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The Yudhoyono Presidency: Indonesia's Decade of Stability and Stagnation Edward Aspinall, Marcus Mietzner, and Dirk Tomsa, eds. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2015, 362pp.
A Decade of Missed Opportunities
The Yudhoyono Presidency: Indonesia's Decade of Stability and Stagnation is a collection of papers that were presented at the annual Indonesia Update conference at the Australian National University in 2014 and edited by three Indonesianists: Edward Aspinall, Marcus Mietzner, and Dirk Tomsa. The volume's aim is to understand the presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY, as he is called in Bahasa Indonesia) between 2004 and 2014. SBY was the first president elected through the democratic means of direct election in 2004. He was subsequently reelected in 2009, making him the first reelected president in democratic Indonesia. The Indonesian experience of directly electing a president in 2004 and 2009 was a watershed in the country's modern history.
This book emphasizes the personality of SBY to evaluate his terms as president of Indonesia. The most visible feature of SBY's personality was that he "was a peragu-a hesitator or vacillator who took care to avoid political controversy that he was rarely able to take decisive policy action" (p. 3), as described by the editors of the book. They also depict SBY as a moderating president, which means that "he viewed himself as leading a polity and a society characterized by deep divisions and he believed that his most important role was to moderate these divisions by mediating between the conflicting forces and interests to which they give rise" (p. 4). For some scholars this approach offers the possibility of writing about the positive impact of the stability offered by the SBY presidency over a 10-year period. This judgment is correct, especially when located in the broader context of Indonesian politics after the Reformasi (Reform), which started in 1998 and led to many social conflicts and deep divisions within both the polity and society.
However, by prioritizing stability and harmony, SBY also allowed himself to miss important economic opportunities that were provided by a commodities boom. How were these opportunities missed? It seems that SBY was reluctant to take on difficult policies because they would likely bring about open confrontation in society, and also with voters. Some of this...