Beyond Oligarchy

Beyond Oligarchy is a collection of essays by leading scholars of contemporary Indonesian politics and society, each addressing effects of material inequality on political power and contestation in democratic Indonesia. The contributors assess how critical concepts in the study of politics—oligarchy, inequality, power, democracy, and others—can be used to characterize the Indonesian case, and in turn, how the Indonesian experience informs conceptual and analytical debates in political science and related disciplines. In bringing together experts from around the world to engage with these themes, Beyond Oligarchy reclaims a tradition of focused intellectual debate across scholarly communities in Indonesian studies.

The collapse of Indonesia's New Order has proven a critical juncture in Indonesian political studies, launching new analyses about the drivers of regime change and the character of Indonesian democracy. It has also prompted a new groundswell of theoretical reflection among Indonesianists on concepts such as representation, competition, power, and inequality. As such, the onset of Indonesia's second democratic period represents more than just new point of departure for comparative analyses of Indonesia as a democratizing state; it has also served as a catalyst for theoretical and conceptual development.

Michele Ford is Professor of Southeast Asian Studies and Director of the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre at the University of Sydney, where she holds an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship. She is the author of Workers and Intellectuals: NGOs, Trade Unions and the Indonesian Labour Movement. Thomas B. Pepinsky is Associate Professor of Government at Cornell University and Associate Director of the Cornell Modern Indonesia Project. He is the author of Economic Crises and the Breakdown of Authoritarian Regimes: Indonesia and Malaysia in Comparative Perspective.

At long last, leading experts on Indonesian politics are arguing with each other again. At the heart of this new debate is the importance of material inequality and extreme wealth concentration in shaping the character of Indonesian politics. Beyond Oligarchy collects a series of first-rate essays that both express the power and explore the limitations of analyses that portray the fusion of wealth and domination as the defining deficiency of Indonesian democracy. In so doing, volume coeditors Michele Ford and Thomas Pepinsky boldly break down conventional barriers to scholarly conversations about the most pressing issues and developments in Indonesian political life. Beyond Oligarchy definitively sets a new tone—and arguably sets a new standard—for the study of Indonesian politics after Suharto.

Olle Tornquist, University of Oslo:

A brilliant and very useful collection in which advocates of the major theses in Australian and American scholarship on Indonesian democratization both present and reflect on their focus on oligarchic versus liberal and plural tendencies. A must-read also in wider circles and for those who try alternative perspectives.