Localising Power in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia A Southeast Asia Perspective [Hardcover]

This book is about how the design of institutional change results in unintended consequences. Many post-authoritarian societies have adopted decentralizationeffectively localizing poweras part and parcel of democratization, but also in their efforts to entrench good governance. Vedi Hadiz shifts the attention to the accompanying tensions and contradictions that define the terms under which the localization of power actually takes place. In the process, he develops a compelling analysis that ties social and institutional change to the outcomes of social conflict in local arenas of power.Using the case of Indonesia, and comparing it with Thailand and the Philippines, Hadiz seeks to understand the seeming puzzle of how local predatory systems of power remain resilient in the face of international and domestic pressures. Forcefully persuasive and characteristically passionate, Hadiz challenges readers while arguing convincingly that local power and politics still matter greatly in our globalized world.This book provides an important statement on the underlying social dynamics of local politics in Indonesia following the end of the New Order in 1998. It represents the culmination of a substantial and influential body of work by Hadiz on the political economy of Indonesia's post-authoritarian transition. Critical scholarship at its best, this book is a powerful corrective to those who see decentralization as a one-size-fits-all solution to bad governance. Hadiz convincingly argues that Indonesia's decentralization prompted not the positive outcomes its advocates predicted, but a scramble for local power by corrupt politicians, gangsters and other predators. This is a path-breaking booktheoretically-informed, carefully researched, and strongly comparative. It shows Hadiz's remarkable efforts to draw on literatures that span Southeast Asia and beyond. Sure to be widely read, it will stimulate debate and become a standard source for years to come. This is an importantlÃ*