Preface and Acknowledgments

This book is the result of more than twenty-five years of studying the political behavior of Indonesia’s presidents. As an exchange student in Indonesia in the 1990s, I was fascinated by long-time president Suharto’s ability to engineer what seemed to be his eternal hold on power. When he eventually fell, I was equally intrigued by the chaotic but also highly dynamic years of the democratic transition, which stretched from 1998 to 2004 and witnessed the presidencies of B.J. Habibie, Abdurrahman Wahid, and Megawati Sukarnoputri. Living in Jakarta for most of these years, I constantly feared missing out on the newest developments as parties emerged and disappeared, communal conflicts escalated and ceased, and presidents came and went. The presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono marked the end of this high-speed and often unorderly transition, gradually stabilizing the country’s socio-economic infrastructure. Yudhoyono’s first term is now widely viewed as the high point of Indonesian democracy—both in terms of its stability and its continued dynamism. Slowly but steadily, however, the democratic liveliness that had characterized the first decade of the post-Suharto era dissipated, and a sense of stasis and almost mechanical stability took root instead. Yudhoyono served out his second term without much enthusiasm—a feeling shared by many Indonesians at the grassroots. During my frequent visits to Jakarta in that period, the citizens’ longing for something different—either a revitalization of the reform project or a return to the predictability of strongman rule—was palpable. Joko Widodo, who ran for the presidency in 2014, offered the former and won, but it did not take long for him to replicate the routines of power maintenance that Yudhoyono had entrenched.

When I wrote this book, more than two decades after Suharto’s resignation, the Indonesian presidency was in a curious place. It was more stable than during the transition years, with Yudhoyono and Widodo serving a decade in power each, in contrast to the three immediate post-Suharto presidents who had ruled for a total of six years. The post-transition presidential regime was also more competitive (and contested) than any of its predecessor polities, despite frequent accusations that Widodo had allowed neo-Suhartoism to infiltrate his rule. Yet the Indonesian polity of the early 2020s had lost the democratic promise that had been so celebrated, both domestically and internationally, in much of the 2000s and early 2010s. It was now widely accepted that democratic quality in Indonesia was on the decline, the continued functionality of the country’s democracy notwithstanding. On the one hand, then, presidential rule in Indonesia appeared remarkably stable, both in comparison to its peers around the world and its experience during the transition. On the other hand, its democracy was backsliding while still being far away from the sort of autocratic rule that Suharto had practiced. To get a better analytical grip on how Indonesia’s presidency consolidated so remarkably and yet let its democratic aspirations slip so profoundly is this book’s central aim. It finds, ultimately, that the two trends are intrinsically linked, and that Indonesia’s post-2004 presidents have managed to stabilize their regimes through sophisticated mechanisms of coalitional presidentialism that consumed democratic substance without ending democracy per se.

Many people have been essential in the production of this book. My biggest gratitude goes to Indonesian presidents, both former and incumbent. I have found Indonesian politicians to be extraordinarily generous with their time, and presidents have been no exception. Without their perspective, it would have been impossible to write this book. It is one thing to observe the president’s behavior from the outside, and many valuable lessons can be learned from such observations. But it is different to hear from the actors themselves about why they do what they do, however self-serving such explanations may be. Being allowed to watch the inner workings of the presidency is another experience without which this book could not have been written. Among the pre-2004 presidents, Wahid gave me the widest access to him and his staff. Megawati, while never agreeing to a sit-down interview, gave me permission to attend many of the congresses of her party, from the first post-Suharto event in 1998 to the most recent in 2019. Both post-2004 presidents, Yudhoyono and Widodo—the main subjects of this book—have been very helpful in my research. Yudhoyono agreed to a five-hour interview in 2014 (with my colleague Edward Aspinall), and Widodo allowed me to accompany him on the campaign trail. The access that these presidents gave me ensured that their viewpoints were considered in the overall narrative, thus integrating a voice often missing from other coalitional presidentialism case studies.

I am also indebted to many presidential aides and government officials who helped me understand the way the Indonesian presidency works. Most of these sources requested anonymity in order to speak frankly, and their openness allowed me to paint a picture of the presidency largely drawn from insiders’ accounts. But one source was always happy to speak openly and without anxiety over the possible consequences of what he conveyed to me: Luhut Binsar Panjaitan, the man widely described as Widodo’s most important aide. I first met him in 2013 and have since engaged in regular and lively discussions with him. These discussions have been combative at times but always remained cordial. He invited me to accompany him on an insightful trip to Papua in June 2016, during which I could observe him in action as the president’s main trouble-shooter. Obviously, his willingness to speak frankly and fearlessly stems from the natural self-confidence of a man with great power and wealth—Luhut had been minister under Wahid and then became a businessman, Widodo’s first chief of staff, and finally senior minister in two key portfolios. But his outspokenness is also often ascribed—stereotypically but rather accurately—to his ethnicity as a Batak, and Luhut enjoys this identification. This book critically assesses the disproportional role wealthy elites play in presidential governance, but this does not diminish my gratitude to Luhut for telling me his side of the story and granting me a view of top-level presidential politics I otherwise would have been unable to get.

Many political observers in Indonesia have assisted me by sharing their knowledge and analyses. These include Sidney Jones, Douglas Ramage, Philips Vermonte, Sunny Tanuwidjaja, Jeffrie Geonavie, Saiful Mujani, Rizal Sukma, Hana A. Satriyo, Clara Joewono, Sandra Hamid, Julian Bowen, Tom Coghlan, Monty Pounder, and John McBeth. Academics in Australia with whom I have had productive discussions about presidential politics in Indonesia include Dirk Tomsa, Vedi Hadiz, Jacqui Baker, Ian Wilson, Ross Tapsell and Dave McRae. In the United States, I thank Tom Pepinsky, Dan Slater, Allen Hicken, Margaret Scott, and Bill Liddle. The latter has worked on his own book on Indonesian presidents and thus has been particularly interested in my study. He has been both supportive and critical of my work—he deeply dislikes the use of the term “oligarch,” both in my book and more generally. We agreed to disagree, as so often in our very fruitful exchanges. In Europe, I am indebted to Aurel Croissant, Henk Schulte Nordholt, Jürgen Rüland, Michael Buehler, John Sidel, Ward Berenshot, Andreas Ufen, and Marco Bünte. In Japan, I am grateful to Masaaki Okamoto from the Center of Southeast Asian Studies at Kyoto University (where I was based in 2018/19 for a visiting fellowship) and Jun Honna from Ritsumeikan University, where I put the finishing touches to this book in early 2023. These colleagues have had a tremendous impact on my thinking, but they bear no responsibility for any shortcomings that readers might find in this book.

The Department of Political and Social Change at the Coral Bell School of Asia-Pacific Affairs within the Australian National University has been my intellectual home since I started my PhD studies there in 1997. My colleagues and students in the department have given me the best possible environment in which to research and write about Indonesia. Greg Fealy, Edward Aspinall, Robert Cribb, Eve Warburton, Sally White, and Sana Jaffrey have made the department the site with the world’s highest concentration of scholars of Indonesian politics outside of Indonesia, and I have learned from them every day. My students have been equally inspiring and resourceful. Dominic Berger, Liam Gammon, Tom Power, Bayu Dardias, Usman Hamid, Chris Morris, and Burhanuddin Muhtadi have pursued fascinating research projects that I have had the privilege to supervise. Of course, Burhanuddin Muhtadi has been much more than a student: as the head of Indikator, one of Indonesia’s leading polling institutes, he has been an unlimited source of data and political information. No visit to Jakarta is complete without a number-crunching session at Burhanuddin’s office in Cikini. His polling data have made or broken the careers of many a politician in Indonesia, and party leaders and presidents often desperately wait for their release. Burhanuddin has become a treasured co-author and colleague, and my discussions with him have been invaluable in shaping my view of Indonesian politics.

The research undertaken for this study was primarily funded by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project grant titled “Presidential Power and its Limits in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia” (DP150104277). I am very appreciative of this support. Other financial assistance was provided by smaller grants from the Australian National University, as well as through stipends from Kyoto University and Ritsumeikan University. The Center of Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Jakarta hosted me during a longer stay surrounding Indonesia’s 2014 elections, providing me with office space, facilities, and a very productive environment for discussions. I hope that the institutions that supported me so generously over the many years of my studies will find this book an adequate return on their investment.

Kyoto, February, 2023