Controlling the Local Power and Unmobile Capital in the Decentralized Indonesia
Okamoto Masaaki (CSEAS Kyoto University)
A suppressing canopy of the authoritarian Suharto regime was taken off in 1998 and many regions felt free to express their own demands toward the central government and the local elite put the people in hasty motion to achieve the demands. One of the most intriguing demands and movements from the regions in the democratized and decentralized Indonesia is the demand and movement to establish their own autonomous regions. Some of the regions successfully became autonomous and the number of autonomous regions increased from 26 provinces/314 district and cities in 1998 to 34 provinces/439 districts and cities (2004). For example, Banten province (2000), Bangka-Belitung province (2000), Gorontalo province (2000), Riau Islands province (2002), and West Sulawesi province (2004) were newly born.
In these provinces now, not the outsiders but the local people are gaining the easier access to the local political and economic resources at their own disposal. And the politics “of, by and for” the local people is possibly geared to take off. Within this context, the main question of this paper is about what kind of local political structure and intergovernmental relations are in emergence in these new provinces.
Robison and Hadiz [2004] have ever argued that the oligarchies have had the strong influence at the local level during and after the Suharto regime. It could be true in many regions in Indonesia, but the point to be made is not only about who actually the local oligarchies are but also about how they (try to) manage or control the local politics. This paper will show several types of local political structure in a comparative perspective by taking up three new provinces of Banten, Bangka-Belitung and Gorontalo. Historical trajectory and local economic structure account for the diversity of local politics. And holding the unmobile local capital is the key to local power.
