Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2019. xvii, 215 pp. US$24.95, paper. ISBN 978-1-5017-4248-4.
There is abundant scholarship in political science and sociology focusing on the role of social movement activists in bringing about regime change from authoritarian to democratic rules. More than two decades after the “third wave of democratization” ended, however, there is only a relatively small amount of work devoted to the role of these activists during democratic transition and consolidation stages, where their struggle has evolved beyond the preservation of the rights they gained during the initial stage of democratization to involvement in the policy process to extend and further institutionalize these rights.
Activists in Transition, edited by Thushara Dibley and Michele Ford, fills this important gap in the social movement literature. The book includes insightful assessments of social movement activists focusing on a wide range of activist causes in Indonesia—the third-largest democracy in the world—which saw a wide range of social movement activism during the final years of Suharto’s rule. After the fall of his regime in 1998, the activists transformed their struggle to not only strengthen the democratic political system but also to further extend the hard-fought political and socio-economic rights for their respective groups.
The editors establish the theoretical foundation of the book by extending the framework developed by Federico Rossi and Donatella Della Porta (Movements in Times of Democratic Transition, eds. Bert Klandermans and Cornelis van Stralen, Temple University Press, 2015). However, they reject the final stage of the aforementioned’s unidirectional model, which argues that social movement activism would eventually lead to an expansion of a whole host of democratic rights for their respective constituencies. Instead, Dibley and Ford argue that activists continue to struggle to extend the gains they have made, since they often encounter significant resistance from established elites and conservative counter-movements. This can be seen in the Indonesian case, where Suharto’s authoritarian legacy remained strong within the country’s political institutions and significant elements of the political elite supported efforts by conservative groups to challenge these gains—for instance, by denying women and LGBTQ activists the opportunity to have their demands for equality be heard in the Indonesian public sphere.
The book’s main strength is centred on the empirically rich and nuanced chapters written by scholars who specialize on a specific group of activists. The first half of the book focuses on “mainstream” Indonesian activist groups: students (chapter 1 by Yatun Sastramidjaja), anti-corruption (chapter 2 by Elisabeth Kramer), the labour movement (chapter 3 by Teri Caraway and Michele Ford), land rights (chapter 4 by Iqra Anugrah), and the urban poor (chapter 5 by Ian Wilson), while the second half focuses on new types of social activists, including liberal Islam activists (chapter 6 by Greg Fealy), the women’s movement (chapter 7 by Rachel Rinaldo), LGBTQ activists (chapter 8 by Hendri Wijaya and Sharyn Graham Davies), and disability activists (chapter 9 by Thushara Dibley).
These chapters detail the variation in the trajectory of different activist groups as they navigate the challenging political environment of post-Reformasi Indonesia to promote their respective causes. Some, like the labour movement, are more successful in their efforts, due to their ability to develop ties with sympathetic politicians. However, others—such as liberal Islam, women, and LGBTQ activists—encounter more challenges as they face strong resistance not just from the political establishment but also from counter-movements that oppose their causes on religious grounds.
In fact, all types of progressive activists in Indonesia are now experiencing serious political setbacks, as new legislation enacted by the Joko Widodo administration is threatening even the modest gains they have accomplished. This can be seen, for instance, in the Omnibus Law on Job Creation, which guts the generous compensation, collective bargaining, and other rights previously gained by labour activists, and in a new law which significantly weakens the authority of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and side-lines anti-corruption activists who defended the KPK. The enactment of such legislation—along with extended powers given to the Indonesian Armed Forces and National Police to utilize repressive measures to deal with expression of dissent from student activists and other progressive groups—represents the slow yet steady democratic regression that has further eroded the gains made by progressive activists.
The causes of this regression are highlighted in Edward Aspinall’s concluding chapter (187–201). They include the continuing dominance of the established elite figures—many of whom are New Order legacies—in contemporary Indonesian politics, the prevalence of clientelistic political relationships in the policy-making process and the allocation of state resources, and the rise of conservative counter-movements (Islamists, criminal gangs or preman, etc.) to counter the advocacy of progressive activists. Aspinall concludes the essay with a sobering note, stating that despite many accomplishments the activists have made over the past two decades, these structural barriers have kept them from achieving their end goal of consolidating democratic institutions and protecting the citizenship rights of all Indonesian citizens, irrespective of their background.
The book would have been enriched further had it included in-depth discussion of additional issues and concerns faced by the activists. The editors admit in the acknowledgements section (vii) that several “hot button” issues like the environment had to be omitted from the book due to a lack of available contributors. Other common issues faced by the activists also merit further discussion. For instance, the issue of lack of funding—which is experienced by many activists as international donors have significantly cut their assistance after they judged Indonesia to have successfully completed its democratic transition—could potentially be discussed as a separate chapter.
Nonetheless, Activists in Transition is an excellent and empirically rich volume that fills in the existing gap in the scholarship of social movement and democratic transition, which is of interest to Indonesian studies, Asian studies, and comparative politics scholars alike.
Alexander R. Arifianto
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore