Damien Kingsbury

Many who have followed Indonesian politics have become increasingly dismayed at the failure of the reform movement that followed the political demise of President Suharto in 1998. The glass is not so much half full or empty; rather, it is cracked and leaking. Indonesia now has a democracy, of sorts, after a constitutional coup against the first elected president, Aburrahman Wahid, and the non-pres ... (read more)

So much has been said or written about Indonesia’s political changes since 1998 it might be thought that there was little original that could be added. Then along comes Angus McIntyre with his own particular interpretation of Indonesian politics. McIntyre has long been interested in the psychological make-up of Indonesia’s political leaders and has written some fine papers on the subject, the ... (read more)

Indonesia is a difficult place to write about, because of its inherent complexity and the contested views that surround it. And then there is the sheer time that it takes to get to know the place, or at least to begin to know it, or parts of it. No one book can definitively come to terms with Indonesia’s scattered geography and dozens of cultures, its aliran (streams of influence), religious fac ... (read more)

The intrinsic quality of a state is, in the final instance, determined by that which guarantees its claim to authority. In the case of Indonesia, such guarantee is its military, the Tentara Nasional Indonesia (TNI), while the rebellious, resource-rich province of Aceh has arguably been the site of its most concerted effort. At a time when Western political leaders and most Indonesia scholars champ ... (read more)