elaboration of the research method is critical, yet the authors provide minimal
discussion of this.
Despite these remarks, Syarif Hidayat and Carunia Firdausy’s book makes
interesting reading. Its particular strength lies in the comprehensiveness of its literature reviews. It is also one of the few books to report an evaluation of the new
decentralisation policy from the perspective of local state-elites.
B. Raksaka Mahi
University of Indonesia, Jakarta
Reference
Alagappa, Muthiah (1995) Political Legitimacy in Southeast Asia, Stanford University Press,
Stanford CA.
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Edward Aspinall (2005) Opposing Soeharto:
Compromise, Resistance, and Regime Change in Indonesia,
Stanford University Press, Stanford CA, pp. 344.
Paper: US$22.95; Cloth: US$60.00.
Soeharto came to power in 1965, after an attempted coup against Sukarno. The
Indonesian Communist Party was banned and tens of thousands of its members
were slaughtered. From then on, Soeharto, backed by the military, controlled state
power for 33 years, until 1998.
At first, Soeharto ruled Indonesia democratically (1965–72). Later, from 1972 to
1978, he became more and more authoritarian. With the suppression of student
protests in Bandung in 1978, he began to rule Indonesia autocratically. This continued until 1998, when he was forced to resign by various elements of civil society. During this time, he became linked with corrupt activities involving members
of his family and other associates.
During Soeharto’s time, especially from 1972 to 1998, political opposition was
suppressed. Soeharto asked the Indonesian people to support fully the program
he called the ‘Trilogy of Development’ (economic growth, political stability and
income redistribution). In practice, political stability was strongly emphasised ‘in
order to create an environment conducive to economic growth’, and political stability was achieved through heavy control by the state.
This is the period dealt with in this book. During this time, political parties
were tightly controlled by the government. Not only did one need a permit from
the government to establish a political party, but to be the chairperson of a political party also required endorsement by the president. It was the same with social
organisations such as NGOs, the Legal Aid Foundation, and the print and electronic media. If the government found these groups had done something that
might disturb socio-political stability, they were likely to be banned.
In this situation, people had to be very cautious if they disagreed with the government or Soeharto—whether they simply wanted to make the system more
democratic, or wanted to replace Soeharto or change the political system. Even
reading a poem that criticised the existing undemocratic politics could be considered a subversive activity that could result in a gaol term. All these activities were
regarded as opposing Soeharto.
Although not open, and not on a large scale, there was opposition to Soeharto
during that period. The book describes in great detail the activities and the actors
of this movement, what they did and who they were. They were called a ‘protoopposition’. Many of them were students and academics, and also members of
various NGOs with ‘non-political’ programs designed to improve the wellbeing
of society.
Obviously, to write about these kinds of covert activities is not an easy task. One
has to be close to the actors and have open and regular communication with them.
Aspinall was the right person to do this. With his pleasant personality and his fluent Indonesian, he was indeed a ‘participant’ observer in this ‘proto-opposition’
movement. The strength of the book is therefore that it is able to give us a close
and detailed account of the proto-opposition movement during Soeharto’s time.
However, this strength can also be considered a weakness. The book’s detailed
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descriptions do not make it an easy read for those with insufficient background in
Indonesian contemporary politics. Also, it may not satisfy those who are looking
for a theoretical analysis of what was happening. Theories are discussed only at
a general level.
Edward Aspinall is now a Fellow in the Department of Political and Social
Change in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian
National University. The field research for this book, which is based on his PhD
dissertation, was done in the 1990s. I have no doubt that the book will make a
significant contribution to understanding of the socio-political dynamics of Indonesia during Soeharto’s time.
Arief Budiman
University of Melbourne
Vedi R. Hadiz and Daniel Dhakidae (eds) (2005)
Social Science and Power in Indonesia,
Equinox Publishing (Asia), Jakarta, and Institute of Southeast
Asian Studies, Singapore, pp. xxi + 281. Cloth: US$19.95.
This collection of essays deals with a topic that has an impact on all who work
within academic disciplines normally associated with the social sciences: the relationship between political power holders and social science. This relationship is
generally characterised as asymmetrical, with the former having a huge influence
on the workings of the latter. The neo-liberal oriented political surge that followed
the end of the Cold War has not been to the advantage of the social sciences,
as advocates of neo-liberalism are more inclined to favour disciplines that bring
about immediate rewards for the commercial sectors, and these are generally to be
found outside the social sciences. This has meant funding cuts and down-sizing of
staff and even whole institutions in this part of the academic world, thus endangering a balanced social and political development within individual societies
over time, through lack of understanding of the complex interplay among societal
institutions.
The present book provides a good illustration of the impact of neo-liberal style
policies on the Indonesian social sciences. By concentrating exclusively on this
country and employing Soeharto’s New Order regime (1965–98) as its main point
of departure, with occasional excursions into the early post-colonial and postNew Order eras, it presents a highly pertinent case study of this intricate relationship. Those not familiar with Indonesian politics during the New Order regime
and beyond should not despair, as there are ample descriptions of how the heavily structured and politicised New Order society functioned and subsequently
altered after the system change in 1998.
The chapter by Ariel Heryanto argues that the social sciences and social scientists during the New Order period openly served the official interests of the
government, and there was no public discussion of the political implications of
this. What would be interesting, according to Heryanto, is a study of ideology in a
social science setting, where ideas about neutrality in method, objectivity of data,
scientific deduction, the universality of values and meaning, and the autonomy of
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scientific institutions are respected, either as myth or in practices protected by law
and morality. It is only through such studies that we might be able to debunk the
myths about academic work and thus expose the ideological interests of different
academic institutions and social science practices. The ‘devil’ is thus not to be
found on the outside but rather on the inside, in social science itself. This insight is
shared by another of the book’s authors, Aris Ananta, who discusses how statistical data can be manipulated to support an agenda driven by political imperatives
and executed by academics in the name of objective science.
Such an approach to assessing the role of social science in a societal context presupposes that the individual researcher is also a member of the society in which
she or he is living. As social beings we are composed of several inter-related
but different identities that are employed according to the societal context, and
we carry perceptions from one state of being over and into another as we move
through different social settings. It is thus impossible to be politically neutral in a
social science context, and the impact of the surrounding societal ‘spill-overs’ on
research in the social sciences goes beyond direct political prescription.
This impact manifests itself in the form of self-imposed constraints on what
kind of research one should concentrate on if one wants to obtain government
research grants or to position oneself politically within the university hierarchy,
as discussed in the chapter by Hery Nugroho. The author aptly labels this the
political economy of higher education. These self-imposed constraints have as
a negative consequence that important issues in society are not studied for fear
of jeopardising the individual researcher’s career or the department’s political
standing in the eyes of university boards and political power holders in the
surrounding society. The overall effect of this is a politically passive academia
that is afraid of providing critical inputs to society, and thus reinforces the position of the existing political elite, with possible detrimental effects on society at
large. Topics such as inter-ethnic relations, class affiliations and religious matters are obvious cases of this problem in an Indonesian context, since they have
been and perhaps still are seen by the power holders as the prerogative of the
state—to be investigated not by academic institutions but rather by politically
guided or government-controlled organisations. Several of the book’s contributors, including Vedi Hadiz, Daniel Dhakidae, Hilmar Farid, Meuthia G. Rochman and Rochman Achwan, deal with this issue.
In fairness, it must be said that during the post-Soeharto era Indonesia has
moved forward in terms of loosening the stranglehold of the political establishment on the social sciences. However, as Alexander Irwan states in his contribution, the remnants of the New Order are still there in the background, both in
the form of government policies and within the social sciences themselves. This
is perhaps the greatest hindrance to creating an autonomous, critical and constructive social science, free of state politicking and the growing influence of market forces, that is capable of supporting the emerging democracy in Indonesia.
There are many signs that the relationship between political power holders and
the social sciences is becoming more positive, but the question is how the social
sciences will relate to an emerging alliance between the political establishment
and an ever-encroaching global market economy. That will be something to keep
a sharp and critical eye on, lest the Indonesian social sciences become subject
to yet another powerful counter-force in the form of a neo-liberal based alliance
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between power hungry politicians and entrepreneurial business. Anyone interested in the subjects discussed above should read this book. It has my warmest
recommendation.
Michael Jacobsen
Copenhagen Business School
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Peter Boomgard and David Henley (eds) (2004)
Smallholders and Stockbreeders: Histories of Foodcrop and Livestock Farming
in Southeast Asia, KITLV Press, Leiden, pp. vii + 344. Paper: €30.
This book attempts to deal with some neglected aspects of agricultural history, and
is the ‘first coordinated attempt to collect and analyse, for several areas in Southeast Asia, historical data pertaining to … livestock keeping’ (p. 1). It is organised
in two parts, ‘Foodcrops’ and ‘Livestock’.
In their introduction, the editors identify three perspectives on the history of
foodcrop and livestock farming in Southeast Asia that characterise the contents
of the volume: the cultural–technical, political–economic and economic–demographic
perspectives. This categorisation is presented to assist their analytical overview of
the book rather than to attribute a single perspective to any of its chapters.
In the cultural–technical approach, ‘the essential reasons for geographical diversity in agricultural practices are the diversity of human cultures and the specificities of local technologies[,] … in turn … often related to the characteristics of the
natural environments’ (p. 5). Among the findings attributed to this perspective,
Christie’s chapter on the agricultural economies of early Java and Bali challenges
evolutionary theories which assume that ‘rice farming is a higher and more civilized form of agriculture than sago or root crop cultivation and must therefore be
of more recent origin’ (p. 6). Similarly, Ellen, writing on the historical diffusion of
the ‘complex traditional technology’ of sago production, demonstrates that there
are no linear models in food processing innovations. Livestock industries are a
major cause of deforestation, as Clarence-Smith and Bankoff show in chapters
about horse breeding in mainland Southeast Asia and the Philippines respectively, with clearing undertaken to create pastures and to deny cover to predators
of livestock, especially horses.
Among the findings attributed to the political–economic approach—’political
relationships, more than technological, cultural, or demographic circumstances,
determine how farmers behave’—the clearest examples are the rapid increase in
rice production in the Mekong delta in the 1990s (Le Coq, Trébuil and Dufumier);
the highly productive farming systems of early Java and Bali (Christie); and the
rapid switch from dry to wet rice in the highlands of Sarawak in the 1960s, with
the opening of new markets following changes in Malaysian infrastructure policy
(Janowski).
The economic–demographic approach is characterised by ‘an awareness that …
[farmers’] assessment of the usefulness of any given innovation … depends on
their economic situation‘ (p. 7). Within this approach, the two main driving forces
are the Boserupian mechanism (‘the incentive to intensify labour, capital and
technological inputs is provided by an increasing scarcity of farmland caused by
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population growth or immigration, which obliges farmers to invest in new techniques’) and the ‘market pull’ model, ‘in which the adoption of innovations and
the application of additional capital and labour to the land is prompted not by
population pressure, but by increases in the profitability of surplus production, or
the emergence of markets for new products’ (p. 7).
Not surprisingly from an economist’s point of view, most agricultural changes
are interpreted through these two forces, especially the ‘market pull’ factor. On a
Southeast Asia scale, what I would call a ‘horse cycle’ is clearly demand driven:
in the early 20th century, increased urban demand for horses for transportation
(and racing) is followed by an ultimate drop in demand as horses are replaced by
bicycles and other vehicles (Bankoff, Clarence-Smith, Boomgaard).
One subsidiary objective of the book is to clarify the links between husbandry
and agricultural change. Barwegen, writing about Java between 1850 and 2000,
shows that ‘the buffalo disappeared increasingly [from] the scene because of
loss of habitat, largely caused by population growth. Changing agricultural
techniques made it possible to plough with less strong and heavy animals,
and later the buffalo came under threat from the paddy tractor’ (p. 301). (This
reviewers’ research indicates that paddy tractors have also led to some decline
in cattle husbandry in Sulawesi in recent years, especially in Balinese migrant
farms.) Boomgaard’s chapter on buffalo and cattle in Indonesia from 1500 to
1850 offers the example of rice intensification increasing the demand for animal
manure and plough animals, thus contributing to a rise in buffalo numbers in
Java between 1820 and 1850.
There are fascinating cases of population increase having an impact on livestock systems. The shortage of pastures leading to a decline in buffalo numbers
in Java and the increasing adoption of cattle are certainly linked to population
growth (Barwegen, Boomgaard). Still in Java, shortage of pasture encourages
stall-feeding, and this, too, favours a shift to cattle, which are less difficult to stallfeed (Barwegen). Demographic growth combined with economic development
leads to innovations and investment in paved roads, more suitable for cattle than
for water buffalo, so cattle numbers grow faster than buffalo numbers in Java after
1850 (p. 11). This strong application of the Boserupian mechanism to livestock in
Southeast Asia is among the book’s most interesting sets of findings, especially
when it comes to production shifts.
In the Philippines (1885–1935), Doeppers observes ‘a major shift in the geography of (cattle meat) market integration’—‘a massive displacement from Luzon
to places more distant from the city’ (p. 320). In early modern Indonesia, Boomgaard talks of constant shifts from one horse-producing area to another, evidence
of ‘horse breeding crowded out of the more densely settled areas [in Java] and
”outsourced” in part to more sparsely populated islands elsewhere in Indonesia’
(p. 11).
This aspect could have been explored further. What is described for cattle
raising in the Philippines looks very similar to the ‘rise and decline of various export crops’ in Southeast Asia and well beyond. Shifts in production are
common when farming and husbandry systems rely on natural resources, often
tropical forests. This is the worldwide principle of shifting cultivation, frequently described in the case of annual crops, but which also applies to perennial crops and husbandry.
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Boomgaard raises some key questions. ‘Is it plausible to assume that horse raising was the reason that people were attracted to some areas in the first place? ...
Did its very success attract so many people that the horses were crowded out? Or
was this population growth plain and simple, without a causal link to horse raising?’ (p. 329).
Concerning tree crops, numerous cases discussed in the book demonstrate that
production shifts are related to a structural migratory pattern based on forest consumption, with a direct link between commodity cycles and population changes.
Regarding livestock, the same link is obvious in the modern times of Amazonia.
In Southeast Asia, I would be ready to believe in an historical process of successful
horse and cattle breeding attracting more and more migrants, leading to too much
pressure on natural resources and recurrent geographical shifts.
François Ruf
Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique
pour le développement (CIRAD), Paris
Susan Blackburn (2004) Women and the State in Modern Indon