00074918.2010.486114
Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies
ISSN: 0007-4918 (Print) 1472-7234 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbie20
Book reviews
Sean Turnell , Henry Sandee , John G. Butcher , Abdurohman , Mike
Douglass , Henk Schulte Nordholt , Leena Avonius & Munafrizal Manan
To cite this article: Sean Turnell , Henry Sandee , John G. Butcher , Abdurohman , Mike
Douglass , Henk Schulte Nordholt , Leena Avonius & Munafrizal Manan (2010) Book reviews,
Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 46:2, 255-267, DOI: 10.1080/00074918.2010.486114
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Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Vol. 46, No. 2, 2010: 255–67
BOOK REVIEWS
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David Henley and Peter Boomgaard (eds) (2009) Credit and Debt in Indonesia,
860–1930: From Peonage to Pawnshop, from Kongsi to Cooperative, Institute of
Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore, pp. viii + 195. Cloth: $S69.90.
Credit and Debt in Indonesia, 860–1930 is an important and timely book. A collection of essays by eminent Indonesia scholars covering more than 1,000 years of
the country’s economic history, it highlights an area in which Indonesia‘s inancial
practices have had an unusual and signiicant impact on broader global trends
and institutions. This is particularly apparent with respect to modern microinance, making the book of great interest not just to Indonesia specialists and
inancial historians but to all those interested in the role of the inancial sector in
economic development. The book’s eight chapters are arranged more or less in
chronological order. Each is richly informative, but the skilful and seamless way
that each builds upon the others makes the whole of this collection even greater
than the sum of its parts.
Credit and Debt in Indonesia begins its exploration with two chapters, one by
Jan Christie and another by the book’s co-editor, Peter Boomgaard, that explore
inancial practices through pre-colonial inscriptions and legal codes. Among the
documents examined are those concerned with taxation of one form or another,
and with practices related to debt registration, debt clearance, the pawning of
land, the levying of interest (regarded as legitimate, and analogous to the natural
expansion of crops and livestock) and the issue of debt bondage. The last was a
prominent feature of credit arrangements more generally throughout Southeast
Asia and, as Christie notes (p. 49), debt was a ‘major route to servitude in early
Bali and Java’.
Credit networks established through trust, solidarity and repeated dealings,
and often within particular ethnic and religious groups, have long been a key
feature of (and, at times, a source of tension and conlict in) Indonesia’s monetary and inancial arrangements. Of course, the literature on this issue is vast, but
the next three chapters, by Kathryn Wellen, Heather Sutherland and Kwee Hui
Kian, respectively provide new insights into the Wajorese commercial diaspora,
the Dutch in 18th century Sulawesi, and Chinese traders and miners in Java, Kalimantan and the Malacca Strait. Of great interest in each of these chapters is the
identiication of the way non-commercial (and semi-commercial) relationships
facilitated credit and inancial arrangements in these communities, as well as
under-girding their relative economic success more broadly.
The inal two chapters of the book, by Alexander Claver and Jan Luiten van
Zanden, take us into the colonial era, and to the struggles between European commercial interests and the players and institutions that had gone before them. Both
ISSN 0007-4918 print/ISSN 1472-7234 online/10/020255-13
DOI: 10.1080/00074918.2010.486114
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chapters are concerned with episodes of inancial crisis – Claver’s essay with the
bursting of a inancial ‘bubble’ in Surabaya (then Indonesia’s largest city) in the
1890s, and Luiten van Zanden’s with the efforts of the Dutch colonial authorities
to reform rural credit markets through the creation of ‘village banks’ along ostensibly cooperative lines. In practice, these institutions remained under the close
supervision and control of the colonial authorities, but they were moderately successful in delivering lower interest rates to a certain stratum of the rural population. In contrast with later Indonesian institutions (such as the justly famous unit
desa of Bank Rakyat Indonesia), however, these village banks accumulated little
in the way of savings, and thus depended on the colonial state for their capital
and loan funds. Luiten van Zanden also details the nationalisation of the pawnbroking sector in 1901 (under the same ‘Ethical Policy’ that brought about the
creation of the village banks). This move also had the effect of lowering interest
rates in the markets served by the pawn-brokers. Interestingly, the Indonesian
‘model’ of state-owned pawn-broking was copied by a number of other countries
in Southeast Asia, notably Burma, which created a near-identical system following its independence in 1948.
All of the constituent chapters of Credit and Debt in Indonesia are splendid, but
none surpasses the introductory essay by David Henley. This superlative treatment of Indonesia’s credit arrangements and institutions extends beyond the
time-frame of the rest of the book to consider events right up to the present day.
It takes up with insight and verve some of the great modern debates about the
provision of inance – especially to the poor – but always with the lessons of Indonesia (and history) in mind. Henley ranges across assessments of ‘what works
and what does not’ in micro-inance, of the importance (or otherwise) that should
be attached to the regulation of land tenure, of the extraordinary degree of historical continuity in institutions we sometimes regard as ‘novel’, and of the very big
question of whether inance drives development – or whether it is development
itself that ‘is … the best way to ensure that credit becomes cheaper and more
accessible’ (p. 33). It is a virtuoso performance of scholarship and wisdom.
Credit and Debt in Indonesia is one of the best books I have read on the multilayered history of inance in Indonesia. It certainly deserves a place on the shelves
of everyone interested in Indonesia, but it can be read with great proit by all of us
who are interested in Asia more broadly, and in the institutions that have shaped
our economic circumstances.
Sean Turnell
Macquarie University, Sydney
© 2010 Sean Turnell
Mitsuhiro Hayashi (2005) SMEs, Subcontracting and Economic Development
in Indonesia: With Reference to Japan’s Experience,
Japan International Cooperation Publishing, Tokyo, pp. 298. ¥4,620.
Sub-contracting in Indonesia has been the topic of a number of studies. There are
studies of sub-contracting in the furniture, rattan and brass industries. Several
studies have focused on the importance of sub-contracting in the machinery and
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metal industry, which is particularly well suited to the contracting of parts of
the production process from larger to smaller irms. This book provides insight
into the role that sub-contracting plays in fostering the development of small and
medium enterprises (SMEs) in the automobile, motor cycle, agricultural machinery and bicycle industries. It differs from other studies in at least two respects.
First, it draws comparisons between sub-contracting experience in Japan and
Indonesia, and second, it arrives at more optimistic conclusions on the importance of sub-contracting in Indonesia than many other researchers have reached.
The purpose of the study is three-fold. First, it aims at summarising the development of sub-contracting in the Japanese machinery industry between the 1930s
and the 1970s. Second, and this is the central topic of the book, it makes a detailed
examination of sub-contracting patterns in the Indonesian machinery industry,
based on ield surveys. Third, it seeks to identify similarities and differences in
sub-contracting patterns in Japan and Indonesia, with particular reference to their
importance for the development of SMEs.
The book has its origins in Hayashi’s PhD dissertation at the Australian National
University. This does not always make for an easy read. There is a great deal
of detail, much repetition and an abundance of quantitative economic information and testing of statistical signiicance. The study does, however, offer detailed
information on sub-contracting from the perspectives of both large irms and their
smaller sub-contractors. The ieldwork on which the study is partly based was
done around the year 2000.
The historical overview of Japan’s sub-contracting experience shows that we
should not look at sub-contracting in a static way. Its role and importance for
smaller irms changes in accordance with developments in the overall economy.
Two issues are of particular interest for the discussion of sub-contracting in Indonesia. First, Japan’s sub-contracting systems tend to be organised vertically, in the
sense that sub-contractors work exclusively for speciic large irms. Second, the
Japanese government concentrated on creating a business environment that supported the strengthening of sub-contracting linkages, rather than making it mandatory for large irms to adopt sub-contractors (as has been the case in Indonesia).
The core of the book consists of several chapters that discuss SME development
in Indonesia and present the results of elaborate ieldwork among large irms and
their SME sub-contractors. The author points out that SME labour productivity
increased faster in the machinery industry than in other major sectors. The ield
studies in Jakarta and Surabaya sought to collect evidence on whether and how
sub-contracting had helped to improve the performance of SMEs in Indonesia.
This part of the book includes analysis of the costs and beneits of sub-contracting
from the viewpoints of both the larger irms and the SME sub-contractors. The
study inds that the main beneits of participation in sub-contracting for Indonesian SMEs in 2000 were not very different from those for SMEs in Japan in the
past. Sub-contracting helps small irms to upgrade their technology and reduces
the cost of marketing their goods. The productivity of labour and capital is higher
in sub-contractor irms than in small irms in general. There are differences among
SMEs in the extent to which they have been able to beneit from sub-contracting.
The higher the technological capabilities of large irms, the more SMEs tend to
beneit from participation in sub-contracting networks. Parent irms in the Indonesian machinery industry did not seek sub-contracting linkages to beneit from
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advanced skills in small irms or to have access to additional capacity in case of
sudden increases in demand. Rather, they used sub-contractors with the aim of
beneiting from small irms’ lower wages.
At the end of the book the author draws comparisons between the Japanese
and Indonesian experience with sub-contracting in the machinery industry. An
important difference between the two is that in Japan sub-contracting relationships tend to be rather inlexible: larger irms and their sub-contractors set up
exclusive networks and do business only with each other. Sub-contracting networks in Indonesia are much more lexible, and both parent irms and sub-contractors have relations with multiple irms. Another important conclusion is that
sub-contracting in Indonesia, at least in the machinery industry, is based on business principles, and appears to be gradually becoming more beneicial for the
development of the manufacturing sector.
This book is densely packed with information, and it takes quite an effort to
absorb all the details, case studies and qualitative and quantitative data. I look
forward to reading an article that summarises the key messages and arguments
of the book. It would be interesting to do a follow-up study to see how subcontracting relations have evolved in the last decade.
Henry Sandee
World Bank, Jakarta
© 2010 Henry Sandee
Meryl J. Williams (2007) Enmeshed: Australia and Southeast Asia’s Fisheries,
Lowy Institute Paper 20, Lowy Institute for International Policy, Sydney,
pp. xxiv + 147. A$25; available for download free of charge at
.
‘Australia and Southeast Asian interests’, Meryl Williams writes, ‘are enmeshed
through their ish and ishing connections’ (p. 3). Australia shares a number of
ish stocks with Indonesia in the Arafura Sea; southern bluein tuna, so important to the Australian ishing industry, spawn off the south coast of Java and are
caught by Indonesian vessels in that area; many hundreds of Indonesian ishing vessels have been detained over the years for ishing illegally in Australian waters; ‘traditional’ Indonesian ishers are allowed to operate under certain
conditions in a section of Australia’s exclusive economic zone; and nearly half
of Australia’s ish imports come from Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand and
Vietnam. Most of all, Australia and the countries of Southeast Asia are connected
by the common problem of a severe decline in ish populations, brought about by
great increases in the number and catching power of ishing vessels, by pollution,
and by the destruction of mangroves, coral reefs and seagrass beds. As Enmeshed
makes vividly clear, the collapse of ish populations has an adverse impact on
employment, creates tensions both internationally and within national boundaries as ishers move about in search of richer ishing grounds, contributes to the
overall degradation of ecosystems, and of course threatens food supplies. Williams devotes much of the report to mounting a persuasive case for a ‘proactive
regional approach’ to this array of problems.
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The 21-page chapter on Indonesia—the longest in the report—provides the
best short account of Indonesia’s isheries that I have read. Williams succinctly
describes the current status of different ishery resources including those shared
with Australia, the condition of the marine environment, ish supply chains, new
laws and policies dealing with illegal ishing, some of the consequences of decentralisation, and the government’s involvement in regional initiatives to tackle
illegal ishing. Like so many other analyses of Indonesia’s isheries problems, however, the chapter leaves the reader wondering why things happen the way they
do. Why is it that so many of the large Chinese trawlers operating in Indonesian
waters in recent years ‘are illegal or marginally legal, operating under forged
licences or joint ventures of dubious legality’ (pp. 57–8)? Referring to Ministerial Decree 17/2006, which mandated that foreign ishing companies must process their catches in Indonesia, Williams notes that ‘making the new decree fully
effective will be a challenge as previous measures of a similar nature have been
unsuccessful’ (p. 51). Shortly after Enmeshed was published, Gatra (12/12/2007)
reported that the decree was indeed being openly louted. But why was this so
predictable? On the inal page of the chapter, Williams observes that the government ‘is working on reining in domestic forms of illegal ishing, despite the formidable forces that support them’ (p. 59). But just who or what are these forces?
In a four-page section on the Philippines, Williams mentions that ‘commercial and
other sectoral interests hold sway over responsible isheries management’ when
there is a conlict between the two (pp. 82–3), but her chapter on Indonesia does
not go even as far as this.
At least in the recent past, answers to questions of the sort I have raised
required some consideration of the workings of the Indonesian state. Until at least
2002, the Indonesian navy had a conlict of interest in the enforcement of isheries laws because of its own involvement in the ishing business, particularly in
the allocation of licences to Thai companies. At the same time, many nominally
Indonesian companies were in fact merely fronts for foreign companies that had
various business arrangements with powerful politicians in Jakarta. Laws supposedly designed to regulate ishing were rendered ineffective by vague wording
and loopholes. Even the trawl ban of 1980 was eventually undermined not only
because ishers ‘modiied their ishing practices’ (p. 43) but also because many
operators continued using trawl nets under the new name of ‘ish nets’.
Indonesia has changed a great deal in recent years, but any explanation of the
government’s apparent inability to regulate isheries must, I suggest, consider the
ways in which the different elements of the Indonesian state relate to one another
and the extent to which they act autonomously. Only with such an understanding will we be able to appreciate the magnitude of the task facing those trying to
transform the management of Indonesia’s isheries.
John G. Butcher
Grifith University
© 2010 John G. Butcher
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Pranab Bardhan and Dilip Mookherjee (eds) (2006)
Decentralization and Local Governance in Developing Countries:
A Comparative Perspective, MIT Press, Cambridge MA.
During the last two decades there has been a signiicant shift in approach to economic development, from a centralist to a more decentralised model, in all parts
of the developing world. This was brought about mainly by the spread of democratisation movements and the adoption of market principles. Along with deregulation and privatisation, the devolution of political, economic and administrative
authority to the local government level has become a common phenomenon in
Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa.
The current economic literature on decentralisation has focused mainly on its
economic aspects, without touching on the political context. The editors of this
book, economists Pranab Bardhan and Dilip Mookherjee, provide a broader perspective, combining both economic and political analysis. They argue in chapter 1
that the political context is an important factor in the performance of decentralisation, strongly inluencing the way it is designed and implemented. They therefore
focus their discussion on the historical origins of decentralisation, the underlying
motives for it, and its likely performance, in comparative perspective.
The book’s 11 chapters are divided into two parts. The irst part (chapter 1) proposes a conceptual framework for classifying and evaluating the diverse decentralisation experiences. The second part (chapters 2–11) presents detail on each
country case study, covering various aspects of decentralisation, including its historical origins, the political context and the design and nature of implementation
(particularly the scope and speed). The editors chose as case studies eight developing countries, from three continents, that have made a signiicant shift towards
decentralisation: Brazil and Bolivia (Latin America), South Africa and Uganda
(Africa), China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan (Asia). India and Pakistan take up
two chapters each, to allow the inclusion of sub-case studies of particular regions.
The conceptual framework for successful decentralisation proposed in the irst
part of the book includes not only responsiveness, as in traditional approaches,
but also accountability. ‘Responsiveness’ refers to the notion that policies must be
lexible in responding to the needs of citizens. Accountability refers to the ability
of citizens to put effective pressure on government oficials who deviate from
stated promises. The main reason for the emphasis on accountability is that a key
concern of traditional centralised mechanisms of economic policy making and
regulation in developing countries has been their vulnerability to corruption and
ineficient bureaucracy – that is, their weak accountability.
The purpose of the country case studies is to present a comparative perspective
that stresses the political and economic aspects of decentralisation in equal measure. The key contribution of the book to the current literature on decentralisation is
the conceptual framework for classifying the diverse experience of decentralising
countries, by deining and comparing various aspects of decentralisation. Based
on the design and implementation of decentralisation in the eight country case
studies, Bardhan and Mookherjee’s overview chapter classiies decentralisation
approaches into three types: (i) type A, a comprehensive, big-bang political and
economic devolution (Bolivia, Indonesia and post-1994 South Africa); (ii) type B,
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comprehensive political devolution with only partial and uneven economic devolution (Brazil and India); (iii) type C, limited political devolution with more signiicant administrative and economic devolution (China, Pakistan, Uganda and
pre-1994 South Africa).
A conluence of economic and political factors characterised Indonesia’s experience of decentralisation, as reported in the chapter by Bert Hofman and Kai
Kaiser. The economic and political upheaval following the economic crisis in the
late 1990s triggered a big-bang (type A) decentralisation. The iscal, administrative and political autonomy of local government has thus increased signiicantly.
As a result, say the authors, public participation in and scrutiny of government
have lourished in Indonesia. The question, however, is whether they will serve as
a bridge to enhance accountability. The answer must be a matter for future assessment, because accountability is critical, given the initial conditions of governance
and service delivery underlying Indonesia’s decentralisation.
This book is an excellent addition to the literature on decentralisation. It proposes a broad and innovative conceptual framework and presents insightful
perspectives on various new issues in decentralisation. Last, but not least, readers will ind the book both interesting and easy reading because of its clear and
informative presentation.
Abdurohman
ANU
© 2010 Abdurohman
Christopher Silver (2008) Planning the Megacity: Jakarta in the Twentieth Century,
Routledge, London and New York, pp. 262. Cloth: $67.50.
Christopher Silver has written a highly accessible in-depth study of Jakarta in the
20th century. Following the introduction, devoted to a personal account of irst
impressions of the city in 1989, chapter 1 sets off with the observation that Jakarta
can best be seen as a composite of villages rather than as a system of urban neighbourhoods. The chapter covers historical episodes in the formation of Jakarta from
Dutch colonial times. Arguing that understanding the morphology and dynamics
of Jakarta requires a comparative perspective, the author also includes snapshot
discussions of other major cities in Southeast Asia.
Chapters 2 and 3 cover the latter part of the colonial era, from 1900 to the
advent of the New Order under Soeharto, and Jakarta’s management under
Governor Ali Sadikin up to the early 1980s. The focus is mostly on physical
planning, particularly master plans, and on illustrating how the city’s expansion
was more guided than much of the literature has allowed. However, the
author concludes that major intentions were not realised, in part because local
government efforts continued to be overshadowed by uncoordinated planning
through central bureaucracies. Thus a city-wide rapid transit system yielded
to highway systems, promoting the growth in automobile ownership that has
exacerbated trafic congestion and air pollution. Private sector development of
exclusive gated new towns also supplanted government plans for suburban
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centres to accommodate Jakarta’s rapidly expanding population of all income
classes.
Chapters 4 and 5 focus on speciic urban issues: kampung upgrading and housing; transport to facilitate the development of huge new suburban towns outside
Jakarta; and revitalisation of the urban core. The author illustrates how government has attempted to manage tensions such as those between historical preservation and the creation of new urban landscapes in the land developers’ quest for
proit. Chapter 6 follows the unfolding logic of a rapidly opening urban economy
by proclaiming Jakarta’s transition from ‘urban village to world city’.
The impact of the 1997–98 crisis and subsequent political reform are the subjects of the inal chapter, which ends as the book began, with personal observations made while passing through the city, this time (in 2006) recounting the great
changes that had taken place over almost two decades. Democracy, devolution
of political power to local levels and the renewed intensive expansion of Jabodetabek (Jakarta and the surrounding metropolitan area, including Bogor, Depok,
Tangerang and Bekasi) are among the major dynamics at play. In the book’s inal
section on ‘visions for the future’, the sense of continuing and new crises is juxtaposed with the hope that a new day has arrived, with possibilities for a more
human-centred, democratic planning process that is ‘safe and sustainable’.
The book does leave a few important elements for the reader to discover elsewhere. The chapters stay close to the ground and do not engage with concepts or
theories explaining the political economy of planning in Jakarta. Even the comparisons with other Southeast Asian cities are descriptive rather than systematic
or analytical. Changing global–local dynamics too are left out of the discussion.
There is no analysis of the opening of Indonesia from the mid-1980s to global
capital, accompanied by the imposition of a neoliberal policy agenda through the
World Bank and later the IMF, and linked with a new global era of mega-projects,
inanced by international developer consortia, which transformed Jakarta’s built
environment. For the irst time in history, consortia of Japanese, Korean, overseas
Chinese and domestic investment appeared to build Kota Wisata and other new
towns, the Kuningan Golden Triangle and the massive shopping malls, and to
absorb local production and services into global enterprises. Likewise, the deregulation of land-use controls and private enterprise in Indonesia from the mid1980s substantially weakened government’s ability to prevent the in-illing of the
metropolitan region from occurring in an environmentally destructive manner,
which is now causing horriic looding in Jakarta almost every year.
Another issue that deserves more discussion is the author’s claim that postindependence elites adopted western urban values, implying the establishment
of a planning bureaucracy that had the public interest in mind. As accurate as this
might be in terms of the creation, in principle, of a meritocracy of public planning bureaus, Indonesia’s New Order government was equally well known for
its authoritarian ‘developmental state’, which used the mantle of development to
justify command planning, limiting freedom of speech and participatory governance – the antithesis of those western values. This developmental ideology was
also embedded in broader political projects of post-colonial nation building and
internal colonisation of the outer reaches of the archipelago.
While the book directly takes up the issue of social cleavages in its discussion
of ethnicity and Chinese enclaves, its most striking omission is any discussion of
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religion. The post-Soeharto shift towards political contestations connected to global religious meta-narratives raises key questions about the urban condition and
the politics of urban planning in Indonesia. Such questions need to be included
in any assessment of Jakarta over the past decade and into the foreseeable future.
These comments are intended to point towards dimensions that could enhance
the author’s exposition. They do not lessen the overall assessment that Planning
the Megacity is a rich and comprehensive account and a rare and welcome contribution to the literature on urban development and planning, not just for Jakarta
but for any city.
Mike Douglass
University of Hawaii
© 2010 Mike Douglass
Marcus Mietzner (2008) Military Politics, Islam and the State in Indonesia:
From Turbulent Transition to Democratic Consolidation,
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore,
pp. vi + 426. Paper: S$49.90/US$39.90; Cloth: S$69.90/US$52.90.
This book presents, to my knowledge, the best study to date of political developments in Indonesia between 1997 and 2007. It provides a superbly documented
analysis of (1) the regime change that took place in 1998; (2) the role of the armed
forces in modern Indonesian history; (3) political developments among the main
Muslim groups; and (4) the dynamics of military–civilian relationships since 1998.
As such, the book offers much more than this brief review can discuss.
The main argument of the study is two-fold. First, the nature of the regime
change in 1998 determined the outcome of political developments in the postSoeharto period; second, the relationship between the main Muslim groups (traditionalists and modernists) determined the extent to which the armed forces
were allowed to intervene in politics.
Between 1998 and 2004, conlicts between traditionalist and modernist Muslims
allowed many elements of the New Order landscape to survive and inluence the
political agenda of the post-Soeharto era. This environment enabled the military
to maintain a strong bargaining position. A telling illustration of this development
is the changing attitude of the Muslim modernist, Amien Rais. In 1998, as one of
the leaders of reformasi, he considered the sidelining of the military as the greatest
challenge of the reform period. Five years later, in 2003, he argued that civilian
politicians could not do without the stabilising inluence of the military.
After 2004 the power balance between civilians and the military changed,
because declining tensions among the main Muslim groups allowed for stronger
civilian control of the armed forces. Because of the oscillating nature of these processes, military reform in Indonesia did not follow a linear path.
In order to clarify his argument, Mietzner has divided his book into
four parts, each with parallel chapters on the military and civilian politics.
Chapters 1 and 2 cover the years between 1945 and 1997, and analyse the historical legacies that framed developments after 1998. They also show the extent to
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which the military were entrenched in state and society, while the Muslim community was divided, with its traditionalist and modernist wings rarely able to
cooperate.
Chapters 3 and 4 discuss the fall of Soeharto and analyse both military factionalism and competition and conlict among Muslim politicians. Moderate military
oficers managed to mitigate the effects of reform measures, while the inability of
Muslim politicians to form a united front aborted fundamental regime change.
Chapters 5 and 6 describe the years between 1999 and 2004, when the military successfully adapted to the new circumstances, while civilian politicians
fell prey to intense rivalry. This enabled the military to intervene in the political
domain, where they were instrumental in the fall of President Abdurrahman
Wahid in 2001.
Chapters 7 and 8 discuss the Yudhoyono presidency and the declining role
of the military, a trend paralleled by a stabilisation of the civilian polity. Growing consensus among Muslim politicians narrowed the room for the military
to manoeuvre, and the consolidation of democracy marginalised their role in
politics.
This does not imply that the armed forces are now fully under democratic civilian control. The military’s territorial command structure and privileged business
activities provide it with autonomous sources of power and income. Meanwhile it
is still impossible to bring violations of human rights to court, owing to the military’s apparent continued immunity from legal investigation.
Marcus Mietzner started this research in 1997 and observed political developments on the spot, managing to interview high-ranking actors. As a result his book
is empirically strong, but it is also theoretically well embedded. It will become a
standard work in the same category as those by Herbert Feith on political developments in the 1950s and Harold Crouch on the military under the New Order.
It is therefore essential reading for everybody seriously interested in Indonesian
politics.
Henk Schulte Nordholt
KITLV, Leiden
© 2010 Henk Schulte Nordholt
Edward Aspinall (2009) Islam and Nation: Separatist Rebellion in Aceh, Indonesia,
Stanford University Press, Stanford, pp. 312. Paper: US$21.95; Cloth: US$55.00.
Islam and Nation is a welcome addition to research on Aceh’s separatist conlict.
A careful study of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), this book is a victory of academic craftsmanship during this era of rushed production. Aspinall spent an
entire decade working on it, and the results are rewarding. Unlike many other
studies of the Aceh conlict, Aspinall’s work is well informed and free of moralising statements.
The book is divided into two parts. The irst four chapters outline GAM’s historical roots and its development under Indonesia’s New Order rule. Part of the
book’s attraction is that its focus is on the movement itself rather than on the
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events of the conlict. GAM turns out to be a rather typical rebel movement, with
kinship networks and charismatic leaders. Its methods of justifying its actions
and building up the enemy’s image through processes of ‘othering’ are also not
uncommon.
Aspinall provides the reader with plenty of new information and eye-opening
details about the less well-known periods of the 1970s and 1980s. As is the case
with so many other insurgencies, GAM’s initial core group consisted of the
children of families that took part in a previous rebellion – in Aceh’s case the
1950s Darul Islam rebellion in pursuit of an Islamic state. Gradually, however,
GAM leaders moved further away from Islamic argumentation and formulated
a more secular and nationalist rationale for separatism. This transformation was
important for GAM’s survival and growth. The book shows how its exiled leaders made use of global political divisions for their own struggle. At the same
time, the GAM supporter proile in Aceh changed from urban intelligentsia to
less-educated and tougher young men in the countryside. The key to GAM’s
success was adaptation.
In the four later chapters the author deals with the post-Soeharto period, which
formed a peak in GAM’s popular support, as Acehnese civil society groups developed congruent ideas about the province’s status in Indonesia. When the calls
for a referendum failed in 1999 and the political leaders of Aceh and Indonesia
offered an old solution to the ‘Aceh problem’ by introducing syariah law, the
province soon returned to full-scale civil conlict. Like civil conlicts elsewhere,
Aceh’s conlict has been complex, motivated by both greed and grievances. Divisions between GAM and government troops and between combatants and civilians have become blurred. Global post–Cold War discourses on human rights and
democratisation have also inluenced the dynamics of conlict in Aceh. Through
his highly systematic method, Aspinall illustrates how one should approach
such a dificult ield of study. He picks up a debate and carefully examines what
kinds of arguments are put forward by the media and public speeches and by the
numerous individuals interviewed for the book. He contextualises each debate
locally and globally, without forgetting to frame the analysis within theories of
conlict and nationalism.
In view of the vast scope of his study, it is surprising that Aspinall makes no
reference to the female combatants of GAM. As a result, GAM is presented as an
exclusively male rebel group. Considering that two important themes discussed
in the book are Islamic syariah law and violence against civilians, I think that a
more gendered perspective could have enriched the analysis further. But, as the
author himself points out, the book is the irst outline of the history of Aceh’s separatist conlict. An outstanding pioneer work, Islam and Nation will surely stand
as an invitation to scholars both in Aceh and beyond to examine the conlict from
other perspectives.
Leena Avonius
Aceh Research Training Institute (ARTI), Banda Aceh
© 2010 Leena Avonius
266
Book reviews
Denny Indrayana (2008) Indonesian Constitutional Reform 1999–2002:
An Evaluation of Constitution-making in Transition, Kompas Book
Publishing, Jakarta, pp. xxiii + 463. Paper: Rp 65,000.
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Valina Singka Subekti (2008) Menyusun Konstitusi Transisi: Pergulatan Kepentingan
dan Pemikiran dalam Proses Perubahan UUD 1945 [Making a Transitional
Constitution: The Struggle of Interests and Ideas in the Process of
Indonesian Constitutional Change], RajaGraindo Persada,
Jakarta, pp. lix + 435. Paper: Rp 78,000.
These two books approach the topic of Indonesian constitutional reform from the
perspective of different disciplines. Indrayana’s study is based on a constitutional
law perspective, and examines the process and outcomes of constitutional amendment from within the context of constitutional theory. He compares Indonesia’s
experience with that of other countries, with particular reference to South Africa
and Thailand. By contrast, Subekti approaches the topic from the perspective of
political science, focusing on contestation by political actors around ive crucial
issues: the basis of the Indonesian state and religion; the People’s Representative
Council; the Regional Representative Council; the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR); and the direct presidential election system.
The material for these books is derived from library and ield research. The
authors collected data from both primary and secondary sources. Interviews were
conducted with important igures involved in the constitution-making process –
20 in the case of Indrayana and 13 in that of Subekti. This is the strength of the
books.
Indrayana concludes that constitutional reform in Indonesia between 1999
and 2002 did not meet the standard of a democratic constitution-making process,
because ‘the amendment schedule constantly changed; there was no clear plan or
objective; short-term political interests contaminated the amendment proposals;
the MPR failed to win the people’s trust in its capacity as a constitution-making
body; and the public participation processes arranged by the MPR were limited
and badly organised’ (p. 385). Nevertheless, he admits that the content of the
constitutional amendments has contributed signiicantly to the making of a more
democratic constitution and the establishment of a democratic country (p. 387).
By contrast, Subekti concludes that the process of amendment was coloured by
four main characteristics: mutual competition; the struggle of interests; bargaining; and compromise among political actors. In the debate about the ive crucial
issues, the political actors tended to create a ‘checks and balances’ mechanism
among state institutions, and this helped to build a democratic political system.
However, the debate was inluenced by political party identities and interests that
affected the relationships among political parties during the amendment process
(p. 313–5).
These books provide a portrait of the study of constitutionalism by Indonesian
constitutional lawyers and political scientists. In Indonesia, this ield has long
been dominated by constitutional lawyers, with less attention paid to it by political scientists. Many books on the subject have been published by constitutional
lawyers, but few by political scientists. Indrayana’s book reinforces the domina-
Book reviews
267
tion of the ield by constitutional lawyers, while the work by Subekti represents
the effort of a political scientist to revive the study of constitutionalism.
Both authors have produced detailed and readable works on constitutional
amendment in Indonesia. Each book is based on a doctoral dissertation, and the
two complement each other. Both will be of interest to those concerned with the
dynamics of contemporary Indonesian constitutionalism, and together they provide the perspectives of constitutional law and political science.
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Munafrizal Manan
University of Al-Azhar Indonesia, Jakarta
© 2010 Munafrizal Manan
ISSN: 0007-4918 (Print) 1472-7234 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbie20
Book reviews
Sean Turnell , Henry Sandee , John G. Butcher , Abdurohman , Mike
Douglass , Henk Schulte Nordholt , Leena Avonius & Munafrizal Manan
To cite this article: Sean Turnell , Henry Sandee , John G. Butcher , Abdurohman , Mike
Douglass , Henk Schulte Nordholt , Leena Avonius & Munafrizal Manan (2010) Book reviews,
Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 46:2, 255-267, DOI: 10.1080/00074918.2010.486114
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00074918.2010.486114
Published online: 27 Jul 2010.
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Date: 18 January 2016, At: 19:29
Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Vol. 46, No. 2, 2010: 255–67
BOOK REVIEWS
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David Henley and Peter Boomgaard (eds) (2009) Credit and Debt in Indonesia,
860–1930: From Peonage to Pawnshop, from Kongsi to Cooperative, Institute of
Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore, pp. viii + 195. Cloth: $S69.90.
Credit and Debt in Indonesia, 860–1930 is an important and timely book. A collection of essays by eminent Indonesia scholars covering more than 1,000 years of
the country’s economic history, it highlights an area in which Indonesia‘s inancial
practices have had an unusual and signiicant impact on broader global trends
and institutions. This is particularly apparent with respect to modern microinance, making the book of great interest not just to Indonesia specialists and
inancial historians but to all those interested in the role of the inancial sector in
economic development. The book’s eight chapters are arranged more or less in
chronological order. Each is richly informative, but the skilful and seamless way
that each builds upon the others makes the whole of this collection even greater
than the sum of its parts.
Credit and Debt in Indonesia begins its exploration with two chapters, one by
Jan Christie and another by the book’s co-editor, Peter Boomgaard, that explore
inancial practices through pre-colonial inscriptions and legal codes. Among the
documents examined are those concerned with taxation of one form or another,
and with practices related to debt registration, debt clearance, the pawning of
land, the levying of interest (regarded as legitimate, and analogous to the natural
expansion of crops and livestock) and the issue of debt bondage. The last was a
prominent feature of credit arrangements more generally throughout Southeast
Asia and, as Christie notes (p. 49), debt was a ‘major route to servitude in early
Bali and Java’.
Credit networks established through trust, solidarity and repeated dealings,
and often within particular ethnic and religious groups, have long been a key
feature of (and, at times, a source of tension and conlict in) Indonesia’s monetary and inancial arrangements. Of course, the literature on this issue is vast, but
the next three chapters, by Kathryn Wellen, Heather Sutherland and Kwee Hui
Kian, respectively provide new insights into the Wajorese commercial diaspora,
the Dutch in 18th century Sulawesi, and Chinese traders and miners in Java, Kalimantan and the Malacca Strait. Of great interest in each of these chapters is the
identiication of the way non-commercial (and semi-commercial) relationships
facilitated credit and inancial arrangements in these communities, as well as
under-girding their relative economic success more broadly.
The inal two chapters of the book, by Alexander Claver and Jan Luiten van
Zanden, take us into the colonial era, and to the struggles between European commercial interests and the players and institutions that had gone before them. Both
ISSN 0007-4918 print/ISSN 1472-7234 online/10/020255-13
DOI: 10.1080/00074918.2010.486114
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chapters are concerned with episodes of inancial crisis – Claver’s essay with the
bursting of a inancial ‘bubble’ in Surabaya (then Indonesia’s largest city) in the
1890s, and Luiten van Zanden’s with the efforts of the Dutch colonial authorities
to reform rural credit markets through the creation of ‘village banks’ along ostensibly cooperative lines. In practice, these institutions remained under the close
supervision and control of the colonial authorities, but they were moderately successful in delivering lower interest rates to a certain stratum of the rural population. In contrast with later Indonesian institutions (such as the justly famous unit
desa of Bank Rakyat Indonesia), however, these village banks accumulated little
in the way of savings, and thus depended on the colonial state for their capital
and loan funds. Luiten van Zanden also details the nationalisation of the pawnbroking sector in 1901 (under the same ‘Ethical Policy’ that brought about the
creation of the village banks). This move also had the effect of lowering interest
rates in the markets served by the pawn-brokers. Interestingly, the Indonesian
‘model’ of state-owned pawn-broking was copied by a number of other countries
in Southeast Asia, notably Burma, which created a near-identical system following its independence in 1948.
All of the constituent chapters of Credit and Debt in Indonesia are splendid, but
none surpasses the introductory essay by David Henley. This superlative treatment of Indonesia’s credit arrangements and institutions extends beyond the
time-frame of the rest of the book to consider events right up to the present day.
It takes up with insight and verve some of the great modern debates about the
provision of inance – especially to the poor – but always with the lessons of Indonesia (and history) in mind. Henley ranges across assessments of ‘what works
and what does not’ in micro-inance, of the importance (or otherwise) that should
be attached to the regulation of land tenure, of the extraordinary degree of historical continuity in institutions we sometimes regard as ‘novel’, and of the very big
question of whether inance drives development – or whether it is development
itself that ‘is … the best way to ensure that credit becomes cheaper and more
accessible’ (p. 33). It is a virtuoso performance of scholarship and wisdom.
Credit and Debt in Indonesia is one of the best books I have read on the multilayered history of inance in Indonesia. It certainly deserves a place on the shelves
of everyone interested in Indonesia, but it can be read with great proit by all of us
who are interested in Asia more broadly, and in the institutions that have shaped
our economic circumstances.
Sean Turnell
Macquarie University, Sydney
© 2010 Sean Turnell
Mitsuhiro Hayashi (2005) SMEs, Subcontracting and Economic Development
in Indonesia: With Reference to Japan’s Experience,
Japan International Cooperation Publishing, Tokyo, pp. 298. ¥4,620.
Sub-contracting in Indonesia has been the topic of a number of studies. There are
studies of sub-contracting in the furniture, rattan and brass industries. Several
studies have focused on the importance of sub-contracting in the machinery and
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257
metal industry, which is particularly well suited to the contracting of parts of
the production process from larger to smaller irms. This book provides insight
into the role that sub-contracting plays in fostering the development of small and
medium enterprises (SMEs) in the automobile, motor cycle, agricultural machinery and bicycle industries. It differs from other studies in at least two respects.
First, it draws comparisons between sub-contracting experience in Japan and
Indonesia, and second, it arrives at more optimistic conclusions on the importance of sub-contracting in Indonesia than many other researchers have reached.
The purpose of the study is three-fold. First, it aims at summarising the development of sub-contracting in the Japanese machinery industry between the 1930s
and the 1970s. Second, and this is the central topic of the book, it makes a detailed
examination of sub-contracting patterns in the Indonesian machinery industry,
based on ield surveys. Third, it seeks to identify similarities and differences in
sub-contracting patterns in Japan and Indonesia, with particular reference to their
importance for the development of SMEs.
The book has its origins in Hayashi’s PhD dissertation at the Australian National
University. This does not always make for an easy read. There is a great deal
of detail, much repetition and an abundance of quantitative economic information and testing of statistical signiicance. The study does, however, offer detailed
information on sub-contracting from the perspectives of both large irms and their
smaller sub-contractors. The ieldwork on which the study is partly based was
done around the year 2000.
The historical overview of Japan’s sub-contracting experience shows that we
should not look at sub-contracting in a static way. Its role and importance for
smaller irms changes in accordance with developments in the overall economy.
Two issues are of particular interest for the discussion of sub-contracting in Indonesia. First, Japan’s sub-contracting systems tend to be organised vertically, in the
sense that sub-contractors work exclusively for speciic large irms. Second, the
Japanese government concentrated on creating a business environment that supported the strengthening of sub-contracting linkages, rather than making it mandatory for large irms to adopt sub-contractors (as has been the case in Indonesia).
The core of the book consists of several chapters that discuss SME development
in Indonesia and present the results of elaborate ieldwork among large irms and
their SME sub-contractors. The author points out that SME labour productivity
increased faster in the machinery industry than in other major sectors. The ield
studies in Jakarta and Surabaya sought to collect evidence on whether and how
sub-contracting had helped to improve the performance of SMEs in Indonesia.
This part of the book includes analysis of the costs and beneits of sub-contracting
from the viewpoints of both the larger irms and the SME sub-contractors. The
study inds that the main beneits of participation in sub-contracting for Indonesian SMEs in 2000 were not very different from those for SMEs in Japan in the
past. Sub-contracting helps small irms to upgrade their technology and reduces
the cost of marketing their goods. The productivity of labour and capital is higher
in sub-contractor irms than in small irms in general. There are differences among
SMEs in the extent to which they have been able to beneit from sub-contracting.
The higher the technological capabilities of large irms, the more SMEs tend to
beneit from participation in sub-contracting networks. Parent irms in the Indonesian machinery industry did not seek sub-contracting linkages to beneit from
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Book reviews
advanced skills in small irms or to have access to additional capacity in case of
sudden increases in demand. Rather, they used sub-contractors with the aim of
beneiting from small irms’ lower wages.
At the end of the book the author draws comparisons between the Japanese
and Indonesian experience with sub-contracting in the machinery industry. An
important difference between the two is that in Japan sub-contracting relationships tend to be rather inlexible: larger irms and their sub-contractors set up
exclusive networks and do business only with each other. Sub-contracting networks in Indonesia are much more lexible, and both parent irms and sub-contractors have relations with multiple irms. Another important conclusion is that
sub-contracting in Indonesia, at least in the machinery industry, is based on business principles, and appears to be gradually becoming more beneicial for the
development of the manufacturing sector.
This book is densely packed with information, and it takes quite an effort to
absorb all the details, case studies and qualitative and quantitative data. I look
forward to reading an article that summarises the key messages and arguments
of the book. It would be interesting to do a follow-up study to see how subcontracting relations have evolved in the last decade.
Henry Sandee
World Bank, Jakarta
© 2010 Henry Sandee
Meryl J. Williams (2007) Enmeshed: Australia and Southeast Asia’s Fisheries,
Lowy Institute Paper 20, Lowy Institute for International Policy, Sydney,
pp. xxiv + 147. A$25; available for download free of charge at
.
‘Australia and Southeast Asian interests’, Meryl Williams writes, ‘are enmeshed
through their ish and ishing connections’ (p. 3). Australia shares a number of
ish stocks with Indonesia in the Arafura Sea; southern bluein tuna, so important to the Australian ishing industry, spawn off the south coast of Java and are
caught by Indonesian vessels in that area; many hundreds of Indonesian ishing vessels have been detained over the years for ishing illegally in Australian waters; ‘traditional’ Indonesian ishers are allowed to operate under certain
conditions in a section of Australia’s exclusive economic zone; and nearly half
of Australia’s ish imports come from Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand and
Vietnam. Most of all, Australia and the countries of Southeast Asia are connected
by the common problem of a severe decline in ish populations, brought about by
great increases in the number and catching power of ishing vessels, by pollution,
and by the destruction of mangroves, coral reefs and seagrass beds. As Enmeshed
makes vividly clear, the collapse of ish populations has an adverse impact on
employment, creates tensions both internationally and within national boundaries as ishers move about in search of richer ishing grounds, contributes to the
overall degradation of ecosystems, and of course threatens food supplies. Williams devotes much of the report to mounting a persuasive case for a ‘proactive
regional approach’ to this array of problems.
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259
The 21-page chapter on Indonesia—the longest in the report—provides the
best short account of Indonesia’s isheries that I have read. Williams succinctly
describes the current status of different ishery resources including those shared
with Australia, the condition of the marine environment, ish supply chains, new
laws and policies dealing with illegal ishing, some of the consequences of decentralisation, and the government’s involvement in regional initiatives to tackle
illegal ishing. Like so many other analyses of Indonesia’s isheries problems, however, the chapter leaves the reader wondering why things happen the way they
do. Why is it that so many of the large Chinese trawlers operating in Indonesian
waters in recent years ‘are illegal or marginally legal, operating under forged
licences or joint ventures of dubious legality’ (pp. 57–8)? Referring to Ministerial Decree 17/2006, which mandated that foreign ishing companies must process their catches in Indonesia, Williams notes that ‘making the new decree fully
effective will be a challenge as previous measures of a similar nature have been
unsuccessful’ (p. 51). Shortly after Enmeshed was published, Gatra (12/12/2007)
reported that the decree was indeed being openly louted. But why was this so
predictable? On the inal page of the chapter, Williams observes that the government ‘is working on reining in domestic forms of illegal ishing, despite the formidable forces that support them’ (p. 59). But just who or what are these forces?
In a four-page section on the Philippines, Williams mentions that ‘commercial and
other sectoral interests hold sway over responsible isheries management’ when
there is a conlict between the two (pp. 82–3), but her chapter on Indonesia does
not go even as far as this.
At least in the recent past, answers to questions of the sort I have raised
required some consideration of the workings of the Indonesian state. Until at least
2002, the Indonesian navy had a conlict of interest in the enforcement of isheries laws because of its own involvement in the ishing business, particularly in
the allocation of licences to Thai companies. At the same time, many nominally
Indonesian companies were in fact merely fronts for foreign companies that had
various business arrangements with powerful politicians in Jakarta. Laws supposedly designed to regulate ishing were rendered ineffective by vague wording
and loopholes. Even the trawl ban of 1980 was eventually undermined not only
because ishers ‘modiied their ishing practices’ (p. 43) but also because many
operators continued using trawl nets under the new name of ‘ish nets’.
Indonesia has changed a great deal in recent years, but any explanation of the
government’s apparent inability to regulate isheries must, I suggest, consider the
ways in which the different elements of the Indonesian state relate to one another
and the extent to which they act autonomously. Only with such an understanding will we be able to appreciate the magnitude of the task facing those trying to
transform the management of Indonesia’s isheries.
John G. Butcher
Grifith University
© 2010 John G. Butcher
260
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Pranab Bardhan and Dilip Mookherjee (eds) (2006)
Decentralization and Local Governance in Developing Countries:
A Comparative Perspective, MIT Press, Cambridge MA.
During the last two decades there has been a signiicant shift in approach to economic development, from a centralist to a more decentralised model, in all parts
of the developing world. This was brought about mainly by the spread of democratisation movements and the adoption of market principles. Along with deregulation and privatisation, the devolution of political, economic and administrative
authority to the local government level has become a common phenomenon in
Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa.
The current economic literature on decentralisation has focused mainly on its
economic aspects, without touching on the political context. The editors of this
book, economists Pranab Bardhan and Dilip Mookherjee, provide a broader perspective, combining both economic and political analysis. They argue in chapter 1
that the political context is an important factor in the performance of decentralisation, strongly inluencing the way it is designed and implemented. They therefore
focus their discussion on the historical origins of decentralisation, the underlying
motives for it, and its likely performance, in comparative perspective.
The book’s 11 chapters are divided into two parts. The irst part (chapter 1) proposes a conceptual framework for classifying and evaluating the diverse decentralisation experiences. The second part (chapters 2–11) presents detail on each
country case study, covering various aspects of decentralisation, including its historical origins, the political context and the design and nature of implementation
(particularly the scope and speed). The editors chose as case studies eight developing countries, from three continents, that have made a signiicant shift towards
decentralisation: Brazil and Bolivia (Latin America), South Africa and Uganda
(Africa), China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan (Asia). India and Pakistan take up
two chapters each, to allow the inclusion of sub-case studies of particular regions.
The conceptual framework for successful decentralisation proposed in the irst
part of the book includes not only responsiveness, as in traditional approaches,
but also accountability. ‘Responsiveness’ refers to the notion that policies must be
lexible in responding to the needs of citizens. Accountability refers to the ability
of citizens to put effective pressure on government oficials who deviate from
stated promises. The main reason for the emphasis on accountability is that a key
concern of traditional centralised mechanisms of economic policy making and
regulation in developing countries has been their vulnerability to corruption and
ineficient bureaucracy – that is, their weak accountability.
The purpose of the country case studies is to present a comparative perspective
that stresses the political and economic aspects of decentralisation in equal measure. The key contribution of the book to the current literature on decentralisation is
the conceptual framework for classifying the diverse experience of decentralising
countries, by deining and comparing various aspects of decentralisation. Based
on the design and implementation of decentralisation in the eight country case
studies, Bardhan and Mookherjee’s overview chapter classiies decentralisation
approaches into three types: (i) type A, a comprehensive, big-bang political and
economic devolution (Bolivia, Indonesia and post-1994 South Africa); (ii) type B,
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261
comprehensive political devolution with only partial and uneven economic devolution (Brazil and India); (iii) type C, limited political devolution with more signiicant administrative and economic devolution (China, Pakistan, Uganda and
pre-1994 South Africa).
A conluence of economic and political factors characterised Indonesia’s experience of decentralisation, as reported in the chapter by Bert Hofman and Kai
Kaiser. The economic and political upheaval following the economic crisis in the
late 1990s triggered a big-bang (type A) decentralisation. The iscal, administrative and political autonomy of local government has thus increased signiicantly.
As a result, say the authors, public participation in and scrutiny of government
have lourished in Indonesia. The question, however, is whether they will serve as
a bridge to enhance accountability. The answer must be a matter for future assessment, because accountability is critical, given the initial conditions of governance
and service delivery underlying Indonesia’s decentralisation.
This book is an excellent addition to the literature on decentralisation. It proposes a broad and innovative conceptual framework and presents insightful
perspectives on various new issues in decentralisation. Last, but not least, readers will ind the book both interesting and easy reading because of its clear and
informative presentation.
Abdurohman
ANU
© 2010 Abdurohman
Christopher Silver (2008) Planning the Megacity: Jakarta in the Twentieth Century,
Routledge, London and New York, pp. 262. Cloth: $67.50.
Christopher Silver has written a highly accessible in-depth study of Jakarta in the
20th century. Following the introduction, devoted to a personal account of irst
impressions of the city in 1989, chapter 1 sets off with the observation that Jakarta
can best be seen as a composite of villages rather than as a system of urban neighbourhoods. The chapter covers historical episodes in the formation of Jakarta from
Dutch colonial times. Arguing that understanding the morphology and dynamics
of Jakarta requires a comparative perspective, the author also includes snapshot
discussions of other major cities in Southeast Asia.
Chapters 2 and 3 cover the latter part of the colonial era, from 1900 to the
advent of the New Order under Soeharto, and Jakarta’s management under
Governor Ali Sadikin up to the early 1980s. The focus is mostly on physical
planning, particularly master plans, and on illustrating how the city’s expansion
was more guided than much of the literature has allowed. However, the
author concludes that major intentions were not realised, in part because local
government efforts continued to be overshadowed by uncoordinated planning
through central bureaucracies. Thus a city-wide rapid transit system yielded
to highway systems, promoting the growth in automobile ownership that has
exacerbated trafic congestion and air pollution. Private sector development of
exclusive gated new towns also supplanted government plans for suburban
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centres to accommodate Jakarta’s rapidly expanding population of all income
classes.
Chapters 4 and 5 focus on speciic urban issues: kampung upgrading and housing; transport to facilitate the development of huge new suburban towns outside
Jakarta; and revitalisation of the urban core. The author illustrates how government has attempted to manage tensions such as those between historical preservation and the creation of new urban landscapes in the land developers’ quest for
proit. Chapter 6 follows the unfolding logic of a rapidly opening urban economy
by proclaiming Jakarta’s transition from ‘urban village to world city’.
The impact of the 1997–98 crisis and subsequent political reform are the subjects of the inal chapter, which ends as the book began, with personal observations made while passing through the city, this time (in 2006) recounting the great
changes that had taken place over almost two decades. Democracy, devolution
of political power to local levels and the renewed intensive expansion of Jabodetabek (Jakarta and the surrounding metropolitan area, including Bogor, Depok,
Tangerang and Bekasi) are among the major dynamics at play. In the book’s inal
section on ‘visions for the future’, the sense of continuing and new crises is juxtaposed with the hope that a new day has arrived, with possibilities for a more
human-centred, democratic planning process that is ‘safe and sustainable’.
The book does leave a few important elements for the reader to discover elsewhere. The chapters stay close to the ground and do not engage with concepts or
theories explaining the political economy of planning in Jakarta. Even the comparisons with other Southeast Asian cities are descriptive rather than systematic
or analytical. Changing global–local dynamics too are left out of the discussion.
There is no analysis of the opening of Indonesia from the mid-1980s to global
capital, accompanied by the imposition of a neoliberal policy agenda through the
World Bank and later the IMF, and linked with a new global era of mega-projects,
inanced by international developer consortia, which transformed Jakarta’s built
environment. For the irst time in history, consortia of Japanese, Korean, overseas
Chinese and domestic investment appeared to build Kota Wisata and other new
towns, the Kuningan Golden Triangle and the massive shopping malls, and to
absorb local production and services into global enterprises. Likewise, the deregulation of land-use controls and private enterprise in Indonesia from the mid1980s substantially weakened government’s ability to prevent the in-illing of the
metropolitan region from occurring in an environmentally destructive manner,
which is now causing horriic looding in Jakarta almost every year.
Another issue that deserves more discussion is the author’s claim that postindependence elites adopted western urban values, implying the establishment
of a planning bureaucracy that had the public interest in mind. As accurate as this
might be in terms of the creation, in principle, of a meritocracy of public planning bureaus, Indonesia’s New Order government was equally well known for
its authoritarian ‘developmental state’, which used the mantle of development to
justify command planning, limiting freedom of speech and participatory governance – the antithesis of those western values. This developmental ideology was
also embedded in broader political projects of post-colonial nation building and
internal colonisation of the outer reaches of the archipelago.
While the book directly takes up the issue of social cleavages in its discussion
of ethnicity and Chinese enclaves, its most striking omission is any discussion of
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263
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religion. The post-Soeharto shift towards political contestations connected to global religious meta-narratives raises key questions about the urban condition and
the politics of urban planning in Indonesia. Such questions need to be included
in any assessment of Jakarta over the past decade and into the foreseeable future.
These comments are intended to point towards dimensions that could enhance
the author’s exposition. They do not lessen the overall assessment that Planning
the Megacity is a rich and comprehensive account and a rare and welcome contribution to the literature on urban development and planning, not just for Jakarta
but for any city.
Mike Douglass
University of Hawaii
© 2010 Mike Douglass
Marcus Mietzner (2008) Military Politics, Islam and the State in Indonesia:
From Turbulent Transition to Democratic Consolidation,
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore,
pp. vi + 426. Paper: S$49.90/US$39.90; Cloth: S$69.90/US$52.90.
This book presents, to my knowledge, the best study to date of political developments in Indonesia between 1997 and 2007. It provides a superbly documented
analysis of (1) the regime change that took place in 1998; (2) the role of the armed
forces in modern Indonesian history; (3) political developments among the main
Muslim groups; and (4) the dynamics of military–civilian relationships since 1998.
As such, the book offers much more than this brief review can discuss.
The main argument of the study is two-fold. First, the nature of the regime
change in 1998 determined the outcome of political developments in the postSoeharto period; second, the relationship between the main Muslim groups (traditionalists and modernists) determined the extent to which the armed forces
were allowed to intervene in politics.
Between 1998 and 2004, conlicts between traditionalist and modernist Muslims
allowed many elements of the New Order landscape to survive and inluence the
political agenda of the post-Soeharto era. This environment enabled the military
to maintain a strong bargaining position. A telling illustration of this development
is the changing attitude of the Muslim modernist, Amien Rais. In 1998, as one of
the leaders of reformasi, he considered the sidelining of the military as the greatest
challenge of the reform period. Five years later, in 2003, he argued that civilian
politicians could not do without the stabilising inluence of the military.
After 2004 the power balance between civilians and the military changed,
because declining tensions among the main Muslim groups allowed for stronger
civilian control of the armed forces. Because of the oscillating nature of these processes, military reform in Indonesia did not follow a linear path.
In order to clarify his argument, Mietzner has divided his book into
four parts, each with parallel chapters on the military and civilian politics.
Chapters 1 and 2 cover the years between 1945 and 1997, and analyse the historical legacies that framed developments after 1998. They also show the extent to
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Book reviews
which the military were entrenched in state and society, while the Muslim community was divided, with its traditionalist and modernist wings rarely able to
cooperate.
Chapters 3 and 4 discuss the fall of Soeharto and analyse both military factionalism and competition and conlict among Muslim politicians. Moderate military
oficers managed to mitigate the effects of reform measures, while the inability of
Muslim politicians to form a united front aborted fundamental regime change.
Chapters 5 and 6 describe the years between 1999 and 2004, when the military successfully adapted to the new circumstances, while civilian politicians
fell prey to intense rivalry. This enabled the military to intervene in the political
domain, where they were instrumental in the fall of President Abdurrahman
Wahid in 2001.
Chapters 7 and 8 discuss the Yudhoyono presidency and the declining role
of the military, a trend paralleled by a stabilisation of the civilian polity. Growing consensus among Muslim politicians narrowed the room for the military
to manoeuvre, and the consolidation of democracy marginalised their role in
politics.
This does not imply that the armed forces are now fully under democratic civilian control. The military’s territorial command structure and privileged business
activities provide it with autonomous sources of power and income. Meanwhile it
is still impossible to bring violations of human rights to court, owing to the military’s apparent continued immunity from legal investigation.
Marcus Mietzner started this research in 1997 and observed political developments on the spot, managing to interview high-ranking actors. As a result his book
is empirically strong, but it is also theoretically well embedded. It will become a
standard work in the same category as those by Herbert Feith on political developments in the 1950s and Harold Crouch on the military under the New Order.
It is therefore essential reading for everybody seriously interested in Indonesian
politics.
Henk Schulte Nordholt
KITLV, Leiden
© 2010 Henk Schulte Nordholt
Edward Aspinall (2009) Islam and Nation: Separatist Rebellion in Aceh, Indonesia,
Stanford University Press, Stanford, pp. 312. Paper: US$21.95; Cloth: US$55.00.
Islam and Nation is a welcome addition to research on Aceh’s separatist conlict.
A careful study of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), this book is a victory of academic craftsmanship during this era of rushed production. Aspinall spent an
entire decade working on it, and the results are rewarding. Unlike many other
studies of the Aceh conlict, Aspinall’s work is well informed and free of moralising statements.
The book is divided into two parts. The irst four chapters outline GAM’s historical roots and its development under Indonesia’s New Order rule. Part of the
book’s attraction is that its focus is on the movement itself rather than on the
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265
events of the conlict. GAM turns out to be a rather typical rebel movement, with
kinship networks and charismatic leaders. Its methods of justifying its actions
and building up the enemy’s image through processes of ‘othering’ are also not
uncommon.
Aspinall provides the reader with plenty of new information and eye-opening
details about the less well-known periods of the 1970s and 1980s. As is the case
with so many other insurgencies, GAM’s initial core group consisted of the
children of families that took part in a previous rebellion – in Aceh’s case the
1950s Darul Islam rebellion in pursuit of an Islamic state. Gradually, however,
GAM leaders moved further away from Islamic argumentation and formulated
a more secular and nationalist rationale for separatism. This transformation was
important for GAM’s survival and growth. The book shows how its exiled leaders made use of global political divisions for their own struggle. At the same
time, the GAM supporter proile in Aceh changed from urban intelligentsia to
less-educated and tougher young men in the countryside. The key to GAM’s
success was adaptation.
In the four later chapters the author deals with the post-Soeharto period, which
formed a peak in GAM’s popular support, as Acehnese civil society groups developed congruent ideas about the province’s status in Indonesia. When the calls
for a referendum failed in 1999 and the political leaders of Aceh and Indonesia
offered an old solution to the ‘Aceh problem’ by introducing syariah law, the
province soon returned to full-scale civil conlict. Like civil conlicts elsewhere,
Aceh’s conlict has been complex, motivated by both greed and grievances. Divisions between GAM and government troops and between combatants and civilians have become blurred. Global post–Cold War discourses on human rights and
democratisation have also inluenced the dynamics of conlict in Aceh. Through
his highly systematic method, Aspinall illustrates how one should approach
such a dificult ield of study. He picks up a debate and carefully examines what
kinds of arguments are put forward by the media and public speeches and by the
numerous individuals interviewed for the book. He contextualises each debate
locally and globally, without forgetting to frame the analysis within theories of
conlict and nationalism.
In view of the vast scope of his study, it is surprising that Aspinall makes no
reference to the female combatants of GAM. As a result, GAM is presented as an
exclusively male rebel group. Considering that two important themes discussed
in the book are Islamic syariah law and violence against civilians, I think that a
more gendered perspective could have enriched the analysis further. But, as the
author himself points out, the book is the irst outline of the history of Aceh’s separatist conlict. An outstanding pioneer work, Islam and Nation will surely stand
as an invitation to scholars both in Aceh and beyond to examine the conlict from
other perspectives.
Leena Avonius
Aceh Research Training Institute (ARTI), Banda Aceh
© 2010 Leena Avonius
266
Book reviews
Denny Indrayana (2008) Indonesian Constitutional Reform 1999–2002:
An Evaluation of Constitution-making in Transition, Kompas Book
Publishing, Jakarta, pp. xxiii + 463. Paper: Rp 65,000.
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Valina Singka Subekti (2008) Menyusun Konstitusi Transisi: Pergulatan Kepentingan
dan Pemikiran dalam Proses Perubahan UUD 1945 [Making a Transitional
Constitution: The Struggle of Interests and Ideas in the Process of
Indonesian Constitutional Change], RajaGraindo Persada,
Jakarta, pp. lix + 435. Paper: Rp 78,000.
These two books approach the topic of Indonesian constitutional reform from the
perspective of different disciplines. Indrayana’s study is based on a constitutional
law perspective, and examines the process and outcomes of constitutional amendment from within the context of constitutional theory. He compares Indonesia’s
experience with that of other countries, with particular reference to South Africa
and Thailand. By contrast, Subekti approaches the topic from the perspective of
political science, focusing on contestation by political actors around ive crucial
issues: the basis of the Indonesian state and religion; the People’s Representative
Council; the Regional Representative Council; the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR); and the direct presidential election system.
The material for these books is derived from library and ield research. The
authors collected data from both primary and secondary sources. Interviews were
conducted with important igures involved in the constitution-making process –
20 in the case of Indrayana and 13 in that of Subekti. This is the strength of the
books.
Indrayana concludes that constitutional reform in Indonesia between 1999
and 2002 did not meet the standard of a democratic constitution-making process,
because ‘the amendment schedule constantly changed; there was no clear plan or
objective; short-term political interests contaminated the amendment proposals;
the MPR failed to win the people’s trust in its capacity as a constitution-making
body; and the public participation processes arranged by the MPR were limited
and badly organised’ (p. 385). Nevertheless, he admits that the content of the
constitutional amendments has contributed signiicantly to the making of a more
democratic constitution and the establishment of a democratic country (p. 387).
By contrast, Subekti concludes that the process of amendment was coloured by
four main characteristics: mutual competition; the struggle of interests; bargaining; and compromise among political actors. In the debate about the ive crucial
issues, the political actors tended to create a ‘checks and balances’ mechanism
among state institutions, and this helped to build a democratic political system.
However, the debate was inluenced by political party identities and interests that
affected the relationships among political parties during the amendment process
(p. 313–5).
These books provide a portrait of the study of constitutionalism by Indonesian
constitutional lawyers and political scientists. In Indonesia, this ield has long
been dominated by constitutional lawyers, with less attention paid to it by political scientists. Many books on the subject have been published by constitutional
lawyers, but few by political scientists. Indrayana’s book reinforces the domina-
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267
tion of the ield by constitutional lawyers, while the work by Subekti represents
the effort of a political scientist to revive the study of constitutionalism.
Both authors have produced detailed and readable works on constitutional
amendment in Indonesia. Each book is based on a doctoral dissertation, and the
two complement each other. Both will be of interest to those concerned with the
dynamics of contemporary Indonesian constitutionalism, and together they provide the perspectives of constitutional law and political science.
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Munafrizal Manan
University of Al-Azhar Indonesia, Jakarta
© 2010 Munafrizal Manan