Explaining Collective Violence in Contemporary Indonesia

From Conflict to Cooperation

Z. Tadjoeddin

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781137270634
• eBook ISBN: 9781137270641
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Tadjoeddin uniquely explores four types of violent conflicts pertinent to contemporary Indonesia (secessionist, ethnic, routine-everyday and electoral violence), and seeks to discover what socio-economic development can do to overcome conflict and make the country's transition to democracy safe for its constituencies.

1

Introduction

Setting the context: a study of Indonesia

A decade and a half after the democratic transition of the late 1990s, Indonesia is now seen as a normal country.¹ It has been consolidating its democracy since the fall of the autocratic President Suharto in 1998 and has embraced decentralization. The country is seen as the most stable democracy in Southeast Asia and has been a key reference as a democratic transition success story, especially when Indonesia is compared with countries such as Egypt and Myanmar.² Its economy recovered fairly quickly from its post-independence worst economic downturn in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Indonesia weathered the recent global financial crisis much better than advanced economies and neighbouring countries, maintaining a positive economic growth. In 2009, it successfully accomplished the third free and fair parliamentary elections and the second direct presidential elections since the democratic transition. Furthermore, the local executives in more than 500 of its sub-national entities (provinces and districts) have been directly elected by the local adult population since 2005.

Recent political and security developments in Indonesia’s western-most province of Aceh and eastern-most region of Papua seem to have re-affirmed the solidity of the archipelagic country’s national integration. Peace has been restored in Aceh since the signing of the Helsinki-brokered peace agreement between the Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka – GAM) rebels and the Government of Indonesia. GAM has been transformed into a local political party and controls the Aceh provincial government under the new special autonomy deal. In Papua, the special autonomy arrangement has significantly calmed the region’s secessionist demand, although the autonomy has not been able to totally eliminate it. Minor secessionist aspirations posed by the resource-rich regions of Riau and East Kalimantan in the very early period of democratic transition were proved to be short-lived and fiscal decentralization has fully addressed their primarily economic grievances towards the centre. Furthermore, episodes of fierce and violent inter-ethnic clashes mainly in the outer islands at the beginning of the democratic transition have been fully absorbed by the more institutionalized local electoral/political process.

Such a situation stands in stark contrast with the mood only around a decade ago in the late 1990s, when Indonesia was haunted by a spectre of the Balkanization of Southeast Asia referring to the risk of disintegration that the country faced.³ This was due to Indonesia’s loss of East Timor in the 1999 UN-administered referendum, intensifying separatist violence in the resource-rich provinces of Aceh and Papua and growing challenges to the centre posed by the other resource-rich province of Riau and East Kalimantan. The situation was made even worse since, at the same time, a series of ethno-communal conflicts also pervaded the nation: the Christian and Muslim violence of Maluku, North Maluku and Poso, the anti-Madurese violence of Sambas and Sampit, the anti-Chinese riots of Jakarta and Solo, and so on.⁴ In some quarters, comparisons were drawn between Indonesia and Nigeria, and the idea that Indonesia might become a ‘failed state’ was taking root.⁵ The fear, however, has not materialized. Peace has been restored to the troubled regions and Indonesia seems to have further consolidated its democracy.

This book aims to explain the series of violent conflicts during Indonesia’s transition to democracy from a rational choice perspective. The realist school in political science contends that conflict reflects opportunistic behaviour that is rational in the bounded sense of the term. Indonesia witnessed a surge in violent conflict after the sudden economic collapse precipitated by the Asian financial crisis of 1997, resulting in the fall of the authoritarian, centralist Suharto regime and the breakdown of the social contract of the ‘New Order’.⁶ This triggered a process of systemic transition – from autocracy to democracy, from a centrist state to a decentralized state and from an oligarchic economy to a rule-based economy.⁷ As has been evidenced in other parts of the world, transition is a very delicate process. In Indonesia, although it was not very smooth, the transition did not result in a total breakdown of the country. There were suggestions that Indonesia was not ready for democratic transition.⁸ Democracy can be a painful medicine, and can paralyse the patient if taken in the wrong dosage and at the wrong time. This study is intended to uncover the root causes of violence, and to determine what development can do to overcome various kinds of conflict and violence in contemporary Indonesia, to make the country’s transition to democracy safe for its citizens.

Post-1945 independent Indonesia witnessed internal conflicts of various kinds and in varying intensities. Soon after the war of independence, a series of regional rebellions took place in the 1950s. They included armed struggles in several areas, aimed at establishing an Islamic state. The 1960s were marked by communist upheaval and anti-communist violence. President Suharto, who came to power through a military coup that toppled President Sukarno, imposed stability and peace in the following three decades,⁹ although some violent conflicts still occurred, particularly in Aceh, Papua and East Timor. However, the image of peace and stability disappeared with the fall of Suharto in 1998.¹⁰ During the early years of democratic transition, latent conflicts became open, manifested in civil riots between different ethnic groups as well as in armed revolts against the centre in some regions, partly due to the legacy of past resistance against the authoritarian regime.¹¹

Since the rise of inter-ethnic and centre–regional conflicts as well as routine-everyday violence coincided with Indonesia’s transition to democracy, a question arises as to whether there is a link between the rise of violence and democratic transition. There is a reasonably strong argument in the literature that transition to democracy is usually accompanied by socio-political turbulence (internal conflicts) with widespread violence.¹² There is also the modernization hypothesis that links income levels to democratic transition and argues that prosperity breeds democracy, not the other way round.¹³ At a low level of income, democracy is more likely to generate technical regression in repression, rather than accountability (which is more likely to happen in a more affluent society, and is expected to bring peace). Democratic transition in a poor or lower-middle-income country, like Indonesia, is expected to increase the risk of violence.¹⁴

The hypothesized link between democratic transition in a low- or middle-income country and violence becomes complicated when democratic transition takes place in the middle of market liberalization. Democratic transition and market liberalization can be a deadly mix, breeding ethnic hatred and violence (Chua, 2002). This occurs when the poor majority who suddenly feel empowered due to democratization attack the wealthy minority who have benefited from market liberalization. This suggests that while democratic transition is problematic in itself, the risks of conflict and violence are even greater if it takes place in low-income countries and/or when market liberalization is in place. Casual observations across the globe provide instances in the former Soviet Union, Rwanda, the Philippines and Venezuela, as well as in Indonesia.

The road to democracy can be arduous, and violent conflicts adversely affect the economy. In particular, they affect the poor disproportionately, as the poor cannot protect themselves against the loss of property, life or livelihood. When the welfare of the people hardly seems to improve and conflict and violence are intensified, people become impatient to see the benefits of democracy. This can turn into mass frustration at unfulfilled expectations.

Embracing democracy is like letting a genie out of the bottle. After it gets out it is not easy to get it back in, and might not even be wise – it may be counter-productive as well. The best way of mitigating undesirable outcomes is by managing the transition carefully, providing favourable structural socio-economic and political foundations: something that is quite feasible in the short to medium term. However, this requires a careful analysis of the political economy of conflict, particularly in a diverse country like Indonesia.

Research on this aspect of Indonesia is still very limited. Although the volume of studies of conflict in Indonesia has grown considerably in the past decade, these are dominated by historical, cultural and political approaches, with rather less emphasis on economic aspects – although socio-economics, in interaction with other factors, are found to play a role in conflicts in Indonesia.¹⁵

Quantitative empirical research on conflict is overwhelmingly cross-country in nature, analysing a large number of conflicts in many countries in one sample. This research is also dominated by studies of civil war.¹⁶ While important lessons can be learned from these studies, it may not always be legitimate to lump all the world’s civil wars together. After all, they take place in different societies characterized by diverse histories, polities and levels of economic development. When viewed through the prism of a detailed case study, different results emerge, even when similar statistical (econometric) methodologies are applied. For example, when a cross-country methodology is employed, the desire to control natural resource rents becomes the principal determinant of conflict, while in a single-country analysis, detailed quantitative analyses of socio-economic phenomena point to grievance-related causes of conflict. Therefore, there are arguments for shifting the cross-country focus to sub-national entities within a particular country, especially in large countries like Indonesia where there are different forms of conflict (secessionist, ethnic and routine) taking place simultaneously in different parts of the country. A sub-national approach will help uncover different types of conflict dynamics, acknowledging country-specific socio-political settings. Such analyses are expected to yield much richer results and policy lessons that cannot be derived from cross-country research.

Objective and approach

This book examines the political economy of conflict and violence in the context of Indonesia’s move towards democracy. It seeks to discover what socio-economic development can do to overcome any sorts of conflict and violence in Indonesia and to make the country’s transition to democracy safe for its people. Through the greed and grievance framework, the book examines socio-economic reasons behind the four kinds of conflicts: (1) centre–region (separatist) conflict, (2) ethnic conflict, (3) routine-everyday violence and (4) electoral conflict. Then, the book tries to answer the key question: how to make democracy safe for its own constituents.

The first important step is to unpack contemporary violent conflict in Indonesia into four classifications. This is done by following previous research on the typology of conflicts in Indonesia.¹⁷ The four types of conflict are centre–region, ethnic, routine-everyday and electoral. Therefore, the book will comprehensively treat varieties of violent conflict in Indonesia; terrorist violence is the only exception.¹⁸

Secessionist conflict focuses on the four resource-rich regions (Aceh, Papua, Riau and East Kalimantan), which have articulated different degrees of secessionist aspirations peaking during the late 1990s critical juncture of Indonesia’s regime change and transition to democracy. Thus, the secessionist conflict can be considered as episodic in nature. Political secessionist movements complemented by organized rebel wings were clearly present in Aceh and Papua. While civil war has been present in these two provinces, the provinces of Riau and East Kalimantan showed only minor secessionist sentiments when the central government was weak, in the early phase of the democratic transition.

Ethnic violence occurs among communal groups clearly divided along ethnic lines. Following Horowitz (1985) ‘ethnic’ is broadly defined as ascriptive (birth-based) group identities: race, language, religion, tribe or caste can be called ethnic.¹⁹ Ethnic violence tends to be episodic in nature, such as the outbursts in Maluku, Poso in Sulawesi, and Sambas and Sampit in Kalimantan, to name a few examples from Indonesia.

Routine-everyday social (or group or collective) violence is obviously neither civil war nor ethno-communal. Neither is it terrorism, nor simply crime, though it may have criminal dimensions. It refers to group violence that is not episodic in nature. Civil war, ethno-communal violence and terrorism are high-profile violent conflicts that attract attention; everyday violence is the opposite. It tends to be low profile in nature and is less likely to produce headlines. In Java particularly (or Indonesia in general), routine-everyday violence is centred on vigilante violence and inter-neighbourhood or group brawls. Routine violence is rather neglected in recent scholarship.²⁰

Electoral conflict refers to conflict and violence related to electoral processes (national and local parliamentary elections, presidential elections and district head elections). It can also be considered as a sub-set of routine violence. But, given its relative importance with regard to electoral democracy especially at the local level, it deserves close scrutiny. Here in particular, this study is interested in further examining the economics of electoral conflict during the local direct elections of sub-national executive chiefs. This is because the different maturity of local democracy across Indonesian localities can be differentiated through the lens of local direct elections.

Given the different nature of each conflict type, this study employs different sets of a detailed framework for each conflict variant. However, a coherent theory is offered in terms of conflict and cooperation in post-independent Indonesia that specifically binds the first two types of conflict (secessionist and ethnic) and has a strong relevance to the other two (routine-everyday and electoral).²¹ In short, for the significant eruption of violent conflict to happen, it requires an interaction of grievance and greed, complemented by a breakdown of social contract. A revival of the social contract after repeated games would lead to cooperation among the previously warring parties. The next section elaborates this framework.

Conflict and cooperation in post-independent Indonesia

I will start by explaining the enabling condition for the outbreak of violent conflict to happen through the interaction of grievance and greed complemented by the breakdown of social contract. Then the framework of conflict and cooperation in Indonesia will be examined.

Greed, grievance and social contract

In recent years, two seemingly competing phenomena have been utilized by rational choice theorists to explain conflict onset: greed and grievance.²² The former is the contribution of Paul Collier.²³ According to this view, conflict reflects elite competition over valuable point-sourced natural resource rents, disguised as collective grievance. Rebellions need to be financially viable: civil wars are more likely to occur when they are supported by natural resource-based rents like blood diamonds or oil, or by sympathetic diasporas providing finance. Originally it was asserted that that inequality played no part in adding to the risk of civil war, but later on Collier et al. (2003) emphasized the poverty trap: poverty makes soldiering more attractive, lowering the opportunity cost of war in poor nations. In turn, conflict serves to perpetuate poverty because of war’s destructiveness; a vicious cycle of poverty–conflict–poverty ensues.

The greed motivation behind civil war has been disseminated and popularized by mainly empirical studies, where a cross-section of conflicts in different nations is analysed econometrically, and greed is proxied by the availability or abundance of capturable natural resource rents. In Collier and Hoeffler (2004), civil wars stem from the greedy behaviour of a rebel group in organizing an insurgency against the government. Greed is about opportunities faced by the rebel group. The opportunities can be classified into three components: financing, recruitment and geography. The most common sources of rebel finance are the appropriation of natural resources, donations from sympathetic diasporas and contr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Introduction
• 2  Conflict and Violence in Indonesia: A Background
• 3  Secessionist (CentreRegional) Conflicts
• 4  Ethnic Violence
• 5  Routine-Everyday Violence
• 6  Local Electoral Violence
• 7  Conclusion
• Notes
• References
• Index