This book is about how the design of institutional change results in unintended consequences. Many post-authoritarian societies have adopted decentralization—effectively localizing power—as part and parcel of democratization, but also in their efforts to entrench "good governance." Vedi Hadiz shifts the attention to the accompanying tensions and contradictions that define the terms under which the localization of power actually takes place. In the process, he develops a compelling analysis that ties social and institutional change to the outcomes of social conflict in local arenas of power. Using the case of Indonesia, and comparing it with Thailand and the Philippines, Hadiz seeks to understand the seeming puzzle of how local predatory systems of power remain resilient in the face of international and domestic pressures. Forcefully persuasive and characteristically passionate, Hadiz challenges readers while arguing convincingly that local power and politics still matter greatly in our globalized world.

This book provides a fine grained analysis of the internal workings of political parties in Indonesia and compares the political landscape there with party politics in other democracies.

This book explores the role of intellectuals and governance processes in post-authoritarian Indonesia. Focusing on East Java, the author argues that intellectuals have played an increasingly direct and practical role in the exercise of governance at the local level of Indonesian politics. The book provides insights into how the collaboration between intellectuals and local politico-business elites has shaped good governance and democratic institution-building, validating power structures that continue to obstruct political participation in the country. In addition, the book also delves into the contribution of local intellectuals in resolving the contradictions between technocratic ideas and governance practices, in the interest of local elites. Empirical studies included in the book add to the broader literature on the social role of intellectuals, highlighting their role as not just defined by their capacity to produce and circulate knowledge, but also by their particular position in concrete social and political struggle. The author also explores the manner in which relationships between intellectuals, business and political elites and NGOs in local political and economic practices, intersect with national-level contests over power and resources.

The fact that the Malaysian state has managed to maintain a relatively democratic regime, while an authoritarian regime came to power in Indonesia has never been the focus of historical and comparative analyses despite certain cultural, social, and historical affinities between these two countries. This book takes a look at contrasting class structures and alliances, elite cohesion, state strength, as well as differences in political challenges to the state in order to understand two different paths to post-colonial state formation.

In a novel approach to the field of Islamic politics, this provocative new study compares the evolution of Islamic populism in Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, to the Middle East. Utilising approaches from historical sociology and political economy, Vedi R. Hadiz argues that competing strands of Islamic politics can be understood as the product of contemporary struggles over power, material resources and the result of conflict across a variety of social and historical contexts. Drawing from detailed case studies across the Middle East and Southeast Asia, the book engages with broader theoretical questions about political change in the context of socio-economic transformations and presents an innovative, comparative framework to shed new light on the diverse trajectories of Islamic politics in the modern world.