Jean Luc-Maurer, Honorary Professor of Development Studies at the Institute and Faculty Affiliate at the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy, has recently published a book in French entitled Indonésie: l’envol mouvementé du Garuda (Indonesia: Garuda’s turbulent takeoff). This book, whose subtitle is Development, Dictatorship and Democracy, analyses the “3D” relationship between these three elements during the major historical phases Indonesia has gone through since its independence until now, when the country’s economy and democracy are heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this interview, Prof. Maurer highlights this 3D relation that is the connecting thread of his book.

What motivated you to write a book on Indonesia’s development in differing political regimes?

With more than 270 million people, Indonesia is the fourth most populated country in the world. It is also at the crossroads of the Indo-Pacific region where it occupies a unique strategic position. On the political front, it is the third largest democracy on earth and one of the very rare in the Muslim world to which it belongs and counts the highest number of followers. At the economic level, well endowed with natural resources, it is one of the major emerging countries, with a rather good development record since the early 1970s, a member of the G20 and possibly the fourth or fifth biggest economy in the world by 2045, at which time it will celebrate its centenary. In spite of all that, Indonesia remains certainly the most unknown and ignored among major nations. My book aims at filling this knowledge gap, particularly marked in the French literature, by retracing the history of the archipelago’s economic, social and political development.

After independence, proclaimed in 1945, and a four-year devastating national liberation war against the colonial power, Indonesia was ruled by President Sukarno between 1950 and 1966. How was the situation of “3D” under his rule?

Indonesia went through two very different political experiences under that presidency: the first was rather democratic and the second clearly more authoritarian. Neither of these two experiences put the country on the path of sustained economic and social development. Until 1959, in spite of the huge difficulties met from the start – resulting from the burden of colonial heritage, the iniquitous conditions for decolonisation imposed by the Dutch and the very poor state of the economy –, the country seemed able to engage in a promising developmental process. However, the political instability inherent in the commendable but probably premature attempt to establish a regime of western-inspired parliamentarian liberal democracy, ill-adapted to traditional Indonesian political culture, proved to be a major obstacle. In the end, parliamentary democracy resulted in a serious development failure. Thereafter, in 1959 Sukarno imposed his system of Guided Democracy, a presidential regime that was increasingly authoritarian and incompetent, giving priority to foreign policy objectives of national sovereignty claims and struggle against neocolonialism and imperialism, but neglecting economic fundamentals. The economy became a victim of economic nationalism, nonsensical planning and inept strategic choices guided by ideology and ignorance and reflecting the lack of concern by the president for such issues. In sum, the first fifteen years of independence ended up in a severe developmental fiasco.

This fiasco was followed by a 32 year-long authoritarian regime between 1966 and 1998, namely the New Order. How did the 3D relationship fare under authoritarianism?

Starting as a pure military dictatorship, the New Order used and abused coercive measures during these three decades. But it also initiated an undisputable process of economic and social development that Indonesia had been waiting for since independence. Even if one must consider statistics with a critical eye, the main development indicators show that economic growth remained high under the New Order, varying between 5 and 10% a year, and was accompanied by spectacular progress on the social front. Thus, between 1966 and 1996, GDP per capita was multiplied by more than twenty (from around 50 US$ to more than 1000), life expectancy gained almost 15 years (from 50 to 65) and absolute poverty was divided by four (from some 60% to 15%). Education and health indicators improved a lot too. It is certainly exaggerated and inappropriate to depict this as a shining developmental success when one considers the cost of this experience in terms of violence, contempt for the rule of law and deprivation of political and individual rights, without mentioning the havoc of the environment. But it is difficult to contest the fact that this authoritarian regime succeeded in pulling Indonesia out of its chronic underdevelopment.

This developmental success is consistent with the classical modernisation theory, whose most radical advocates have even supported the idea that the army can constitute a key accelerator in a developmental process. However, quantitative figures do not say much on the quality of this process and even less on the real life of Indonesian citizens, deprived of the elementary but fundamental freedom they could have enjoyed under a democratic regime. The elections organised every five years and skilfully manipulated to obtain a large victory for the governmental party cannot be considered as a true democratic expression of trust. On the other hand, different forms of popular protest against the regime did gain force over time, culminating at the end of the New Order when it became unable to “deliver” economic and social progress. But it is the initial success of this developmental process that finally made it possible for these dissenting voices to express themselves, grow in importance and make change possible. To a certain extent, the New Order was a victim of its own success.

What were the relationships of the ensuing democratic transition (1998–2004) with the other two Ds, development and dictatorship?

It is more difficult to draw clear conclusions about that. In fact, it comes down to two questions: how can a transition between dictatorship and democracy take place and what are the conditions for economic and social development in a time of crisis? To answer the first question, let us say that these six years of Reformasi were certainly the most difficult and dangerous for the young Indonesian democracy. In reality, Indonesia almost blew up due to violent regional and religious conflicts. The process of democratisation could have been interrupted at any moment, bringing the country back to authoritarianism. But this was not the case, thanks to the laborious consolidation of democracy led by the three political figures successively appointed to the presidency: B.J. Habibie (1998–99), Abdurhaman Wahid (1999–2001) and Megawati Sukarnoputri (2001–2004). However, the simple fact that Indonesia had three presidents in just six years, gives an idea of the difficulties met. All the institutional reforms they signed (political and press freedom, rights of association, decentralisation laws, independence of East-Timor, reduction of army role, adoption of direct elections at all levels, etc.) made it possible for the country to progress in the right direction. One can even say that the most difficult part was achieved under their leadership and that their successor inherited a situation that was as favourable as possible.

As for the second question, it is obvious that reform frenzy, political instability, the threat of national disintegration and the beginning of a deadly wave of Islamic terrorism did not facilitate the return to favourable conditions for economic and social development. However, considering the true cataclysm that the Asian financial crisis had been for Indonesia in 1997–98, things could have turned much worse. It was miraculous that six years later the country could retrieve a respectable 5% economic growth and a whole set of social indicators rapidly catching up with precrisis levels. Maybe it is due to the fact that this critical period facilitated a better mobilisation of efforts and stimulation of imagination, allowing the emergence of a multitude of new actors coming from civil society and freeing talents that were dormant until that time. Sometimes, a crisis can be beneficial to put back on track a country that was close to derailing. In any case, here too the successor of the unlikely trio who presided over the destiny of Indonesia after 1998 inherited a largely improved situation which made it possible to see the future with optimism.

And yet, democracy has not really kept its promises of  further deepening since 2004. Why is it the case?

During the decade when president Soesilo Bambang Yudyhyono (SBY) was in place from 2004 to 2014, one first saw a deepening process of democratisation taking place during his first five-year term, before registering the disturbing beginning of democratic stagnation during the second. It had no real impact on economic growth, maintained at a yearly pace of 5 to 6% and accompanied by a return to poverty decline, but also by a significant increase of income inequality.

However, being inscribed in a more general context of globalisation and accelerated liberalisation, this democratisation process has also entailed the rise of social inequalities and the widening of the gap between a minority of privileged people, becoming infinitely richer, and the majority of a population, remaining just slightly less poor.

Moreover, democratisation, and the liberalisation of the society it has allowed with the reinforcement of people’s political and civil rights, has also triggered the rise of a growing hostility among the more conservative sections of the population, for the most part linked to Islamic circles, who cultivate a nostalgia of authoritarianism, a period of time when law and order was the rule and when things were clearer, even if it often degenerated in serious excesses that seem to have been forgotten by a population mostly too young to have suffered from them. This becomes truly serious when several political leaders themselves support the idea that the pace of development could be much quicker and its results better under an authoritarian regime than under democracy. So, when SBY finished his second term, development was torn between the necessity to reinforce democracy and the temptation to return to authoritarianism.

Since the arrival to the presidency in 2014 of the unexpected Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and his re-election in 2019, democratic stagnation has been confirmed. The young Indonesian democracy has even started to show signs of regression in some domains like the respect for the rule of law or the struggle against corruption. What some scholars consider as an “illiberal drift” did not have any notable effect on economic growth, which has remained resolutely fixed at the usual yearly 5% rate, in spite of the reforms undertaken by the president to boost development. Besides, poverty has continued to decrease and inequality has ceased to increase, even showing signs of a slight decline. However, having announced at the start of his second mandate that development would be his first priority and that he was aiming at a yearly growth rate of 7 to 8% before its end in 2024, Jokowi has instilled the pernicious idea that a deepening of democracy constituted an obstacle to reach his development goals.

This presidential position is worrying. The government gives a disproportionate priority to the preservation of internal security and to the respect for national sovereignty on the international front. This has naturally resulted in the return of the army in politics, the growing influence of conservative Islamic political parties or organisations and the rise of religious radicalism and intolerance, leading to an increasing degree of illiberalism.

One comes therefore to a paradoxical reversal of history where, after it has been the fruit of a rapid and successful economic and social development conducted by a dictatorial regime that tried hard to avoid its advent, democracy comes to be considered, after a mere twenty years of existence, as an obstacle to the acceleration of the developmental process! Will the quest for a higher level of development result in the end of democracy and the return to authoritarianism and possibly to dictatorship? The loop would be sadly closed!

Do you think the COVID-19 pandemic might unfortunately help close the loop?

The pandemic, which started to infect Indonesia in mid-March 2020 and had already passed the 30,000 deaths mark in early February 2021, has naturally turned the situation totally upside down, like everywhere else on earth. The economy has collapsed here too. Instead of the 7% to 8% growth rate hoped for by the president, the country will register a contraction of around 2% in 2020, the first since the 1998 Asian financial crisis. Unemployment, poverty and inequality are on the rise again. The ambitious development objectives Jokowi had set have been postponed or even abandoned, to make place for a huge rescue financial plan at the cost of a deepening budget deficit. On the health front, the government was quite inefficient to manage the crisis and Indonesia shows by far the worst performance among all ASEAN countries. At the same time, the coercive measures taken to try to control the extension of the virus have given a central role to the army and police, reinforcing the illiberal trend that was already at work. It is therefore most probable that the pandemic will further weaken democracy. The only hope is that Indonesia will manage to survive as a flawed democracy, but a democracy nevertheless, in a region increasingly dominated by authoritarian regimes.

Full citation of the book:

Maurer, Jean-Luc. Indonésie: l’envol mouvementé du Garuda: développement, dictature et démocratie. Graduate Institute Publications, 2021.

Link to the book in open access: https://repository.graduateinstitute.ch/record/298910?ln=e

Interview by Buğra Güngör, PhD Candidate in International Relations and Political Science; editing by Nathalie Tanner, Research Office.

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