The rise of neo-Third Worldism? the Indonesian trajectory and the consolidation of illiberal democracy

Abstract

This article attempts to achieve a number of things: first it links understandings of the contest over democracy in Indonesia with more general theoretical debates about democratisation in the Third World both during and after the Cold War. It then demonstrates how these theoretical debates over the past several decades have intertwined in some notable instances with ongoing domestic political debates in Indonesia, in ways that may be unexpected. It also suggests that the post-cold war world order based on the hegemony of the USA weakens, rather than strengthens, the forces of democratic liberalism in Indonesian society—and reinforces the consolidation of an illiberal form of democracy. Specifically, the article argues that the projection of US power in the post-11 September world is strengthening the impulse towards an emerging ‘neo-Third Worldism’ in Indonesia and elsewhere. This recuperates the most conservative elements of the original 1950s and 1960s Third Wordlism, but is devoid of its earlier progressive and internationalist vision.

Notes

Vedi R Hadiz is in the Department of Sociology at the National University of Singapore, ASI 03–25, 11 Arts Link, Singapore 11750. Email: [email protected].

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On this kind of democracy, see R Robison ‘What sort of democracy? Predatory and neoliberal agendas in Indonesia’, in C Kinnvall K Jonsson (eds), Globalization and Democratization in Asia: the Construction of Identity, New York: Routledge, 2002, pp 92–113.

For a good critical overview of the debates see MT Berger, ‘Old state and new empire in Indonesia: debating the rise and decline of Suharto’s New Order', Third World Quarterly, 18 (2), 1997, pp 321–361.

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The book was published in 1973 by the think-tank he created in Jakarta, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

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Among the major ones were the secular nationalist Indonesian Nationalist Party (pni), which was the unofficial party of Sukarno and which was traditionally supported by the bureaucracy; the Masjumi, which was a ‘modernist’ Islamic party with a support base lying in the small-town petty bourgeoisie; the Nahdlatul Ulama (nu), the ‘traditionalist’ Muslim party, which was both largely Java-based and predominantly rural; and the Indonesian Communist Party (pki), which had survived periods of repression under Dutch rule and then conflict with the Indonesian military. Another major party was the Indonesian Socialist Party (psi), which was the vehicle of the urban intelligentsia—and which appealed to Western traditions of liberalism and social democracy. The 1955 general election resulted in roughly equal support for the Masjumi, nu, pni and pki; however, the psi was almost shut out.

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