Richard Robison

At almost 500 pages and 25 chapters, this is a lengthy and densely packed edited collection. Such a format has advantages. It enables the editors to cover a vast range of topics. We can find assessments of political, economic and military relations between Australia and Indonesia and insights into specific areas of collaboration in policing, military, youth, women and justice. There are also chapters that focus on difficult aspects of the relationship where the potential for misunderstanding and disagreement is high. Among these are chapters on Bali, asylum seekers and people smuggling, Islam, Papua and human rights. We also find assessments of surveys of Australian attitudes towards Indonesia and narratives of academics from both countries...

Few countries have been burdened with such great expectations as Indonesia and have failed to meet them in the ways expected. Economists have persistently predicted that Indonesia could be an economic giant in the region, challenging the state-led economies of Northeast Asia on the basis of free market policies. After the fall of Soeharto in 1998, pluralist political scientists saw Indonesia as a shining light for democratic transition. More recently, Indonesia has been hailed as a model for how democracy might work in a Muslim-majority country. Yet, we are still waiting for a new economic giant to emerge while democracy has not been able to resolve growing concentration of power and wealth in Indonesian society or to stem growing social resentment. Reactionary Islamic populism has often threatened Indonesia's reputation for religious moderation. Why have so many analysts had such great expectations of Indonesia and how have they explained the seeming disappointments? We propose that the institutions of markets and democracy are not a good starting point for explaining things. The problem lies in the way economic and social power is constructed and in the interests of powerful oligarchies that continue to dominate the political and economic landscape.

Populist politics have become more prominent in Indonesia. On the one hand, this is indicated by the presidential elections of 2014, when two rival candidates brandished somewhat different nationalist populist ideas. On the other hand, historically rooted secular nationalist and Islamic-oriented forms of populism have become entangled within elite conflicts. The context is discontent about perceived systemic injustices unaddressed in nearly two decades of decentralised democracy after a prior three decades of centralised authoritarian rule. In the absence of liberal and Leftist challenges to the entrenched oligarchy, politics is becoming characterised by competition between different populisms. But rather than being transformative, these populisms are harnessed to the maintenance of oligarchic domination.

It is argued in this study that the trajectory of Islamic politics in Indonesia has been shaped within larger processes of state formation and socio-economic and political changes associated with the advance of the market economy and the pressures of globalisation. It incorporates the Indonesian case into a vast and well-developed debate that has hitherto focused on North Africa and the Middle East. As such it offers a distinct interpretation that goes beyond the prevailing understanding of Islamic politics in Indonesia as the product of conflicts over ideas, doctrine or culture or the institutional requisites of authoritarianism or democracy. Specifically, it is proposed that Islamic politics has been underpinned variously by the conservatism of small propertied interests, the populism of marginalised urban and small town middle classes and the ambitions of the upper middle classes and business. While these dynamics are found across much of the Muslim world, the political outcomes have been diverse. We show that the Indonesian trajectory has been greatly influenced by the failure of Islamic politics to establish effective cross-class alliances behind the banners of Islam and the ability of the secular state to effectively establish its own apparatus of populist politics.

Most academics are pleased if they are able to exercise some influence in one particular field of intellectual debate over the course of their career. Chalmers Johnson, in contrast, played a key role in at least four of the critical debates in international and comparative politics since the 1970s. He was the author of invariably controversial propositions that were variously to question the underpinnings of orthodoxy and more radical opinion. Much of the energy expended in these debates was often consumed with defending or attacking the Johnson position.

Comparative politics has witnessed periodic debates between proponents of contextually sensitive area studies research and others who view such work as unscientific, noncumulative, or of limited relevance for advancing broader social science knowledge. In Southeast Asia in Political Science: Theory, Region, and Qualitative Analysis, edited by Erik Martinez Kuhonta, Dan Slater, and Tuong Vu, a group of bright, young Southeast Asianists argue that contextually sensitive research in Southeast Asia using qualitative research methods has made fundamental and lasting contributions to comparative politics. They challenge other Southeast Asianists to assert proudly the contributions that their work has made and urge the rest of the comparative politics discipline to take these contributions seriously. This symposium includes four short critical reviews of Southeast Asia in Political Science by political scientists representing diverse scholarly traditions. The reviews address both the methodological and the theoretical orientations of the book and are followed by a response from the editors.

This paper examines the origins and outcomes of the currency crisis in Indonesia. On the question of origins, we argue that the crisis is best understood as the product of important shifts in political and social power which took place in the 1980s and which gave rise to the problems of debt and overextended banking systems. On the question of outcomes, we argue that, given the nature of political and social power in Indonesia, there is nothing inevitable about a transition to liberal markets. Other outcomes including maintenance of the status quo and complete chaos represent strong possibilities.

It is argued in this article that a range of conservative and authoritarian political ideologies have been presented by their Asian proponents as culturally embodied in Asian society. By doing this they seek to insulate their position from both domestic and international critics. However, the organic‐statist values implicit in ‘Asian values’ come under pressure as industrial capitalism transforms Asian society and the region's economics become internationalized. Ironically, ‘Asian values’ is hailed as a model for the future by market‐oriented neo‐conservatives in the West. These find common cause in the particular amalgam of social conservatism with policies emphasizing economic growth.

The main argument advanced in favour of the Hawke government's reform of higher education, as contained in the recent White Paper, relates to the imperatives of economic restructuring. A more ‘relevant’ and ‘responsive’ higher education system is, according to the government, the necessary basis of a more advanced and internationally competitive economy. We argue below, however, that the reforms are premised on a false assumption: that the private sector in Australia is capable of and/or interested in exploiting the expected boost in graduates and research for the purposes of developing new technologies and competitive advantages. Indeed, the government has found it necessary to intervene in a centralist manner to induce the appropriate response in the private sector. This is justified as market‐facilitating. In reality it is an act of faith which contradicts both the capacity and agenda of the private sector in Australia.