In this seminar, General Agus Widjojo shared about the challenges to preserve the results of Indonesian military reform that have been championed for over 20 years.
In this seminar, Mr Ardhitya Eduard Yeremia Lalisang addresses the Indonesian elite’s perception of rising China and the impact of these perceptions on Indonesia’s policy towards China.
In this seminar, Ms Okky Madasari examines and compares two controversial Indonesian short stories written five decades apart.
INDONESIA STUDIES PROGRAMME SEMINAR
About the Seminar
How widespread is vote buying in Indonesia? Although there has been a burst of scholarly and non-scholarly writings on the topic in the last few years, little is known about how many voters receive material incentives from politicians. This research offers a systematic answer to fundamental questions about the intensity of vote buying at parliamentary and local executive elections in Indonesia. Using data from a nationally representative survey, it demonstrates that vote buying has become central to electoral mobilisation in Indonesia. One out of three Indonesians was personally exposed to vote buying in most recent national legislative election, making the country the site of the third-largest reported sum of exchange of money for votes in the world. This study argues that candidates and brokers actually intend to target partisan voters, but in reality they mostly distribute benefits to voters who are politically rather indifferent, but who are embedded in personal networks through which they are connected to the candidate. Given their reliance on personal networks, most candidates and brokers typically misidentify non-partisans as loyalists because they misinterpret personal connections as partisan leanings. If vote buying is so misdirected, why do candidates invest so heavily in it? This study found that offers of vote buying in legislative elections influenced the vote choice of an estimated ten percent of total respondents. In this seemingly low number, however, lies the key to vote buying’s attractiveness. That ten percent effect of vote buying is sufficient for many candidates to secure their seats, explaining why they still engage in vote buying despite high levels of leakage. By proposing that vote buying in Indonesia is a function of achieving narrow victory margins, the study explains how and why vote buying is so prevalent in Indonesia.
About the Speaker
Burhanuddin Muhtadi is a PhD candidate under the Australia Awards Scholarship in the Department of Political and Social Change, in the Coral Bell School of Asia-Pacific Affairs, at ANU. He is a lecturer in “Election and Voting Behaviour” at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University in Jakarta. He is also an executive director of the Indikator Politik Indonesia and Director of Public Affairs at the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI). His research interests are voting behaviour, social movement, political Islam, and democracy. He also published his articles in the Asian Studies Review, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies (BIES), Asian Journal of Social Sciences, Asian Journal of Social Policy, Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies, New Mandala, and East Asia Forum.
Registration
For registration, please fill in this form and email to iseasevents3@iseas.edu.sg by 11 April 2018.
INDONESIA STUDIES PROGRAMME
About the Seminar
A number of important changes that have been transforming Indonesia’s economy, society, and politics are shaping this country’s future trajectory of development and democratic consolidation. Against the backdrop of these key developments, the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute commissioned a nation-wide survey to enhance our understanding of public perceptions of economic, social, and political issues in Indonesia. The survey collects public opinion data in a wide range of areas, fielding questions on macroeconomic performance, economic policy, the state, political participation, political parties, infrastructure, Islam, ethnicity, and international relations. Data were drawn from a nationally representative sample of 1,600 respondents in all 34 provinces in Indonesia to ensure countrywide representation of opinions and attitudes. Conducted in the wake of the Jakarta gubernatorial election, where certain religious and ethnic fault-lines were accentuated, the findings of this survey provide important and useful data for understanding the recent cleavages in Indonesian politics and society.
About the Speakers
Diego Fossati is a Research Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute and an Associate Fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. He studies voting behavior, democratization and development in low and middle-income countries, with an empirical concentration on Indonesia and Southeast Asia. He was trained as a political scientist at Cornell University, where he earned a PhD in January 2016 with a dissertation on the politics of health insurance for the poor in decentralized Indonesia. His research has been published or is forthcoming in leading peer-reviewed international journals such as World Development, European Journal of Political Research, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Journal of East Asian Studies and Contemporary Southeast Asia.
Hui Yew-Foong is Senior Fellow with the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute and Associate Professor at Hong Kong Shue Yan University. His research interests include the Chinese overseas in Southeast Asia, religion and politics in Southeast Asia, decentralization in post-Suharto Indonesia, and heritage politics. Besides Singapore, he has conducted multi-sited field research in Indonesia, East Malaysia, China and Hong Kong. He is the author of Strangers at Home: History and Subjectivity among the Chinese Communities of West Kalimantan, Indonesia, co-author of Different Under God: A Survey of Church-Going Protestants in Singapore and co-editor of Citizens, Civil Society and Heritage-Making in Asia.
Siwage Dharma Negara is Fellow with the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. He is currently an editorial member of Journal of Southeast Asian Economies. Before joining ISEAS, he was a researcher with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI). His current research interests include development policy, regional connectivity, industrial and trade competitiveness with special focus on Indonesia. He received his PhD from the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Registration
For registration, please fill in this form and email to iseasevents3@iseas.edu.sg by 6 September 2017.
INDONESIA STUDIES PROGRAMME
About the Seminar
Christianity has experienced rapid growth in Indonesia in the past few decades. Such proliferation has raised anxiety among some Muslims who fear “Christianisation” due to aggressive proselytising by Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians in majority Muslim areas. This fear – whether real or phantom – has had material consequences, as exemplified by the massive rallies held by hard line Islamists in late 2016 that culminated in the imprisonment of the former Chinese Christian governor of Jakarta. Christians, on the other hand, have also perceived the rising “Islamization” in Indonesia as a menace. The reasons behind this “conservative turn” (Fealy 2006) are multiple and complex. The obvious ones are the opening of the public sphere in the process of post-Suharto democratization, the rising influence of puritanical forms of Islam from the Middle East, and other international factors such as the “war on the terror”. However, Fealy (2006) further argues that this rising conservatism could also be caused by a backlash towards the liberal movement within Islam in their attempt to reform Islam. What may be equally concerning is the concomitant reactionary conservative force within Christianity which works in tandem with the rising Islamic conservatism in Indonesia today.
In light of the current situation, this presentation explores the ways in which Christian Indonesians navigate the multicultural environment of otherness, and the treacherous waters of increasing religious intolerance. Upon giving an overview of the diversity within Indonesian Christianity, the paper discusses the tension and competition between Christianity and Islam, as well as among different denominations in negotiating plurality within Christianity. Finally, the paper examines the possibility of “religious multiculturalism” – a concept that involves an active state in protecting religious minorities and an incorporation of the inclusive Pancasila national ideology – as a framework to accommodate Indonesia’s multi-religiosity.
About the Speaker
Hoon Chang Yau is Director of the Centre for Advanced Research, and Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Institute of Asian Studies, University of Brunei Darussalam. He is also currently Visiting Fellow at ISEAS-Yusok Ishak Institute, and Adjunct Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia (UWA).
In his previous appointment as Assistant Professor of Asian Studies and Sing Lun Fellow at Singapore Management University, Dr Hoon was awarded the SMU Teaching Excellence Award (2012) and SMU Research Excellence Award (2014).
He is the author of the monograph, Chinese Identity in Post-Suharto Indonesia: Culture, Media and Politics (2008, Sussex Academic Press), which has translations in Chinese and Indonesian. He is the co-editor of Chinese Indonesians Reassessed: History, Religion and Belonging (Routledge, 2013), and Catalysts of Change: Ethnic Chinese Business in Asia (World Scientific, 2014). His articles have appeared in refereed journals including International Sociology, Asian Studies Review, South East Asia Research, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Asian Ethnicity and Social Compass, among others.
Registration
For registration, please fill in this form and email to iseasevents3@iseas.edu.sg by 17 July 2017.
INDONESIA STUDIES PROGRAMME
About the Seminar
The seminar will discuss the involvement of the Indonesian trade union movement in two different, yet closely related, events in 2010 and 2014, and its future trajectory.
The first was the movement’s involvement in the 2010 social security campaign, which has encouraged the emergence of a new kind of trade union movement in an unprecedented way, manifesting itself in the Action Committee for Social Security Reform (Komite Aksi Jaminan Sosial, KAJS), which is a national alliance of unions pushing for the reforms of the universal social security system.
The second event was its involvement in the electoral politics through legislative and presidential elections in 2014, as well as the opportunities and challenges that accompany it. The presentation will show that in its efforts to become an effective political power, the Indonesian trade union movement has been quite successful in the social security campaign, whereas it generally has not been so successful in its electoral politics experimentation. There was an overestimation of their strength coming on the back of their previous success in the social security campaign. Moreover, the over-dominance of leaders and the sectorial ego has also contributed to the failure.
These two events, nevertheless, show the importance of societal power and the potential of the trade union movement in garnering alternative class political power in Indonesia. Learning from the 2014 experience, the discussion will also touch upon the prognosis of the involvement of the trade unions in the 2019 presidential election.
About the Speaker
Surya Tjandra is public attorney and expert on Indonesian trade unions and labour issues. He is a labour activist-turned academic affiliated with the Jakarta-based organization, the Trade Union Rights Centre, and lecturer on Labour Law at Atma Jaya Catholic University, Jakarta.
Dr Tjandra completed his PhD on “Labour Law and Development in Indonesia” at Van Vollenhoven Institute, Leiden University, the Netherlands, in 2016. He has published extensively on these issues, including “Kompilasi Putusan Pengadilan Hubungan Industrial Terseleksi: 2006-2007” (2008), which was the first compilation of the newly established Industrial Relations Courts’ decisions in Indonesia, and “Makin Terang Bagi Kami: Belajar Hukum Perburuhan” (2006), which provides an alternative socio-legal approach on the labour law studies in Indonesia.
In 2015, Dr Tjandra became one of the top 8 candidates to lead the Corruption Eradication Commission, the anti-graft agency of Indonesia.
Registration
For registration, please fill in this form and email to iseasevents3@iseas.edu.sg by 5 July 2017.
INDONESIA STUDIES PROGRAMME
About the Seminar
On 9 May 2017 – less than a year after his purportedly blasphemous speech – the former Jakarta Governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, was convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to two years imprisonment. The case and the verdict that followed polarized Indonesians: on one end of the spectrum, there are those who believe he should be freed of trumped-up charges of blasphemy; on the other end, are individuals and groups who thought that his sentence was inadequate.
In any case, the blasphemy saga surrounding Ahok – due to its high profile and politically-charged nature – has emerged as a test case not only for religious tolerance in Indonesia, but also for the rule of law and politicization of religion. It raises crucial questions: were the charge, prosecution, and conviction legally justified? To what extent do ethno-religious issues factor into the overall development and outcome of the case? What were the broader political circumstances at play?
This presentation will highlight the interaction between law and politics in the Blasphemy Law conviction involving the former Jakarta governor and in cases implicating issues of religion, more generally. It will argue that law (and law enforcement) cannot be separated from the games of power and broader politics of society. The governor’s conviction places the rule of law and democracy in Indonesia at a critical juncture, but more importantly, the context of the case indicates a strengthening susceptibility to the politicization of ethno-religious sentiments. The presentation will also draw on similar experiences from neighbouring countries in Asia.
About the Speaker
Dian A. H. Shah is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Asian Legal Studies, National University of Singapore (NUS). She graduated with an LL.B from the University of Warwick and earned her doctorate and masters degrees from Duke University. Her research interests span the fields of constitutional history, comparative constitutional law, and human rights, focusing on issues arising from the interaction between law, religion, and politics in Asia. She has spent a considerable amount of time researching in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka. Dian has previously published her works in several international journals and collaborative academic publications and is also a frequent guest lecturer at selected universities in Indonesia. She recently completed her first monograph entitled “Constitutions, Religion, and Politics in Asia: Indonesia, Malaysia and Sri Lanka” (CUP, forthcoming November 2017) and is the Co-Editor (with Andrew Harding) of a book on “Law and Society in Malaysia: Pluralism, Ethnicity, and Religion” (Routledge, forthcoming 2017). Dian also serves as the Deputy Editor of the Asian Journal of Comparative Law.
Registration
For registration, please fill in this form and email to iseasevents3@iseas.edu.sg by 5 June 2017.
INDONESIA STUDIES PROGRAMME
About the Seminar
This presentation will discuss several main variables/factors which affected voting behaviour in Jakarta’s gubernatorial election of 2017. The focus will be, among others, on three main variables: the role of identity politics, the importance of personality and psychological factors, and the challenged incumbency effect. The analysis will be based on SMRC’s surveys’ data and exit polls of the first and second round of the election. Reflection on implication will also include the short and middle term impact of this local election in Indonesian politics, particularly on 2018 simultaneous local elections and 2019 national elections
About the Speaker
Djayadi Hanan is a Lecturer of Political Science at Paramadina University in Jakarta where he also serves as Director of The University’s Institute for Education Reform (IER). Besides that, Djayadi is an Executive Director of Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC), a leading political research and polling institute in the country. He holds a PhD in Political Science from Ohio State University as well as Master degrees both from Ohio University and Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Djayadi has served as Director of Research and Services at Paramadina University Jakarta, Senior Researcher with the The National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) – Indonesia, and researcher at the Ohio State University and the Ministry of Regional Autonomy of the Republic of Indonesia. In 2012, he resided in Harvard Kennedy School as a research fellow where he conducted research on multiparty presidential democracy in developing countries. His main fields of expertise include the role of education in democratic cultures, legislative and executive interaction at the local, regional and national level, and student and religious movements during democratization processes. As a political scientist, Djayadi publishes articles in several journals and writes extensively in Indonesian major newspapers. As a political commentator he has been interviewed by major national televisions, radios, and printed media in Indonesia and overseas. His latest book (Mizan, 2014) is entitled: “Menakar Presidensialisme Multipartai di Indonesia” (Understanding Multiparty Presidentialism in Indonesia).
Registration
For registration, please fill in this form and email to iseasevents3@iseas.edu.sg by 19 May 2017.
INDONESIA STUDIES PROGRAMME
About the Seminar
In the recent Jakarta Gubernatorial elections the Incumbent, Basuki Tjahaya Purnama was defeated by Anies Baswedan, approximately 58% to 42%. Following the publication of an article by Dr Ian Wilson of Murdoch University, entitled: “Jakarta: Inequality and the poverty of elite pluralism” in the Australian National University’s NEW MANDALA website publication, a sharp and ongoing debate has developed over the respective roles of class versus religion in the recent elections. Both Indonesian and non-Indonesian political analysts and actors have weighed in on this debate. Was religious sectarianism, fanning intolerance, the key factor or was class alienation from Governor Basuki Tjahaya Purnama a factor too frequently ignored by commentators and political actors? As this debate has unfolded, there are some who have also warned that the fate suffered by Governor Purnama may also be suffered by President Widodo. This is argued, for example, in Mietzner and Muhtadi’s “Ahok’s satisfied non-voters: an anatomy” also in New Mandala, a publication that campaigned strongly for President Widodo in 2014. Was this an election pitting the rights of minorities against intolerance and sectarianism or something more complicated? Was it a rejection of choosing officials on the basis of their achievements or otherwise in favour of voting based on religious identity? This presentation will review the debate that has unfolded, looking at a variety of commentaries. It will argue that the campaign and the vote can best be explained by a series of intersecting tensions both within and between social classes in Jakarta (and Indonesia) and a strengthening of the trend towards scapegoat politics in a situation of gross imbalance in ideological activity among various political actors. The presentation will make some assessments of possible future trends in national politics.
About the Speaker
Max Lane is a Senior Visiting Fellow at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute and a Visiting Lecturer at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Gajah Mada University. His most recent books are Decentralization and Discontents: An Essay on Class, Political Agency and National Perspective in Indonesian Politics (ISEAS 2014); Unfinished Nation: Indonesia Before and After Suharto (Verso 2008, 2017); and Catastrophe in Indonesia (Seagull/University of Chicago 2010). In 2016 he published a collection of poems and prose in Indonesia and Not, Poems and Otherwise: Anecdotes Scattered (Djaman Baroe, 2016), which was launched at the 2016 Singapore Writers Festival. He is also the translator of Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Buru Quartet set of novels and other works of Toer as well as plays and poems of W.S. Rendra. He was the founding editor of Inside Indonesia magazine, has served as a Second Secretary at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta and as a Principal Research Officer for the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade in the Australian Parliament as well as a journalist.
Registration
For registration, please fill in this form and email to iseasevents3@iseas.edu.sg by 12 May 2017.