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Book reviews

Sean Turnell , Henry Sandee , John G. Butcher , Abdurohman , Mike

Douglass , Henk Schulte Nordholt , Leena Avonius & Munafrizal Manan

To cite this article: Sean Turnell , Henry Sandee , John G. Butcher , Abdurohman , Mike Douglass , Henk Schulte Nordholt , Leena Avonius & Munafrizal Manan (2010) Book reviews, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 46:2, 255-267, DOI: 10.1080/00074918.2010.486114

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ISSN 0007-4918 print/ISSN 1472-7234 online/10/020255-13 DOI: 10.1080/00074918.2010.486114

BOOK REVIEWS

David Henley and Peter Boomgaard (eds) (2009) Credit and Debt in Indonesia, 860–1930: From Peonage to Pawnshop, from Kongsi to Cooperative, Institute of

Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore, pp. viii + 195. Cloth: $S69.90.

Credit and Debt in Indonesia, 860–1930 is an important and timely book. A collec-tion of essays by eminent Indonesia scholars covering more than 1,000 years of the country’s economic history, it highlights an area in which Indonesia‘s inancial practices have had an unusual and signiicant impact on broader global trends and institutions. This is particularly apparent with respect to modern micro-inance, making the book of great interest not just to Indonesia specialists and inancial historians but to all those interested in the role of the inancial sector in economic development. The book’s eight chapters are arranged more or less in chronological order. Each is richly informative, but the skilful and seamless way that each builds upon the others makes the whole of this collection even greater than the sum of its parts.

Credit and Debt in Indonesia begins its exploration with two chapters, one by Jan Christie and another by the book’s co-editor, Peter Boomgaard, that explore inancial practices through pre-colonial inscriptions and legal codes. Among the documents examined are those concerned with taxation of one form or another, and with practices related to debt registration, debt clearance, the pawning of land, the levying of interest (regarded as legitimate, and analogous to the natural expansion of crops and livestock) and the issue of debt bondage. The last was a prominent feature of credit arrangements more generally throughout Southeast Asia and, as Christie notes (p. 49), debt was a ‘major route to servitude in early Bali and Java’.

Credit networks established through trust, solidarity and repeated dealings, and often within particular ethnic and religious groups, have long been a key feature of (and, at times, a source of tension and conlict in) Indonesia’s mon-etary and inancial arrangements. Of course, the literature on this issue is vast, but the next three chapters, by Kathryn Wellen, Heather Sutherland and Kwee Hui Kian, respectively provide new insights into the Wajorese commercial diaspora, the Dutch in 18th_{century Sulawesi, and Chinese traders and miners in Java,}

Kali-mantan and the Malacca Strait. Of great interest in each of these chapters is the identiication of the way non-commercial (and semi-commercial) relationships facilitated credit and inancial arrangements in these communities, as well as under-girding their relative economic success more broadly.

The inal two chapters of the book, by Alexander Claver and Jan Luiten van Zanden, take us into the colonial era, and to the struggles between European com-mercial interests and the players and institutions that had gone before them. Both

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chapters are concerned with episodes of inancial crisis – Claver’s essay with the bursting of a inancial ‘bubble’ in Surabaya (then Indonesia’s largest city) in the 1890s, and Luiten van Zanden’s with the efforts of the Dutch colonial authorities to reform rural credit markets through the creation of ‘village banks’ along osten-sibly cooperative lines. In practice, these institutions remained under the close supervision and control of the colonial authorities, but they were moderately suc-cessful in delivering lower interest rates to a certain stratum of the rural popula-tion. In contrast with later Indonesian institutions (such as the justly famous unit desa of Bank Rakyat Indonesia), however, these village banks accumulated little in the way of savings, and thus depended on the colonial state for their capital and loan funds. Luiten van Zanden also details the nationalisation of the pawn-broking sector in 1901 (under the same ‘Ethical Policy’ that brought about the creation of the village banks). This move also had the effect of lowering interest rates in the markets served by the pawn-brokers. Interestingly, the Indonesian ‘model’ of state-owned pawn-broking was copied by a number of other countries in Southeast Asia, notably Burma, which created a near-identical system follow-ing its independence in 1948.

All of the constituent chapters of Credit and Debt in Indonesia are splendid, but none surpasses the introductory essay by David Henley. This superlative treat-ment of Indonesia’s credit arrangetreat-ments and institutions extends beyond the time-frame of the rest of the book to consider events right up to the present day. It takes up with insight and verve some of the great modern debates about the provision of inance – especially to the poor – but always with the lessons of Indo-nesia (and history) in mind. Henley ranges across assessments of ‘what works and what does not’ in micro-inance, of the importance (or otherwise) that should be attached to the regulation of land tenure, of the extraordinary degree of histori-cal continuity in institutions we sometimes regard as ‘novel’, and of the very big question of whether inance drives development – or whether it is development itself that ‘is … the best way to ensure that credit becomes cheaper and more accessible’ (p. 33). It is a virtuoso performance of scholarship and wisdom.

Credit and Debt in Indonesia is one of the best books I have read on the multi-layered history of inance in Indonesia. It certainly deserves a place on the shelves of everyone interested in Indonesia, but it can be read with great proit by all of us who are interested in Asia more broadly, and in the institutions that have shaped our economic circumstances.

Sean Turnell

Macquarie University, Sydney

Mitsuhiro Hayashi (2005) SMEs, Subcontracting and Economic Development in Indonesia: With Reference to Japan’s Experience,

Japan International Cooperation Publishing, Tokyo, pp. 298. ¥4,620.

Sub-contracting in Indonesia has been the topic of a number of studies. There are studies of sub-contracting in the furniture, rattan and brass industries. Several studies have focused on the importance of sub-contracting in the machinery and

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metal industry, which is particularly well suited to the contracting of parts of the production process from larger to smaller irms. This book provides insight into the role that sub-contracting plays in fostering the development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the automobile, motor cycle, agricultural machin-ery and bicycle industries. It differs from other studies in at least two respects. First, it draws comparisons between sub-contracting experience in Japan and Indonesia, and second, it arrives at more optimistic conclusions on the impor-tance of sub-contracting in Indonesia than many other researchers have reached.

The purpose of the study is three-fold. First, it aims at summarising the devel-opment of sub-contracting in the Japanese machinery industry between the 1930s and the 1970s. Second, and this is the central topic of the book, it makes a detailed examination of sub-contracting patterns in the Indonesian machinery industry, based on ield surveys. Third, it seeks to identify similarities and differences in sub-contracting patterns in Japan and Indonesia, with particular reference to their importance for the development of SMEs.

The book has its origins in Hayashi’s PhD dissertation at the Australian National University. This does not always make for an easy read. There is a great deal of detail, much repetition and an abundance of quantitative economic informa-tion and testing of statistical signiicance. The study does, however, offer detailed information on sub-contracting from the perspectives of both large irms and their smaller sub-contractors. The ieldwork on which the study is partly based was done around the year 2000.

The historical overview of Japan’s sub-contracting experience shows that we should not look at sub-contracting in a static way. Its role and importance for smaller irms changes in accordance with developments in the overall economy. Two issues are of particular interest for the discussion of sub-contracting in Indo-nesia. First, Japan’s sub-contracting systems tend to be organised vertically, in the sense that sub-contractors work exclusively for speciic large irms. Second, the Japanese government concentrated on creating a business environment that sup-ported the strengthening of sub-contracting linkages, rather than making it man-datory for large irms to adopt sub-contractors (as has been the case in Indonesia). The core of the book consists of several chapters that discuss SME development in Indonesia and present the results of elaborate ieldwork among large irms and their SME sub-contractors. The author points out that SME labour productivity increased faster in the machinery industry than in other major sectors. The ield studies in Jakarta and Surabaya sought to collect evidence on whether and how sub-contracting had helped to improve the performance of SMEs in Indonesia. This part of the book includes analysis of the costs and beneits of sub-contracting from the viewpoints of both the larger irms and the SME sub-contractors. The study inds that the main beneits of participation in sub-contracting for Indo-nesian SMEs in 2000 were not very different from those for SMEs in Japan in the past. Sub-contracting helps small irms to upgrade their technology and reduces the cost of marketing their goods. The productivity of labour and capital is higher in sub-contractor irms than in small irms in general. There are differences among SMEs in the extent to which they have been able to beneit from sub-contracting. The higher the technological capabilities of large irms, the more SMEs tend to beneit from participation in sub-contracting networks. Parent irms in the Indo-nesian machinery industry did not seek sub-contracting linkages to beneit from

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advanced skills in small irms or to have access to additional capacity in case of sudden increases in demand. Rather, they used sub-contractors with the aim of beneiting from small irms’ lower wages.

At the end of the book the author draws comparisons between the Japanese and Indonesian experience with sub-contracting in the machinery industry. An important difference between the two is that in Japan sub-contracting relation-ships tend to be rather inlexible: larger irms and their sub-contractors set up exclusive networks and do business only with each other. Sub-contracting net-works in Indonesia are much more lexible, and both parent irms and sub-con-tractors have relations with multiple irms. Another important conclusion is that sub-contracting in Indonesia, at least in the machinery industry, is based on busi-ness principles, and appears to be gradually becoming more beneicial for the development of the manufacturing sector.

This book is densely packed with information, and it takes quite an effort to absorb all the details, case studies and qualitative and quantitative data. I look forward to reading an article that summarises the key messages and arguments of the book. It would be interesting to do a follow-up study to see how sub-contracting relations have evolved in the last decade.

Henry Sandee

World Bank, Jakarta

Meryl J. Williams (2007) Enmeshed: Australia and Southeast Asia’s Fisheries, Lowy Institute Paper 20, Lowy Institute for International Policy, Sydney,

pp. xxiv + 147. A$25; available for download free of charge at <http://www.lowyinstitute.org/Publication.asp?pid=714>.

‘Australia and Southeast Asian interests’, Meryl Williams writes, ‘are enmeshed through their ish and ishing connections’ (p. 3). Australia shares a number of ish stocks with Indonesia in the Arafura Sea; southern bluein tuna, so impor-tant to the Australian ishing industry, spawn off the south coast of Java and are caught by Indonesian vessels in that area; many hundreds of Indonesian ish-ing vessels have been detained over the years for ishish-ing illegally in Austral-ian waters; ‘traditional’ IndonesAustral-ian ishers are allowed to operate under certain conditions in a section of Australia’s exclusive economic zone; and nearly half of Australia’s ish imports come from Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand and Vietnam. Most of all, Australia and the countries of Southeast Asia are connected by the common problem of a severe decline in ish populations, brought about by great increases in the number and catching power of ishing vessels, by pollution, and by the destruction of mangroves, coral reefs and seagrass beds. As Enmeshed

makes vividly clear, the collapse of ish populations has an adverse impact on employment, creates tensions both internationally and within national bounda-ries as ishers move about in search of richer ishing grounds, contributes to the overall degradation of ecosystems, and of course threatens food supplies. Wil-liams devotes much of the report to mounting a persuasive case for a ‘proactive regional approach’ to this array of problems.

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The 21-page chapter on Indonesia—the longest in the report—provides the best short account of Indonesia’s isheries that I have read. Williams succinctly describes the current status of different ishery resources including those shared with Australia, the condition of the marine environment, ish supply chains, new laws and policies dealing with illegal ishing, some of the consequences of decen-tralisation, and the government’s involvement in regional initiatives to tackle illegal ishing. Like so many other analyses of Indonesia’s isheries problems, how-ever, the chapter leaves the reader wondering why things happen the way they do. Why is it that so many of the large Chinese trawlers operating in Indonesian waters in recent years ‘are illegal or marginally legal, operating under forged licences or joint ventures of dubious legality’ (pp. 57–8)? Referring to Ministe-rial Decree 17/2006, which mandated that foreign ishing companies must proc-ess their catches in Indonesia, Williams notes that ‘making the new decree fully effective will be a challenge as previous measures of a similar nature have been unsuccessful’ (p. 51). Shortly after Enmeshed was published, Gatra (12/12/2007) reported that the decree was indeed being openly louted. But why was this so predictable? On the inal page of the chapter, Williams observes that the govern-ment ‘is working on reining in domestic forms of illegal ishing, despite the for-midable forces that support them’ (p. 59). But just who or what are these forces? In a four-page section on the Philippines, Williams mentions that ‘commercial and other sectoral interests hold sway over responsible isheries management’ when there is a conlict between the two (pp. 82–3), but her chapter on Indonesia does not go even as far as this.

At least in the recent past, answers to questions of the sort I have raised required some consideration of the workings of the Indonesian state. Until at least 2002, the Indonesian navy had a conlict of interest in the enforcement of isher-ies laws because of its own involvement in the ishing business, particularly in the allocation of licences to Thai companies. At the same time, many nominally Indonesian companies were in fact merely fronts for foreign companies that had various business arrangements with powerful politicians in Jakarta. Laws sup-posedly designed to regulate ishing were rendered ineffective by vague wording and loopholes. Even the trawl ban of 1980 was eventually undermined not only because ishers ‘modiied their ishing practices’ (p. 43) but also because many operators continued using trawl nets under the new name of ‘ish nets’.

Indonesia has changed a great deal in recent years, but any explanation of the government’s apparent inability to regulate isheries must, I suggest, consider the ways in which the different elements of the Indonesian state relate to one another and the extent to which they act autonomously. Only with such an understand-ing will we be able to appreciate the magnitude of the task facunderstand-ing those tryunderstand-ing to transform the management of Indonesia’s isheries.

John G. Butcher

Grifith University

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Pranab Bardhan and Dilip Mookherjee (eds) (2006)

Decentralization and Local Governance in Developing Countries: A Comparative Perspective, MIT Press, Cambridge MA.

During the last two decades there has been a signiicant shift in approach to eco-nomic development, from a centralist to a more decentralised model, in all parts of the developing world. This was brought about mainly by the spread of democ-ratisation movements and the adoption of market principles. Along with deregu-lation and privatisation, the devolution of political, economic and administrative authority to the local government level has become a common phenomenon in Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa.

The current economic literature on decentralisation has focused mainly on its economic aspects, without touching on the political context. The editors of this book, economists Pranab Bardhan and Dilip Mookherjee, provide a broader per-spective, combining both economic and political analysis. They argue in chapter 1 that the political context is an important factor in the performance of decentralisa-tion, strongly inluencing the way it is designed and implemented. They therefore focus their discussion on the historical origins of decentralisation, the underlying motives for it, and its likely performance, in comparative perspective.

The book’s 11 chapters are divided into two parts. The irst part (chapter 1) pro-poses a conceptual framework for classifying and evaluating the diverse decen-tralisation experiences. The second part (chapters 2–11) presents detail on each country case study, covering various aspects of decentralisation, including its his-torical origins, the political context and the design and nature of implementation (particularly the scope and speed). The editors chose as case studies eight devel-oping countries, from three continents, that have made a signiicant shift towards decentralisation: Brazil and Bolivia (Latin America), South Africa and Uganda (Africa), China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan (Asia). India and Pakistan take up two chapters each, to allow the inclusion of sub-case studies of particular regions. The conceptual framework for successful decentralisation proposed in the irst part of the book includes not only responsiveness, as in traditional approaches, but also accountability. ‘Responsiveness’ refers to the notion that policies must be lexible in responding to the needs of citizens. Accountability refers to the ability of citizens to put effective pressure on government oficials who deviate from stated promises. The main reason for the emphasis on accountability is that a key concern of traditional centralised mechanisms of economic policy making and regulation in developing countries has been their vulnerability to corruption and ineficient bureaucracy – that is, their weak accountability.

The purpose of the country case studies is to present a comparative perspective that stresses the political and economic aspects of decentralisation in equal meas-ure. The key contribution of the book to the current literature on decentralisation is the conceptual framework for classifying the diverse experience of decentralising countries, by deining and comparing various aspects of decentralisation. Based on the design and implementation of decentralisation in the eight country case studies, Bardhan and Mookherjee’s overview chapter classiies decentralisation approaches into three types: (i) type A, a comprehensive, big-bang political and economic devolution (Bolivia, Indonesia and post-1994 South Africa); (ii) type B,

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comprehensive political devolution with only partial and uneven economic devo-lution (Brazil and India); (iii) type C, limited political devodevo-lution with more sig-niicant administrative and economic devolution (China, Pakistan, Uganda and pre-1994 South Africa).

A conluence of economic and political factors characterised Indonesia’s expe-rience of decentralisation, as reported in the chapter by Bert Hofman and Kai Kaiser. The economic and political upheaval following the economic crisis in the late 1990s triggered a big-bang (type A) decentralisation. The iscal, administra-tive and political autonomy of local government has thus increased signiicantly. As a result, say the authors, public participation in and scrutiny of government have lourished in Indonesia. The question, however, is whether they will serve as a bridge to enhance accountability. The answer must be a matter for future assess-ment, because accountability is critical, given the initial conditions of governance and service delivery underlying Indonesia’s decentralisation.

This book is an excellent addition to the literature on decentralisation. It pro-poses a broad and innovative conceptual framework and presents insightful perspectives on various new issues in decentralisation. Last, but not least, read-ers will ind the book both interesting and easy reading because of its clear and informative presentation.

Abdurohman

ANU

Christopher Silver (2008) Planning the Megacity: Jakarta in the Twentieth Century, Routledge, London and New York, pp. 262. Cloth: $67.50.

Christopher Silver has written a highly accessible in-depth study of Jakarta in the 20th_{century. Following the introduction, devoted to a personal account of irst}

impressions of the city in 1989, chapter 1 sets off with the observation that Jakarta can best be seen as a composite of villages rather than as a system of urban neigh-bourhoods. The chapter covers historical episodes in the formation of Jakarta from Dutch colonial times. Arguing that understanding the morphology and dynamics of Jakarta requires a comparative perspective, the author also includes snapshot discussions of other major cities in Southeast Asia.

Chapters 2 and 3 cover the latter part of the colonial era, from 1900 to the advent of the New Order under Soeharto, and Jakarta’s management under Governor Ali Sadikin up to the early 1980s. The focus is mostly on physical planning, particularly master plans, and on illustrating how the city’s expansion was more guided than much of the literature has allowed. However, the author concludes that major intentions were not realised, in part because local government efforts continued to be overshadowed by uncoordinated planning through central bureaucracies. Thus a city-wide rapid transit system yielded to highway systems, promoting the growth in automobile ownership that has exacerbated trafic congestion and air pollution. Private sector development of exclusive gated new towns also supplanted government plans for suburban

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centres to accommodate Jakarta’s rapidly expanding population of all income classes.

Chapters 4 and 5 focus on speciic urban issues: kampung upgrading and hous-ing; transport to facilitate the development of huge new suburban towns outside Jakarta; and revitalisation of the urban core. The author illustrates how govern-ment has attempted to manage tensions such as those between historical preser-vation and the creation of new urban landscapes in the land developers’ quest for proit. Chapter 6 follows the unfolding logic of a rapidly opening urban economy by proclaiming Jakarta’s transition from ‘urban village to world city’.

The impact of the 1997–98 crisis and subsequent political reform are the sub-jects of the inal chapter, which ends as the book began, with personal observa-tions made while passing through the city, this time (in 2006) recounting the great changes that had taken place over almost two decades. Democracy, devolution of political power to local levels and the renewed intensive expansion of Jabod-etabek (Jakarta and the surrounding metropolitan area, including Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi) are among the major dynamics at play. In the book’s inal section on ‘visions for the future’, the sense of continuing and new crises is jux-taposed with the hope that a new day has arrived, with possibilities for a more human-centred, democratic planning process that is ‘safe and sustainable’.

The book does leave a few important elements for the reader to discover else-where. The chapters stay close to the ground and do not engage with concepts or theories explaining the political economy of planning in Jakarta. Even the com-parisons with other Southeast Asian cities are descriptive rather than systematic or analytical. Changing global–local dynamics too are left out of the discussion. There is no analysis of the opening of Indonesia from the mid-1980s to global capital, accompanied by the imposition of a neoliberal policy agenda through the World Bank and later the IMF, and linked with a new global era of mega-projects, inanced by international developer consortia, which transformed Jakarta’s built environment. For the irst time in history, consortia of Japanese, Korean, overseas Chinese and domestic investment appeared to build Kota Wisata and other new towns, the Kuningan Golden Triangle and the massive shopping malls, and to absorb local production and services into global enterprises. Likewise, the dereg-ulation of land-use controls and private enterprise in Indonesia from the mid-1980s substantially weakened government’s ability to prevent the in-illing of the metropolitan region from occurring in an environmentally destructive manner, which is now causing horriic looding in Jakarta almost every year.

Another issue that deserves more discussion is the author’s claim that post-independence elites adopted western urban values, implying the establishment of a planning bureaucracy that had the public interest in mind. As accurate as this might be in terms of the creation, in principle, of a meritocracy of public plan-ning bureaus, Indonesia’s New Order government was equally well known for its authoritarian ‘developmental state’, which used the mantle of development to justify command planning, limiting freedom of speech and participatory govern-ance – the antithesis of those western values. This developmental ideology was also embedded in broader political projects of post-colonial nation building and internal colonisation of the outer reaches of the archipelago.

While the book directly takes up the issue of social cleavages in its discussion of ethnicity and Chinese enclaves, its most striking omission is any discussion of

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religion. The post-Soeharto shift towards political contestations connected to glo-bal religious meta-narratives raises key questions about the urban condition and the politics of urban planning in Indonesia. Such questions need to be included in any assessment of Jakarta over the past decade and into the foreseeable future. These comments are intended to point towards dimensions that could enhance the author’s exposition. They do not lessen the overall assessment that Planning the Megacity is a rich and comprehensive account and a rare and welcome contri-bution to the literature on urban development and planning, not just for Jakarta but for any city.

Mike Douglass

University of Hawaii

Marcus Mietzner (2008) Military Politics, Islam and the State in Indonesia: From Turbulent Transition to Democratic Consolidation,

Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore, pp. vi + 426. Paper: S$49.90/US$39.90; Cloth: S$69.90/US$52.90.

This book presents, to my knowledge, the best study to date of political develop-ments in Indonesia between 1997 and 2007. It provides a superbly documented analysis of (1) the regime change that took place in 1998; (2) the role of the armed forces in modern Indonesian history; (3) political developments among the main Muslim groups; and (4) the dynamics of military–civilian relationships since 1998. As such, the book offers much more than this brief review can discuss.

The main argument of the study is two-fold. First, the nature of the regime change in 1998 determined the outcome of political developments in the post-Soeharto period; second, the relationship between the main Muslim groups (tra-ditionalists and modernists) determined the extent to which the armed forces were allowed to intervene in politics.

Between 1998 and 2004, conlicts between traditionalist and modernist Muslims allowed many elements of the New Order landscape to survive and inluence the political agenda of the post-Soeharto era. This environment enabled the military to maintain a strong bargaining position. A telling illustration of this development is the changing attitude of the Muslim modernist, Amien Rais. In 1998, as one of the leaders of reformasi, he considered the sidelining of the military as the greatest challenge of the reform period. Five years later, in 2003, he argued that civilian politicians could not do without the stabilising inluence of the military.

After 2004 the power balance between civilians and the military changed, because declining tensions among the main Muslim groups allowed for stronger civilian control of the armed forces. Because of the oscillating nature of these proc-esses, military reform in Indonesia did not follow a linear path.

In order to clarify his argument, Mietzner has divided his book into four parts, each with parallel chapters on the military and civilian politics. Chapters 1 and 2 cover the years between 1945 and 1997, and analyse the histori-cal legacies that framed developments after 1998. They also show the extent to

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which the military were entrenched in state and society, while the Muslim com-munity was divided, with its traditionalist and modernist wings rarely able to cooperate.

Chapters 3 and 4 discuss the fall of Soeharto and analyse both military faction-alism and competition and conlict among Muslim politicians. Moderate military oficers managed to mitigate the effects of reform measures, while the inability of Muslim politicians to form a united front aborted fundamental regime change.

Chapters 5 and 6 describe the years between 1999 and 2004, when the mili-tary successfully adapted to the new circumstances, while civilian politicians fell prey to intense rivalry. This enabled the military to intervene in the political domain, where they were instrumental in the fall of President Abdurrahman Wahid in 2001.

Chapters 7 and 8 discuss the Yudhoyono presidency and the declining role of the military, a trend paralleled by a stabilisation of the civilian polity. Grow-ing consensus among Muslim politicians narrowed the room for the military to manoeuvre, and the consolidation of democracy marginalised their role in politics.

This does not imply that the armed forces are now fully under democratic civil-ian control. The military’s territorial command structure and privileged business activities provide it with autonomous sources of power and income. Meanwhile it is still impossible to bring violations of human rights to court, owing to the mili-tary’s apparent continued immunity from legal investigation.

Marcus Mietzner started this research in 1997 and observed political develop-ments on the spot, managing to interview high-ranking actors. As a result his book is empirically strong, but it is also theoretically well embedded. It will become a standard work in the same category as those by Herbert Feith on political devel-opments in the 1950s and Harold Crouch on the military under the New Order. It is therefore essential reading for everybody seriously interested in Indonesian politics.

Henk Schulte Nordholt

KITLV, Leiden

Edward Aspinall (2009) Islam and Nation: Separatist Rebellion in Aceh, Indonesia, Stanford University Press, Stanford, pp. 312. Paper: US$21.95; Cloth: US$55.00.

Islam and Nation is a welcome addition to research on Aceh’s separatist conlict. A careful study of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), this book is a victory of aca-demic craftsmanship during this era of rushed production. Aspinall spent an entire decade working on it, and the results are rewarding. Unlike many other studies of the Aceh conlict, Aspinall’s work is well informed and free of moralis-ing statements.

The book is divided into two parts. The irst four chapters outline GAM’s his-torical roots and its development under Indonesia’s New Order rule. Part of the book’s attraction is that its focus is on the movement itself rather than on the

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events of the conlict. GAM turns out to be a rather typical rebel movement, with kinship networks and charismatic leaders. Its methods of justifying its actions and building up the enemy’s image through processes of ‘othering’ are also not uncommon.

Aspinall provides the reader with plenty of new information and eye-opening details about the less well-known periods of the 1970s and 1980s. As is the case with so many other insurgencies, GAM’s initial core group consisted of the children of families that took part in a previous rebellion – in Aceh’s case the 1950s Darul Islam rebellion in pursuit of an Islamic state. Gradually, however, GAM leaders moved further away from Islamic argumentation and formulated a more secular and nationalist rationale for separatism. This transformation was important for GAM’s survival and growth. The book shows how its exiled lead-ers made use of global political divisions for their own struggle. At the same time, the GAM supporter proile in Aceh changed from urban intelligentsia to less-educated and tougher young men in the countryside. The key to GAM’s success was adaptation.

In the four later chapters the author deals with the post-Soeharto period, which formed a peak in GAM’s popular support, as Acehnese civil society groups devel-oped congruent ideas about the province’s status in Indonesia. When the calls for a referendum failed in 1999 and the political leaders of Aceh and Indonesia offered an old solution to the ‘Aceh problem’ by introducing syariah law, the province soon returned to full-scale civil conlict. Like civil conlicts elsewhere, Aceh’s conlict has been complex, motivated by both greed and grievances. Divi-sions between GAM and government troops and between combatants and civil-ians have become blurred. Global post–Cold War discourses on human rights and democratisation have also inluenced the dynamics of conlict in Aceh. Through his highly systematic method, Aspinall illustrates how one should approach such a dificult ield of study. He picks up a debate and carefully examines what kinds of arguments are put forward by the media and public speeches and by the numerous individuals interviewed for the book. He contextualises each debate locally and globally, without forgetting to frame the analysis within theories of conlict and nationalism.

In view of the vast scope of his study, it is surprising that Aspinall makes no reference to the female combatants of GAM. As a result, GAM is presented as an exclusively male rebel group. Considering that two important themes discussed in the book are Islamic syariah law and violence against civilians, I think that a more gendered perspective could have enriched the analysis further. But, as the author himself points out, the book is the irst outline of the history of Aceh’s sep-aratist conlict. An outstanding pioneer work, Islam and Nation will surely stand as an invitation to scholars both in Aceh and beyond to examine the conlict from other perspectives.

Leena Avonius

Aceh Research Training Institute (ARTI), Banda Aceh

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Denny Indrayana (2008) Indonesian Constitutional Reform 1999–2002: An Evaluation of Constitution-making in Transition, Kompas Book

Publishing, Jakarta, pp. xxiii + 463. Paper: Rp 65,000.

Valina Singka Subekti (2008) Menyusun Konstitusi Transisi: Pergulatan Kepentingan dan Pemikiran dalam Proses Perubahan UUD 1945 [Making a Transitional

Constitution: The Struggle of Interests and Ideas in the Process of Indonesian Constitutional Change], RajaGraindo Persada,

Jakarta, pp. lix + 435. Paper: Rp 78,000.

These two books approach the topic of Indonesian constitutional reform from the perspective of different disciplines. Indrayana’s study is based on a constitutional law perspective, and examines the process and outcomes of constitutional amend-ment from within the context of constitutional theory. He compares Indonesia’s experience with that of other countries, with particular reference to South Africa and Thailand. By contrast, Subekti approaches the topic from the perspective of political science, focusing on contestation by political actors around ive crucial issues: the basis of the Indonesian state and religion; the People’s Representative Council; the Regional Representative Council; the People’s Consultative Assem-bly (MPR); and the direct presidential election system.

The material for these books is derived from library and ield research. The authors collected data from both primary and secondary sources. Interviews were conducted with important igures involved in the constitution-making process – 20 in the case of Indrayana and 13 in that of Subekti. This is the strength of the books.

Indrayana concludes that constitutional reform in Indonesia between 1999 and 2002 did not meet the standard of a democratic constitution-making process, because ‘the amendment schedule constantly changed; there was no clear plan or objective; short-term political interests contaminated the amendment proposals; the MPR failed to win the people’s trust in its capacity as a constitution-making body; and the public participation processes arranged by the MPR were limited and badly organised’ (p. 385). Nevertheless, he admits that the content of the constitutional amendments has contributed signiicantly to the making of a more democratic constitution and the establishment of a democratic country (p. 387).

By contrast, Subekti concludes that the process of amendment was coloured by four main characteristics: mutual competition; the struggle of interests; bargain-ing; and compromise among political actors. In the debate about the ive crucial issues, the political actors tended to create a ‘checks and balances’ mechanism among state institutions, and this helped to build a democratic political system. However, the debate was inluenced by political party identities and interests that affected the relationships among political parties during the amendment process (p. 313–5).

These books provide a portrait of the study of constitutionalism by Indonesian constitutional lawyers and political scientists. In Indonesia, this ield has long been dominated by constitutional lawyers, with less attention paid to it by politi-cal scientists. Many books on the subject have been published by constitutional lawyers, but few by political scientists. Indrayana’s book reinforces the

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tion of the ield by constitutional lawyers, while the work by Subekti represents the effort of a political scientist to revive the study of constitutionalism.

Both authors have produced detailed and readable works on constitutional amendment in Indonesia. Each book is based on a doctoral dissertation, and the two complement each other. Both will be of interest to those concerned with the dynamics of contemporary Indonesian constitutionalism, and together they pro-vide the perspectives of constitutional law and political science.

Munafrizal Manan

University of Al-Azhar Indonesia, Jakarta