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The rise, crumbling of reformist populism in Indonesia (Part 1 of 2)
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Indonesia is the world’s third-largest nominal democracy, and the largest and temporarily most successful of the new democracies. (JP/Zul Trio Anggono)
P
opulism is often associated with nationalist mass mobilization against liberal internationalism. However, while this may be one outcome of populism, it does not equal populism. There is increasing scholarly agreement with Cas Mudde that the essence of populism is a thin ideology of “common people” and its “general will”, in contrast to established elites and their special interests.
Populist politics, moreover, is rooted in the idea that the people is defined by common identity (often against an enemy) and the fancy for direct popular participation in public governance — i.e. non-mediated links between people and state, in contrast to residence-based citizenship and representative mediation between citizens and state by their own organizations.
We may also specify the left-populist additions as Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic politics of posing “popular sovereignty” against “ordo-cum-neo-liberalism”, plus fostering a “hegemonic general will” by way of a common identity (chains of equivalents) among emancipatory social movements (rather than rigidly defined classes) against a common enemy. Provisionally, rightist populism should thus be the opposite.
Consequently, we need to analyze the rise of different populisms and their outcomes, including the implications for human rights, democracy and inclusive development. For two reasons Indonesia is a good case in point. The first reason is that for some time it was a case of positive populism, opening up for revitalization of democracy and inclusive development.
For a background, Indonesia is the world’s third-largest nominal democracy, and the largest and temporarily most successful of the new democracies. After Soeharto, the old political, administrative, economic and religious elites were effectively accommodated. They adjusted to the new institutions by dominating, using and abusing them.
Meanwhile, there were few chances for organized interests such as unions and other pro-democrats in civil society to sustain democratization and efforts at good governance by nurturing active citizenship and membership and policy-based organizations and parties.
Pro-democrats who want to, for example, take part in elections with an alternative party (even if locally only), must firstprove their party to be present with offices and members in all provinces, 75 percent of their regencies, and 50 percent of their subdistricts — in a country as large as the European Union. Even pro-democrats who only lobby have very few anticorrupt politicians to approach. In short, the most essential foundations for democratization were neglected, and democracy is now backsliding.
