The Butterfly Effect: Stealth Politics by the Reformist Women’s Movement in Indonesia in the Struggle for Gender Equality (1945-Present)
Abstract (summary)
How can powerless social groups win major policy changes? The existing scholarship in social movements, elite theory, and democratization tends to emphasize the significant role of accumulating power resources for achieving significant policy change. However, theories about the success of groups with limited resources in attaining policy change remain inadequate. This dissertation uses the case of the reformist women’s movement network in Indonesia to argue that one significant pathway for making policy change for powerless groups “is by exercising stealth politics—a carefully timed and low-profile strategy that can be pursued once participants of a group gain direct access to state power,” whether they are engaged as staff or as volunteers, in ministries or in other state agencies. The Indonesian reformist women’s movement network’s success is framed as the butterfly effect—a mobilization of small-scale protest on policymaking at one level that exerts a profound impact on other levels of policymaking. This dissertation conducts 1) a historical study on the Indonesian women’s movement’s relations with the state; and 2) a case study on the establishment in 2021 of Regulation 30 on Sexual Violence Prevention and Redress in Higher Education Institutions, to illuminate three key insights. First, there are many countries where social movements such as some of the Indonesian women’s movement networks during certain periods, that make change through other levers of power such as lobbying politicians, allying with political parties, supporting certain presidents, etc. Second, however, countries with a history of having 1) a very politically active civil society in the beginning of their formation, then 2) mass depoliticization after a regime transition, and later 3) an increasing authority of religious groups in the public sphere after democratic consolidation, render participatory politics less effective for making policy change that protects the civil rights of the disempowered. Third, in countries with those conditions, such as Indonesia, stealth politics become more effective for 1) resisting state cooptation in policymaking processes and 2) improving inclusion and accountability in governance.
Indexing (details)
Gender studies;
Southeast Asian studies;
Law
0733: Gender studies
0222: Southeast Asian studies
0398: Law
