You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
In late 1997 Indonesia's economy went into a tail-spin, culminating in social and political upheavals that saw Soeharto's resignation in May 1998, and resulting in a succession of presidents as Indonesia entered a period of democratization. These events are well known, even to casual observers, but Kees van Dijk has penned a magnificent account of Indonesia between 1997 and 2000 that fleshes out the story in rich detail and analysis. The volume itself closes as the soon to be ousted President Abdurrahman Wahid is facing two major corruption, collusion, and nepotism (korupsi, kolusi, and nepotisme or KKN) scandals and the political forces are arraying against him. The author has clearly sifte...
None
Since 1998, which marked the end of the thirty-three-year New Order regime under President Suharto, there has been a dramatic increase in ethnic conflict and violence in Indonesia. In his innovative and persuasive account, Jacques Bertrand argues that conflicts in Maluku, Kalimantan, Aceh, Papua, and East Timur were a result of the New Order's narrow and constraining reinterpretation of Indonesia's 'national model'. The author shows how, at the end of the 1990s, this national model came under intense pressure at the prospect of institutional transformation, a reconfiguration of ethnic relations, and an increase in the role of Islam in Indonesia's political institutions. It was within the context of these challenges, that the very definition of the Indonesian nation and what it meant to be Indonesian came under scrutiny. The book sheds light on the roots of religious and ethnic conflict at a turning point in Indonesia's history.
Volume 2, Part 2 covers the period from World War II to the present.
When armed insurgents began to attack government soldiers in the Indonesian province of Aceh with increasing frequency in the middle of 1989, it was apparent that this distinctive part of the far-flung republic was adding yet another period of turmoil, rebellion, and blood-letting to those that had marked its history over the previous hundred years. Famous for their long war against the Dutch in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the Acehnese were equally well-known for their willingness to resort to arms to defend their identity and interests against the encroachments of postindependence Indonesian governments. As early as 1953 a rebellion had broken out against the central governm...
Publisher Description
None
Indonesia is a remarkable case study for religious politics. While not being a theocratic country, it is not secular either, with the Indonesian state officially defining what constitutes religion, and every citizen needing to be affiliated to one of them. This book focuses on Java and Bali, and the interesting comparison of two neighbouring societies shaped by two different religions - Islam and Hinduism. The book examines the appropriation by the peoples of Java and Bali of the idea of religion, through a dialogic process of indigenization of universalist religions and universalization of indigenous religions. It looks at the tension that exists between proponents of local world-views and indigenous belief systems, and those who deny those local traditions as qualifying as a religion. This tension plays a leading part in the construction of an Indonesian religious identity recognized by the state. The book is of interest to students and scholars of Southeast Asia, religious studies and the anthropology and sociology of religion.
That natural resources can be a curse as well as a blessing is almost a truism in political analysis. In many late-developing countries, the "resource curse" theory predicts, the exploitation of valuable resources will not result in stable, prosperous states but rather in their opposite. Petroleum deposits, for example, may generate so much income that rulers will have little need to establish efficient, tax-extracting bureaucracies, leading to shallow, poorly functioning administrations that remain at the mercy of the world market for oil. Alternatively, resources may be geographically concentrated, thereby intensifying regional, ethnic, or other divisive tensions. In Hard Times in the Land...