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Indonesia and the "Third Wave of Democratization": The Indonesian Pro-Democracy Movement in a Changing World. By Anders Uhlin. Surrey: Curzon, 1997. 293 pp.
This book is the first of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies series on "Democracy in Asia". As the title suggests, Anders Uhlin's book accepts the general notion that democracy is a rising tide that will eventually overwhelm all remaining authoritarian political structures. The author is not concerned with why democracy is in the ascendant or whether it is a desirable outcome, although his inclinations are obvious. However, neither a Marxist nor a Weberian analysis would have any difficulty in explaining the inexorable march of global capitalism in the wake of its victory over the Communist (State Capitalist) Bloc.
In simple terms, for Marxists, democracy is the handmaiden of the global capitalist juggernaut and is essential for the efficient control and distribution of the factors of production, including people. The conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its recent bailout of faltering East Asian states and the efforts of the "good governance" school help to undermine authoritarian structures and push these societies towards democracy.
Alternatively, the march of democracy is portrayed as the inevitable outcome of "development" with its attendant growth of civil society and its demands for representation, equality of opportunity, and respect for civil and human rights. The demands of capital for transparency, efficient facilitation of business, and legal certainty only add to the demands of society. Whatever one's ideological bent, the outcome is not much different, at least in the short-term. There is no obvious alternative if states are to be internationally competitive.
Anders' book, adapted from his Ph.D. thesis, is timely in this context because it describes and analyses the nature of the prodemocracy movement in Indonesia since the collapse of communism in the late 1980s. The book is in two parts. In part one, he outlines the evolution of Indonesia's political structures and the pro-democracy organizations opposing the government. He examines the various ideas which have motivated pro-democracy groups, how those ideas have evolved, how opposition groups have organized, and how the government has neutralized them. In part two, he examines the origin and means of transmission of external ideas; whether they are accepted, adapted...