Few general books are currently available on Indonesia despite its enormous human and economic resources. Hence the importance of this book, which offeres the latest research of internationally respected scholars with extensive first-hand experience in the archipelago. Their particular concern is with the realities of power and the patterns of communication in a society distinguished by both its poverty and its great potential. The contributors to the volume span a wide spectrum of viewpoints, and present various interpretation of Indonesian society. Taken together, however, the essays support the thesis that Indonesia is a "bureaucratic polity"--a political system in which power is hierarchically organized, influence is monopolized by an official elite, and individuals outside officialdom have little effect on events. These authorities examine in depth such subjects as the role of the military, the impact of bureaucracy, the importance of political parties, the character of the mass media, and the direction of economic development as well as other matters essential for an understanding of current development in the country. Political Power and Communications in Indonesia is addressed not only to students of Indonesia or specialists in comparative politics and political development but quite as directly to persons seeking basic information about an extremely interesting and complex society. Its broad coverage makes it a veritable handbook about how government functions in Indonesia. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1978.

Indonesia is undergoing a process of rapid change, with an affluent middle class due to hit 141 million people by 2020. While official statistics suggest that internet penetration is low, over 70 million Indonesians have a Facebook account, the fourth highest group in the world. Jakarta is the Twitter capital of the world with more tweets per minute than any other city around the globe. In the past ten years digitalisation of media content has enabled extensive concentration and conglomeration of the industry, and media owners are wealthier and more politically powerful than ever before. Digital media is a prominent place of contestation between large, powerful oligarchs, and citizens looking to bring about rapid and meaningful change. This book examines how the political agencies of both oligarchs and ‘netizens’ are enhanced by digitalisation, and how an increasingly divergent society is being formed. In doing so, this book enters this debate about the transformations of society and power in the digital age.

This book demonstrates the crucial link between gender and structures of power in democratic Indonesia, and the role of the online news media in regulating this relationship of power. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA) as a theoretical framework, and social actor analysis as the methodological approach, this book examines the discursive representation of three prominent female Indonesian political figures in the mainstream Indonesian online news media in a period of social-political transition. It presents newfound linguistic evidence in the form of discourse strategies that reflect the women’s dynamic relationship with power. More broadly, the critical analysis of the news discourse becomes a way of uncovering and evaluating implicit barriers and opportunities affecting women’s political participation in Indonesia and other Asian political contexts, Indonesia’s process of democratisation, and the influential role of the online news media in shaping and reflecting political discourse.

This book examines the dynamics shaping the economic process of economic liberalisation in Indonesia since the mid-1980's. Much writing on the process of economic liberalisation in developing countries views economic liberalisation as the victory of economic rationality over political and social interests. In contrast, this book argues that economic liberalisation should not be understood in these terms, but rather in the way that political social interests shape processes of economic reform in both a positive and negative sense. Specifically, Rosser argues that economic liberalisation needs to be understood in terms of the extent to which economic crises shift the balance of power and influence within society away from coalitions opposed to reform and towards those in favour of reform. In the Indonesian context, the main coalitions that need to be examined in this respect are the politico-bureaucrats and the conglomerates who have generally opposed reform and mobile capitalists who have generally supported reform. Based on extensive original research, and providing much new material, the book considers the politics of economic policy-making in Indonesia in a range of sectors including the capital market, intellectual property law, the banking industry, and the trade and investment sectors. Analysing why the nature of economic policy in Indonesia has varied over time, this study argues that there is nothing inevitable about a transition to a fully-fledged liberal market order in Indonesia, and outlines possible future scenarios for the country's political economy.

Ethnic tensions in Southeast Asia represent a clear threat to the future stability of the region. David Brown's clear and systematic study outlines the patterns of ethnic politics in: * Burma * Singapore * Indonesia * Malaysia * Thailand The study considers the influence of the State on the formation of ethnic groups and investigates why some countries are more successful in 'managing' their ethnic politics than others.

This revised third edition provides an analysis of Suharto's New Order from its inception to the emergence of B.J. Habibie as President. The author reassesses the New Order's origins and its military roots and evaluates the considerable economic changes that have taken place since the 1960s. He examines Suharto's politics and, in a new chapter, the reasons behind the crisis and Suharto's fall.