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Democratising Indonesia: The Challenges of Civil Society in the Era of Reformasi. By Mikaela Nyman. NIAS Press, 2006. Softcover: 258pp.
By its very nature, civil society is an extremely difficult topic for any researcher. It poses the problem of defining, selecting and limiting the objects of analysis, with a myriad of non-governmental groups trying to leave their mark on politics and society. The task becomes even more difficult when the country under scrutiny is Indonesia, which since President Soeharto's downfall has lost count of the number of NGOs in the capital, as well as in the provinces, districts, sub-districts and villages. These civil society groups are not only active in a wide spectrum of fields, ranging from political advocacy to health issues and community development, but they also have highly diverse goals and interests. In her book, Mikaela Nyman takes stock of Indonesia's civil society in the post-New Order era, trying to assess its role in the 1998 downfall of the New Order and the subsequent evolution of the democratic polity. In particular, Nyman focuses on three social movements that shaped civil society both in the late phase of the authoritarian regime and in the emerging democracy: the students, labour and women. The three chapters on these social movements form the core of the book, and they guide the author's general assessment of civil society in Indonesia.
The main argument of the book is an interesting one: the fragmentation of Indonesia's civil society movement does not only constitute a weakness, it is in fact its most important asset. The disorganized state of civil society made it impossible for Soeharto to completely suppress or co-opt it, allowing students, labour and women's groups to mobilize against the...