On 9 March 1997, longtime authoritarian leader Suharto is asked by the Indonesian parliament to serve another term. He has been unanimously elected despite the calls from opposition leaders, students, and other activists against his re-election. In the following days, Suharto takes the oath as president and forms a new cabinet. Student protests on campuses continue despite attempts to ban them and despite direct appeals by the president and the military. On 19 April, opposition leader Amien Rais says that student demonstrations have reached the point of no return. On 1 May, Suharto says that political reform must wait until the next legislature. One day later, he welcomes reform. On 4 May, riots erupt in Medan after the government decides to hike fuel prices by up to 70%. Four days later, the parliament rejects the fuel hikes. Around the same time, the parliament and the military assure the public that they are working on reform.
The protest dynamics take a new turn on 12 May when four students are shot dead by security forces during peaceful demonstrations for reform. The next day, they are buried and unofficially declared âheroes of reformationâ. This event is followed by a minor riot in Jakarta. All this happens while Suharto is away attending the G-15 summit in Cairo. On 14 May, a newspaper quotes Suharto in Cairo as saying that he is ready to resign. In the aftermath, massive riots break out in Greater Jakarta that will last three days. Several hundred people die. On 15 May, Suharto returns from Cairo and denies the resignation rumors. On the same day, unrest spreads to other towns on Java. The government decides to cut fuel and electricity prices. On 16 May, Suharto shows his willingness to reshuffle the cabinet and to abdicate by constitutional means. On 18 May, the House speaker asks Suharto to resign for the sake of national unity. Three days later, on 21 May, Suharto resigns.
The chronology of events reported by the Jakarta Post on 19 May 1998 (âChronology of Recent Major Eventsâ 1998) illustrates the dynamics of contention as they may develop between challengers and the regime during transition from authoritarian rule. In Indonesia, the pressure from below was manifold. Students held continued, large-scale demonstrations. Their calls for reform were supported by a key opposition leader. Riots triggered by a decision by the government unrelated to political reform increased the pressure on the government. The authoritarian regime tried to react by both making concessions and repressing mobilization. Repression led to the killing of students, which triggered an escalation of the conflict that became more and more violent. Protest spread from the capital to other parts of the country. A point was reached where events could not be controlled or contained by actors on either conflict side. In the end, the authoritarian regime made its biggest concession by launching the process that would lead to the introduction of democratic rule.
1.1 What Is This About?
The events in Indonesia show both the necessity and the challenge of studying the role of protest during regime change. It is difficult to argue that Suharto would have stepped down if protesters had not pressured him to. Understanding the strategies of protesters, the timing of their actions, and the claims they made is, thus, key in understanding the overall dynamics of actions and eventually the pressure they were able to build on the government. At the same time, much of what happened in Indonesia ahead of regime change seems accidental and highly contingent on individual actions. A series of unpredictable events deployed in an uncoordinated fashion eventually made democracy emerge in an abrupt and punctuated manner. Adequate concepts and methods are necessary to detect regularities and generalities in this seemingly unpredictable transition process, in which mass protests played a substantive role.
In many ways, Indonesiaâs transition to democracy is characteristic of many democratic transitions and its treatment in the literature illustrates the shortcomings that exist in the study of regime change. The transition is typical in that it occurred in a general crisis situation. At such times of extraordinary politics, regularities in peopleâs behavior appear to be few. Change is endemic and affects all levels of politics. In the case of Indonesia, the role of the financial crisis and the related constraints set by the IMF have often been emphasized as main explanatory factors for regime change (see, e.g., Aspinall and Mietzner 2013). Such rather unique country- and situation-specific explanations are often drawn upon to explain a specific countryâs transition. By contrast, the observed mobilization of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians, which finds its parallels in other high-mobilization transitions such as in Eastern Europe, has not received sufficient attention in the literature. The challenge of developing theoretical arguments, which take into account the role of the masses and which are, at the same time, valid beyond a specific transition case, has up to now remained largely unresolved.
While democratization research acknowledges the role of the pressure from below for cases, such as Indonesia, oftentimes other factors figure as preferred explanations for regime change. Among the most influential ones cited in the literature we find a countryâs socioeconomic structure, suggested to set the countryâs path toward democracy. According to another dominant thought in the literature, the self-interest of elite actors is the driving factor behind democratization. Both approaches, which are discussed in more detail below and in the chapters ahead, fail to be useful in the Indonesian context. The present study shares with these approaches the concern of defining the key actors of democratization. Differently from them, a more action-based analysis is suggested. The validity of the respective explanatory factors can only be rigorously assessed once it is empirically established who participated in political contention ahead of and during regime change. Both leaders and their social base can then be attributed their role.
How can we determine if protest has been a critical factor and intervened at a critical time of the democratization process? How can we evaluate the intensity and the timing of protest? Only once political activities and their originators have been systematically captured in a time-sensitive analysis can qualified statements be made in this regard. In democratizing Indonesia, we could observe a clear escalation and de-escalation of protest. At one point, means of protest became more and more radical, as did the goals promoted by protesters. People involved in protest actions resorted to violence and demanded the overthrow of the government. The government would then react: sometimes repressively, sometimes by making concessions. All these dimensions of political contention, i.e., the types of protest actions and the claims people make, the governmentâs behavior, as well as the timing of actions and interactions, are elements that help explain when, why, and how regime change came about.
1.2 Classical Approaches to the Study of Regime Change: Dominance of the Apolitical
In democratization studies, the role of popular mobilization is under-researched. This can be explained by the dominance of analytical pers...