Global political affairs in the last 200 years have been characterized by a constant pursuit of democracy through the process of democratization. Huntington’s waves of democracy,1 for instance, show us that the first wave of democratization on the global stage was started in the USA back in 1828 and reached its peak in 1922. The second wave began at the end of World War II and reached its peak in 1962 (Kurzman 1998: 43). Finally the third wave began when the Portuguese Flower Revolution took place in 1974, which initially encompassed Southern Europe and Latin America and eventually Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa (Kurzman 1998: 43; Croissant and Merkel 2004: 1).
Why do we need democracy? A general explanation usually refers to the core definition of liberal democracy. This theory argues that democracy guarantees free elections; the separation of state’s power; independent government institutions; effective civilian control over the military, political, and civic pluralism; equality before the law; individual and group freedoms; and so forth (Bünte and Ufen 2009: 6). Another canonical answer relies on the conventional wisdom of democratic peace. At the global level, the proponents of democratic peace have long argued that “democratically governed states rarely go to war with each other or even fight each other at low levels of lethal violence” (Russett 1993: 25). At the domestic level, the democratic peace argument holds that democratic regimes are able to defuse potential violence by diverting popular discontent into institutionalized channels. Dissident movements do not need to resort to organized violence against state authorities since they can redress their grievances through many forms of non-violent collective action. Such an argument is also supported by statistical analyses that reveal an “inverted U-curve” relationship between repression and civil violence. The U-curve suggests that established democracies are less susceptible to civil war. In short, the benefits of peaceful negotiations in a democracy exceed the benefits of violent conflict (Mason 2003: 26).
Unfortunately, the transition itself to democracy is anything but an easy process.2 Previous studies have addressed this issue and shown the significant relationship between democratic transition and the outbreak of violent conflicts, both in the domestic arena3 and in the international sphere (manifested in interstate wars).4 These studies posit a relatively similar argument in explaining the outbreak of violent conflicts, especially during the early stages of the democratic transition . Sources of shortcomings during any transition include the threatened old elites, a widening of the political spectrum, the inflexible interests of newly developed groups and lack of time to accommodate those interests, the weakening of the central authority,5 a high level of political participation,6 the uncertainties of the transition process due to new and multiple centers of power and decision-makers,7 and weak political institutions.8 All in all, these shortcomings can be summarized by repeating Huntington’s argument that “the typical problem of political development is the gap between high levels of political participation and the weak integrative institutions to reconcile the multiplicity or contending claims” (Mansfield and Snyder 1995: 22) .
The relation of democratization and conflict, as presented above, is supported by the empirical, historical record on the pattern of violent conflicts in the world, particularly in the second half of the twentieth century. The record shows that between 1945 and 1999 there were twenty-five interstate wars resulting in a total of 3.3 million battle deaths, but 127 domestic violent conflicts took place, which resulted in 16.2 million battle deaths (Mason 2003: 19). Some areas where massive democratic transitions took place in the second half of the last century, such as Latin America, Africa, Asia, as well as Central and Eastern Europe, have become the site of almost all domestic violence conflicts. Take some cases, for instance, in the former Yugoslavia, the Caucasus, and Indonesia, where the democratic transition coincided with a rise in national independence movements, spurring separatist warfare (Mansfield and Snyder 2002a: 297) . In number, “of the nearly 100 countries considered as ‘transitional’ in recent years, only a relatively small number—probably fewer than twenty—are clearly en route to becoming successful, well-functioning democracies or at least have made some democratic progress and still enjoy a positive dynamic of democratization” (Croissant and Merkel 2004: 2) . Perhaps, Indonesia, the country central to this study, may fall into this category.
Indonesia’s security dynamics have been through a dramatic change since the collapse of Suharto’s New Order Regime on 21 May 1998. During the period prior to, and after the collapse of the regime, the country once again experienced one of the most severe internal conflicts in its history. It began with a series of massive student protests, followed by the kidnapping of students and activists, the May riots in Jakarta in 1998, other riots in some parts of the archipelago, communal conflicts, and the re-emergence of long suppressed secessionist movements. Soon after Suharto stepped down and the country started its democratic transition, Indonesia suddenly turned into one of the most conflict-prone areas in the world. This fact can be seen both in the outbreak of horizontal conflicts between different groups of society and in the vertical conflicts. In the latter case, local political contenders verbally and physically challenged the legitimacy of the central government. To summarize the scene of the day, in its earlier phase of transition Indonesia had to deal with at least three separatist movements, three violent communal conflicts, and a number of riots. As for the transnational security challenge, Indonesia suffered at least thirty terrorist bomb attacks from 1999 to 2009. And piracy, for example, scored its highest number attacks worldwide in Indonesian waters during the period 1998–2003.9 Such a situation caused some observers to start speculating about the breakup of Indonesia (Aspinall and Berger 2001; Emmerson 2000) and commenting about how violence must be embedded in the Indonesian culture (Collins 2002).
However, after roughly seven years of the democratization process, Indonesia has shown a certain degree of positive achievements in both mitigating conflicts and democratizing the country. The terminations of the conflicts in Aceh and Maluku serve as good examples. To a certain degree, the peace in Aceh was not achieved by the military defeat of the separatist group; instead peace was agreed upon in a negotiated manner with the signing of the Helsinki Peace Treaty between the conflicting parties in 2005. In the same vein, the termination of the conflict in Maluku was not through territorial occupation by the military, but with the signing of the Malino Peace Treaty between various hostile groups in this area. Even more, both treaties were the result of the initiative of the ministry of people’s welfare. Furthermore, no violent conflict in Indonesia has been recorded in the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset since 2005.10 Also, Freedom House upgraded Indonesia’s democratic status from “partly free” to “free” in 2006, and with that, Indonesia is the only “free” country in the Southeast Asian region.11 Compared to its regional neighbors in Southeast Asia like Malaysia and Thailand, “where democratic constitutions are stagnating, if not backsliding, Indonesia, has cemented its status as Southeast Asia’s political role model” (Beech 2009). These facts, just to name few, show that Indonesia has moderately succeeded in managing its rocky transition and has cemented itself as one of the most vibrant democratizing states in the first decade of the twenty-first century.
The initial factor of the democratic transition in Indonesia was bringing Suharto’s authoritarian regime of the New Order era to an end. This regime was directly and indirectly supported by the Indonesian armed forces (Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia/ ABRI, later on Tentara Nasional Indonesia/ TNI) . During this period, the Indonesian military institutions performed a wide range of functions beyond the conventional one, namely defense. For a long period of time, the military had been actively engaged in the daily political routines and had enjoyed a deeply rooted existence and influence at the national and local levels of the country’s political and institutiona...