Drifting between accommodation and repression: explaining Indonesia's policies toward its separatists

ABSTRACT

A central government facing separatist activities adopts various policies to respond to them. In some cases, the government represses them harshly, while in other cases, it tries to accommodate the separatists’ demands. We currently have two strands in the literature to understand which policies are implemented by the government: the reputation theory and the cost-benefit calculation model. However, neither of them is sufficient to explain Indonesia's policies toward its separatists in Aceh and Papua following democratization. Indonesia's policies toward separatists have been drifting between accommodation and repression. To understand these policy shifts, this paper emphasizes the importance of the inner workings of the central government, introducing two variables: the preferences of national leaders and the existence of veto players. This paper demonstrates that these perspectives are essential in order to fully explain the Indonesian government's policies toward its separatists.

KEYWORDS:

• Separatism
• reputation
• conflict resolution
• Aceh
• Papua

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Sumantra Bose, Kiichi Fujiwara, Adnan Naseemullah, Kazuo Ohgushi, and John Sidel for their comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The two exit interview responses suggest this (Walter, 2009, pp. 61–62). Indeed, Figure 3.8 in Walter (p. 61) suggests that a substantial number of the participants regularly avoided fighting (p. 60).

2. For comparative analyses of the TNI with other Southeast Asian countries’ military forces, see Beeson, Bellamy, and Hughes (2006) and Heiduk (2011).

3. ‘Agreement between the Republic of Indonesia and the Kingdom of the Netherlands Concerning West New Guinea (New York Agreement),’ Indonesia–Netherlands, 15 August 1962. Retrieved from http://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/ID%20NL_620815_AgreementConcerningWestNewGuinea.pdf

4. Organic troops refer to troops originally stationed in the local area and non-organic troops refer to those not originally stationed there.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kentaro Fujikawa

Kentaro Fujikawa holds a degree in Bachelor of Laws from the University of Tokyo. He obtained his Master of Science in Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and his Master of Philosophy in Politics at the University of Tokyo. As of February 2017, he is an MPhil/PhD student in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science.