the development of sociology in indonesia_phd_hanneman samuel

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIOLOGY IN INDONESIA:

THE PRODUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE, STATE FORMATION AND ECONOMIC CHANGE

Hanneman Samuel

A thesis submitted for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

of Swinburne University of Technology

October 1999

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research would not have been possible without the opportunity provided by

the Asia Australia Research Centre at Swinburne University of Technology. Prof.

Ken Young (the Director of the Centre and co-ordinating supervisor of my thesis)

has encouraged me to develop my intellectual interests without losing the bigger

picture of Indonesia. He also granted me research assistance. I am also indebted to

Associate Prof. Tanya Castleman (the Department of Sociology, Swinburne

University of Technology).

I would like to thank Prof. T.O.Ihromi, Prof. Roy Ellen, Dr. Paulus

Wirutomo, Dr. Robert Lawang, and other teachers who introduced me to the

world of sociology in Indonesia.

I owe my deepest gratitude to Australian tax payers for granting me a four

year AusAid scholarship. I have enjoyed a wonderful and productive time in the

‘OZ life style a la Melbourne’ atmosphere. I wish I could satisfactorily answer

their simple, sympathetic and yet realistic question of ‘why does life seem so

cheap in Indonesia?’. In fact, I am still in search of the answer myself up to this

very moment: ‘how could it be possible for people who have always regarded

themselves as civilised to be involved in looting, the use of violence and mass

rapes?’.

I also wish to express my indebtedness to Dr. Ignas Kleden (SPES), Dr.

Kamanto Sunarto (University of Indonesia), Prof. Victor T. King (Hull

University), Prof. Herbert Feith (Monash University), Prof. Frans Magnis Suseno

(Driyarkara), the late Prof. Willem Wertheim and drs. M.M. Billah, MA for their

scholarly insight into Indonesia and Indonesian scholars. Each of them has helped

me to clarify my research topic. I owe a special debt to Prof. Selo Soemardjan, Dr.

Melly Tan, Prof. Soedjito Sosrodihardjo, Dr. Abi Koesno, Dr. Mochtar Naim, and

other Indonesian sociologists. Without their willingness to share their experiences

and dreams with me, this study would not have materialised.

I wish to thank Dr. Suzanne Siskel (Ford Foundation) and her staff at the

Jakarta office, Dr. J. Kristiadi (Centre of Strategic and International Studies), drs.

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Azis Suganda, MA (the Indonesian Institute of Sciences), Antonius Purwanto

(Samratulangi University), Th. Sularto (Kompas), Arselan Harahap (LP3ES), Paul

Somalinggi (PSH), Akor Tarigan (UGM Press), Dr. Legowo (UI Press) and G.

Aris Buntarman (Gramedia), Dr. John Rundell (the University of Melbourne), and

Vivi. They have spoilt me with invaluable data.

I wish to thank all those friends who, in different ways, have constantly

offered me their wonderful friendship, particularly to Dr. Iwan Gardono, Sr.

Benedicte CB, Melina Wong, Effi Tomaras, Robbie Peters, drs. Freddy Kirana,

MIB, Renni Suzanna, Damayani Tyastianti, and drs. A.H. Kurniawan.

I am very much indebted to Anne Loveband for her editorial skill and

advice, and Prof. Stephen Mennell (University College Dublin) and Prof. Arief

Budiman (the University of Melbourne) for their willingness to spare their

invaluable time and expertise to examine my thesis.

Last but not least, I thank my parents and sisters for their financial and

moral support. I should mention my deep feeling of gratitude to my wife, Siwi,

and my daughter for their understanding. I’ve finished typing my thesis and I’m

coming home, Chiara.

I owe a debt of such magnitude to all of them that acknowledgement

seems but a vain and meagre gesture. Needless to say, however, that any

shortcomings in the content of this thesis are entirely my responsibility.

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ABSTRACT

Although various studies of sociology have been conducted, there has always been an opportunity for ‘invention’, namely, to create a space for further research of the same subject matter. This is the hidden theme of my thesis. And I have treated those previous studies as yardsticks from which to measure aspects of this particular research project, as an opportunity for reflection, and as a rich resource of information.

To be more specific, the main subject matter of the present study is the propagation of sociological knowledge by Indonesian scholars. This has necessitated an investigation which distinguishes sociology as a social institution from sociology as scientific knowledge. This has also encouraged me to focus on the relations between the sociology of Indonesia and Indonesian sociologists on the one hand, and the state-society relationship on the other hand. The relation between the state and society in Indonesia has been the ongoing context for sociology in Indonesia and for Indonesian sociologists. Furthermore, I have also paid significant attention to the temporal dimensions of my primary subject matter.

The formulation of the aforementioned focus has been inseparable from the use of Elias’ theoretical framework. Elias’ ideas of process sociology, and the relations between conventional philosophical and sociological approaches of the acquisition of scientific knowledge have provided me with an alternative perspective.

My research has demonstrated that not only has the birth of the sociology of Indonesia aided the emergence of Indonesian sociologists, but the latter has been conditioned by the former. Furthermore, the current state-society relationship has largely been a result of a long evolutionary process, which can be traced back to the creation of an overdeveloped state and underdeveloped-plural society during the colonial era. Therefore, the struggle of Indonesian sociologists for social recognition as intellectuals has been intertwined with those factors.

Within this context, it is true that the development of Indonesian sociology and sociologists have been influenced by their social context, that is, by their political, economic and cultural context. The development of international sociology has also significantly influenced them rather than the other way around. None the less, both sociology and Indonesian sociologists have to a degree influenced their own context. For more than a quarter of a century, Indonesian sociologists have developed their own community within a context of imbalanced power relations between the state and society. And it has also been during this epoch they have taken part in balancing the relation between the state and society in Indonesia.

The relation between the state and society in Indonesia has been far from achieving equilibrium up to now. Protection regarding social dynamics has yet to be distinguished from a strong state patronage of society.

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The structure of Indonesian society has also undergone a crystallisation process — along with the formation of Indonesians. And Indonesian sociologists have had many tasks associated with actualising those matters. Indonesian sociologists have developed alongside the maturation of Indonesia up to now; and there is no other path for them but to make greater attempts to take part in providing a means of orientation for the future development of Indonesia. Indonesian sociologists cannot solve everything, but they can certainly do better.

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIOLOGY IN INDONESIA: THE PRODUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE, STATE FORMATION AND

ECONOMIC CHANGE

TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ii Abstract iv Table of Contents vi CHAPTER I: NORBERT ELIAS’ THEORISING OF SOCIOLOGY PRODUCTION

A Introductory remarks 1

B Sociology as a semi-autonomous body of knowledge 5

C The Figurational context of the production of sociology 16

D Positioning Elias’ thought 28

E Concluding remarks 41 CHAPTER II: THE SCOPE OF THE STUDY


B Research questions and the significance of the study 45

C Research assumptions 59

D The methods of the study 60

E The implications of the research 62 CHAPTER III: INDOLOGY AS COLONIAL SOCIAL SCIENCE


B Centres for indology under state patronage 68

C Orientalist discourse and colonial scholarship 75

D Indology in the hands of decision-makers 90

E From injustice to the independence of Indonesia 99

F Concluding remarks 108 CHAPTER IV:

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THE SHIFT TO AMERICAN CENTRED SOCIAL SCIENCES: THE FABRICATION OF SOCIOLOGY IN 1945-1965


B Parsons: from classical to contemporary sociology 112

C Indonesia from an American point of view 117

D The establishment of the social sciences in Indonesia 146

E Intellectuals under the guided democracy format 152

F Concluding remarks 173 CHAPTER V: FROM POPULIST TO BUREAUCRATIC AUTHORITARIAN REGIME


B The emergence of bureaucratic authoritarianism 177

C The value of the ‘bureaucratic authoritarian regime’ 188

D Concluding remarks 214 CHAPTER VI: THE MAKING OF A SOCIOLOGICAL COMMUNITY AND THE MAKING OF PANCASILA DEMOCRACY


B Indonesian sociologists: to serve the state 218

C Institutionalising academic sociology 223

D Political format and a fragile professional identity 232

E Concluding remarks 239 CHAPTER VII: SOCIOLOGICAL SCHOLARSHIP AND THE MAKING OF THE PANCASILA DEMOCRACY


B Sociology and the Pancasila Democracy format 241

C Indonesian sociologists and the modernisation approach 261

D Sociology and social development in Indonesia 279

E Concluding remarks 288

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CHAPTER VIII: SOCIOLOGY AND PANCASILA DEMOCRACY-IN-CRISIS


B The Escalation of the democratisation movement 291

C The poverty of sociology in Indonesia 299

D Concluding remarks 305 CHAPTER IX: CONCLUSION


B A summary of research findings 306

C Concluding reflections on the research findings 314 B i b l i o g r a p h y 320 A p p e n d i c e s 353

1 Interview guide: activists and the development of sociology 355

2 Interview guide: non university based research centres as an alternative for the development of sociology

355

3 Interview guide: the media and the development of sociology 356

4 Interview guide: Indonesian sociologists on sociology in Indonesia

357

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CHAPTER I NORBERT ELIAS’ THEORISING OF THE PRODUCTION OF

SOCIOLOGY

Introductory remarks Sociology as a semi-autonomous body of knowledge

The figurational context of the production of sociology Positioning Elias’ thoughts

Concluding remarks

A. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

‘Throughout history (its recorders are, of course, intellectuals), intellectuals have of necessity performed politically indispensable tasks, either as sacral intellectuals -- priests and clerics -- or as secular intellectuals such as chroniclers, administrators, lawyers, and judges’.

This is only one observation drawn from Benda’s intimate knowledge of

what is today the world’s fourth largest nation, but it links the significant role

intellectuals have in processes of state formation and their contribution to political

life more generally, not only in Indonesia, but in many other modern societies,

regardless of differences in culture and historical circumstance. In a country like

Indonesia, where discourses of nationalism and national development dominate in

the field of politics, sociologists, charged with the task of constructing a rigorous

understanding about the nature of national society and contributing to its goals of

development, are ineluctably bound to these classical roles — and dilemmas — of

public intellectuals.

This quotation is taken from an article by the late Professor Harry Benda

(1972:107) of Yale University. He was neither a specialist on the role of

intellectuals nor a world famous thinker of his time. On the contrary, his career

was limited only to an understanding of social life in an emerging nation-state

(Indonesia) several decades ago. His work is held in high esteem among scholars

of Southeast Asia.

Certainly in Indonesia, there is on the one hand, a concern among a

diverse range of individuals including politicians, businessmen and even the man

on the street, about the influential role of intellectuals and the social impact of

their work. On the other hand, there is apprehension amongst the intellectuals

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themselves. One way or another he/she has to position him/her self ⎯ at least in a

self-reflective fashion ⎯ within the social context and, accordingly, it is not

uncommon for intellectuals to find themselves in a social predicament arising

from the sensitive links between the knowledge they produce and its capacity to

influence society and officially authorised perceptions of society.

The preceding reflections do not mean that all intellectuals have the urge

or interest to systematically formulate reflexive thoughts about their existence.

There are a limited number of sociologists who have developed a comprehensive

understanding of the social contexts of science.1 This is exemplified in the careers

of Norbert Elias and Robert Merton. Both are more commonly known for their

ideas in other fields of inquiry rather than for their sociological analysis of the

sciences. In the case of Merton, he is primarily recognised for his formulation of

functionalist thought. While Elias is known for his ideas on the production of the

sciences, these ideas being scattered throughout his works on process sociology

and the development of European civilisation.

In so far as it concerns sociological analysis, we can discern two major

tendencies. On the one hand, there are views which stress the context of scientific

production. It is argued that sociological analysis is concerned with such issues as

the institutionalisation of the sciences and the relationships between science,

technology and society. A proponent of this dominant view (i.e. the sociology of

science) is Robert Merton and, commonly speaking, sociologists who seem to

acknowledge the division of labour between sociologists and philosophers. On the

other hand, there is growing interest in putting greater emphasis on the content

rather than the context of scientific production. Here, in contrast to the dominant 1The sociology of sciences can be traced back, amongst others, to Mannheim’s thesis of the social determination of knowledge (1936, 1952, 1956). Despite the fact that his thesis actually is derived from the philosophies of Machiavelli (15th century) and Francis Bacon (17th century), and from the sociologists Durkheim, Marx and Weber, Mannheim has been commonly regarded as the founding father of the sociology of knowledge. According to Mannheim, knowledge, culture, sciences and other human products are relative in nature: there are no patterns of thought (ie meaning-loaded phenomena) which can be claimed to have an absolute, universal, eternal character. Accordingly, knowledge cannot be regarded as purely the product of cognition within the individual. The problems with Mannheim’s thesis are concerned with such issues as ‘how can we differentiate between scientific knowledge (particularly the human sciences) and ideology?’ and ‘Can we rely on the use of the method of imputation, the talent of the intelligentsia to understand knowledge, and the roles of the relatively uncommitted intelligentsia to differentiate one from the other?’

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philosophical viewpoint of the sciences, it is argued that both the context and

content of science are relative in character. As can be derived from the thoughts

of Karl Mannheim, Thomas Kuhn2 and the various other practitioners of the

sociology of scientific knowledge, there is no such thing as the absolute truth of

science. Scientific truth is perspectival and negotiable not only vis-a-vis its users

but also vis-a-vis the fabrication process of science and technology.

This chapter discusses Elias’ thoughts on the nature and development of

the sciences3 by means of mapping out his ideas within the context of the

aforementioned opposition. In so doing, we can acknowledge his oft-neglected

contribution and also understand this contribution within his general sociological

orientation. We can also identify some major weaknesses in his theoretical

framework.

On balance, however, Elias’ treatment of the sociology of knowledge and

his understanding of the nature and relative autonomy of knowledge acquisition in

the social sciences is superior to other sociological perspectives which remain

ensnared in a number of unproductive theoretical dilemmas. While this chapter

will be absorbed with these theoretical issues, it should be clear that my interest in

these ideas lies in their utility in undertaking a reflexive self-examination of my

discipline, sociology, as it has developed in my country, Indonesia. I myself am a

sociologist and teach at one of the elite universities in Indonesia, Universitas

Indonesia located in Jakarta.

As will become clear, I am aware that my discipline has achieved a well-

deserved reputation for scientific integrity. It also celebrates its absorption in the

study of social issues whose significance is tied to the national goals of rapid

2Although Thomas Kuhn is neither a sociologist by formal qualification or by profession, his thoughts on science are commonly regarded as sociological. This is not uncommon. The more obvious case is that of Karl Marx. His thinking is claimed not only by sociologists, but also by anthropologists, philosophers, psychologists, political scientists, economists and Marxist ideologues. The acknowledgment of Kuhn’s concept, furthermore, seems to be in accordance with the fact that it is he (1970, 1977) and Robert Merton (1968, 1973, 1984) who introduce sociological perspectives per se to the analysis of science. 3Although Elias (1897-1990) is a contemporary of Mannheim, he is not as well known. His popularity came later, after he reached middle age. He was awarded the Adorno Prize (1977) as well as two other awards for his intellectual achievements. For a biographical treatise, see Elias (1994). At present, taking advantage of advances in information technology, there is a group of scholars exchanging information about this topic on the Internet.

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social and economic development. I also know that these uses of sociology have

given it a very important place in policy formation and have entrenched close

connections with the state bureaucracy. By entering into this strong relationship

with government, sociologists have influenced the discourses and practices of

state power, and have contributed to the continuing processes of state formation in

Indonesia. At the same time, these links with the state — and sociologists have

had few options faced with an authoritarian government intolerant of criticism —

impose important constraints on the autonomous development of sociology as a

field of knowledge. I have, in this thesis, examined the growth of the discipline of

sociology from its origins in studies of Indonesian society beginning in the

colonial era, through its formation in the early years of independence, on to its

settled institutionalisation in the era known as the New Order, from 1965 to 1995.

The examination of the nature of sociology and of the knowledge it produces can

only be understood in this historical context. The evolving relations between

sociology and its figurational context (to anticipate the use of Elias’ categories of

analysis) is very complex. The thesis will examine this relationship in order to

clarify the limits to the autonomous production of knowledge in Indonesia. These

are vital issues for the future development of sociology in the late 1990s, now that

the political limitations imposed during President Suharto’s long rule are under

review in the post-Suharto era of reform.

To return to Elias — the backbone of his view centres on the notion that

the sciences are an emergent social reality in a long process of knowledge

acquisition. It is an activity with semi-autonomous features. By this, it is meant

that scientific knowledge is social in its origins and is capable of acting back both

upon its production and consumption contexts. Nonetheless, the sciences are

inseparable from scientific methodology, which provides scientists with some sort

of quality control mechanism to allow them to produce a more object-oriented

knowledge. Scientific achievement, accordingly, can only be viewed as

advancement or regression with respect to past (non-scientific and scientific)

achievement: sciences are neither completely immune nor completely embedded

vis-a-vis their production and consumption contexts within the broad intellectual

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development of human species. It is emphasised that although the sciences are

inseparable both from ideology and other cultural products, there is a relatively

autonomous quality to the growth of the sciences. In fact, it is the development of

social sciences which enables us to conceptualise what constitutes ideology itself.

B. SOCIOLOGY AS A SEMI-AUTONOMOUS BODY OF KNOWLEDGE

Broadly speaking, Elias’ understanding of the sciences (1971, 1982, 1984) is

based upon the assumption that the sciences and their properties are processual

funds of knowledge whose emergence is inseparable from the dialectic between

individual scientists and the consuming and producing groupings (e.g. scientific

communities). Therefore, although individual scientists represent the main actors

in scientific knowledge acquisition, their activities (and more importantly their

existence as scientists) are understandable only with reference to these social

contexts. To be specific, he rejects the traditional belief that scientists single-

handedly find the truth ⎯ the absolute and final truth. He claimed (1971: 165)

that:

'(...) the acquisition of knowledge [in a particular field] is a process which surpasses the life span and the capacity for discovery of a single individual. It is a process whose 'subjects' are groups of people, long lines of generations of men.'

Not only do individual scientists at any given time internalise some part of

the social fund of scientific (as well as non-scientific) knowledge, but they are

also expected to contribute (particularly to improve and augment) certain

scientific knowledge to the funds for succeeding generations through their

activities4. This is the essence of participating in the advancement of the sciences.

Here, although sharp demarcation lines between scientific and non-scientific

activities are difficult to determine (particularly with regard to the social

sciences), Elias firmly believes that the sciences themselves are analytically

distinguishable ⎯ even though in practice they are inseparable ⎯ from the

4This is not specific to scientific advancement, but also applies to knowledge in general. Elias claimed that every human being is at the same time the subject and the object of knowledge. Thus one can or must say 'we' as well as 'I'.

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individual scientist’s activities as well as from ideology and/or other kinds of

social reality.

Although Elias tends to emphasise the social nature of the sciences, he

acknowledges that the content of science is produced in a specific way. These two

aspects are not necessarily mutually contradictory. Elias maintained (1971, 1982,

1984) that the salience of viewing science as a collective product goes hand in

hand with the claim of compliance by individual scientists and scientific

communities regarding certain scientific-epistemological-rules on how to gain and

advance scientific knowledge. Methodology, research methods and, above all,

systematic thinking are significant means to produce and evaluate the quality of

scientific knowledge as a more adequate social fund of knowledge. The rules are

crystallised in the fundamentals of science with respect to their inclination to

continuous empirical testing in a long inter-generational processes of knowledge

acquisition.

It has been consistently argued by Elias that scientific theories can and

must be capable of being checked repeatedly. Elias (1984:264) stated:

'As every scientific advance and discovery, however convincing and authoritative, can be checked against relevant evidence, it is always open to revision or rejection.’

Moreover, despite efforts by some scientists and/or other parties in the wider

society to ‘mis-use and abuse’ scientific knowledge for their short-term self

interests, the significance of empirical tests as a means of evaluating scientific

theories can not be disdained. The irreducible significance of open, non-collusive

testing of scientific claims constitutes a strong inbuilt anti-authoritarian tendency

of the sciences. Controversially, it has been asserted by Elias (1984:265) that:

'(...) sciences -- natural and social -- are one of the most powerful levers liberating humanity from its strong tendency to find contentment in submission to authority'.5

5Basically there are two opposing attitudes towards the sciences. On the one hand there is an exaggerated attitude which views science as an answer to all ills which plague the world. At the other extreme, there is a belief that science dehumanises both on the level of the individual and the species. Within this context, the acknowledgment of the importance of power (in a very broad sense) as well as the plastic nature of figurational formations, amongst others, prevents Elias from being trapped within such unrealistic perceptions of science.

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The rationale for this relationship between the liberating effect of science

and the continuous testing prerequisites is concerned with the importance of the

interconnection between intellectual detachment and the use of long term

perspectives in producing scientific work. Quoting Elias (1987:xv):

‘No doubt a long-term perspective demands a greater capacity for distancing oneself for a while from the situation of the moment. But it also opens the way towards greater detachment from the wishes and fears of the moment, and thus from time-bound fantasies. It increases the chance of a more fact oriented diagnosis.’

In the twentieth century, this has particularly been evident in terms of the

explosion of knowledge in fields that are not highly specialised. Among the more

important means of the growth of general knowledge are public education

programs and mass media services. This is an indicator of the functional

democratisation process, a growing potential for popular power.

Thus far we have seen how the sciences are viewed as a type of (social)

knowledge which is produced by means of specific methods based on certain

practices and patterns of consciousness. And it is exactly within this context that

Elias’ formulation of sciences as a semi-autonomous fund of knowledge in a very

long term process finds its meaning.

As has been mentioned, the sciences are thought to have their own

normative pattern ⎯ a pattern which is differentiable but indivisible from the

normative pattern of other types of knowledge and/or their social contexts. This

pattern is concerned with the content and context, in both the structural and

developmental properties, of the sciences themselves; and they are subject to

recognisable regularities and laws. Moreover, there are standardised social control

mechanisms used by scientific communities to maintain the existence of this

normative pattern and guard scientific knowledge ‘against interference by short-

term interests of individual scientists, of professional groups of scientists or of the

power-holders of the societies concerned’ (Elias, 1971:355-70). In short, certain

social mechanisms operate in such a way to defend (and even to advance) the

semi-autonomous character of science, so much so that the sciences are

transferable from one social context to others with a different structure and level

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of development. Standards of considerable detachment and distanciation

represented by sciences, for instance, are higher than the ones exhibited in

ideology or other non-scientific knowledge.

Correspondingly, instead of understating or, at the other extreme,

overstating the capacity of this normative pattern to free scientific knowledge

from its social context, it is more appropriate to speak of sciences in another way.

It is best understood as a body of knowledge with some measure of autonomy ⎯

a characteristic which made it possible to differentiate sciences from the so called

‘group mythologies, social ideals, goals of factions or party-ideologies.’6 Within

this context, Elias argued (1971:365):

‘Relative autonomy refers to the fact that no type of knowledge can ever be in its structure and development totally autonomous in relation to the structure of the groups of human beings who use and produce it, but it can be independent of it in a higher or lower degree.’

As a corollary, it is unrealistic to judge scientific works based on some

sort of true-false criterion, as is suggested by the dominant view of the

philosophers of science. Instead, when evaluating the achievement of scientists,

we can only use the criteria of advancement (and correspondingly, regression).

It has been strongly emphasised that within the continuation of knowledge

acquisition, sciences in a particular epoch can only be an advancement or a

regression with regard to the past or the future, in Elias words ‘whether they are

an advance in relation to the existing fund of knowledge in their field’.

Additionally, he states (1971:358):

6The emphasis on the semi-autonomous character of science differentiates Elias’ model from that of Merton’s. In Merton’s model, as science is conceptualised primarily as a social institution, extra scientific penetration is believed to exist in terms of the social demands of research findings, but does not exist within the scientific methodology. This could be seen, for instance, in his formulation of the ethos of modern science (ie universalism, disinterestedness, and organised scepticism). The ethos is considered to support values associated with the existing scientific methodology. In addition, there are reasons to raise questions about this formulation ⎯ such as, do scientists in general actually believe the supporting values or are they something that scientists ought to believe? For criticism of Merton's sociology of science see for eg. Barnes and Dolby (1970) and major articles published in the journal, Social Studies of Science, Becker (1986) and Dant (1991).

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‘In fact what practising scientists test if they examine the results of their enquires, both on the empirical and the theo-retical level, is not whether these results are the ultimate and final truth, but whether they are an advance with respect to the existing fund of knowledge in their field’.

Within this context, Elias (1971:363) clearly objects to the views which ‘do not

concern themselves with the conditions under which a more scientific, more

object-adequate type of setting and solving problems of society may develop from

the non-scientific, the magic-mythical type with which they are mainly

concerned.’ Moreover, it is fictitious to view the natural sciences as the true

sciences and to conceive of all others as the so-called ‘Arts’ (i.e. non-scientific or

pseudo-scientific) ⎯ a false conception whose origins are traceable to the

philosophical claim of scientific production. Here, according to Elias (1987:xix):

‘All that representatives of the philosophy of knowledge have usually done is to present the scientific explorations of life-less matter as the ideal model for the provision of fact-oriented knowledge and to say categorically, “This is the model of a scientific enterprise, take it or leave it.” If you have difficulty in adopting for the exploration of human societies the models provided by those whose task is the exploration of lifeless pieces of matter, so much the worse for you.’

Instead, we can only claim that natural sciences, up to the present, occupy

a position of higher autonomy than social sciences. They are more strongly object

oriented knowledge than the social sciences due to the ‘use’ of higher standards of

detachment and distanciation. Non-scientific wishes and needs determine the

process of knowledge acquisition mainly in so far as they express some sort of

general direction and desirable outcomes. These are often counterbalanced and

controlled by institutional procedures established by scientific establishments.

Sociology and social studies in general are in a somewhat different position. Their

research object is at the same time the social context to which they belong and

partly form. Their professional procedures have not yet been soundly insulated

against non-scientific interference. As has been pointed out by Elias (1987a:224),

the lower relative autonomy status of sociology is evident in the development of

sociology:

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‘In sociology one can observe again and again that what seems at first to be a serious scientific and learned discussion conducted on a very high level of abstraction reveals itself on closer inspection as a complex superstructure erected in order to attack or give support to specific positions on the contemporary spectrum of social ideals and beliefs.’

It is a great challenge for sociologists to increase the autonomy of their

treatises. However, this challenge is not easy to meet partly due to the fact that

human beings as subject matter of sociology are becoming increasingly inclined

to assert their interests and rights, even against the sociologists themselves. In

comparison with cosmology and biology, Elias claimed that the scholars

belonging to these two intellectual disciplines are better able to formulate higher

fact-oriented theories (i.e. less self-centred, less affective involvement) because

observation of their subject matter is far less problematic. When, and indeed if,

the subject matter of cosmology or biology appears to react back upon the

researchers themselves, it is mainly through the interference of human beings.

In one of his articles Elias claims that a circumstance to consider in

meeting this challenge for sociologists is the emergence of ahistorical sociological

analysis. It seems to me that Elias’ concern about this unplanned development in

sociology is related, among other things, to the fact that such sociological analysis

tends to force sociologists to get closer to the ‘here and now’ of social phenomena

under study, while the actual need is to increase detachment and distanciation.

This tendency of exaggerating short-term time perspectives in contemporary

sociological theories and research projects is called by Elias as 'the retreat of

sociologists in the present'. It has been observed by Elias (1987:vii):

‘One difference between a more detached and a more involved approach, which one may notice if one looks at this example, is a difference in the time perspective. A highly involved approach to the present danger of a big war has a short-term perspective. (...) A more detached view entails in this case a different time perspective. (...) A long-term perspective raises the question of whether the tradition of settling conflicts between states by means of violence, in the form of war, can be brought to an end while the traditional

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institutions, group feelings and attitudes directed towards warfare remain unchanged.’7

The importance of the semi-autonomy issue within Elias’ frame of thought

is also indicated in his ideas about the functions of the sciences. Elias notes firstly

the claim that the sciences have some degree of detachment from their social

contexts (ie. they have their own human-made-symbols, such as words or figures).

He then emphasises that we need to be aware that they also contribute certain

social functions. They are critical functions for society in the modern era, where

sciences have assumed vital roles as a means of communication and a means of

orientation (1984: 251-2). The first function means that sciences have the

capacity to be utilised to exchange ideas. Secondly, when sciences function as a

means of orientation, knowledge from particular fields permit society itself to

change, as well as to develop the social fund of scientific knowledge itself. Here,

it is the task of scholars of social science disciplines to promote some sort of

common consciousness among their fellow members of society about the patterns

they dynamically form together. According to Elias, if the sciences, social and

others alike, had no value for human beings they would have hardly come into

existence or if they had, they would soon have disappeared (Elias, 1971: 355-70).

There is evidence of the use of scientific knowledge in contemporary ideologies.

Within this context, in a rather Comtean fashion, the sciences are thought to have

a privileged position assigned to them in gradually replacing the roles of religion

(Elias, 1987a: 236):

‘In prescientific state-societies, priests were usually the principal specialists for the preservation, development, and

7The narrowing of sociologists’ focus on short-term perspective endangers the autonomy of sociology itself. Elias (1987:xxi) argued: ‘For sociologists it is, under present conditions, much more difficult to tear themselves away from their involvement in present affairs. As one may see, involvement also contains references to the focus of interest and to the affectivity of knowledge. In the case of sociologists the focuses of scientific interest and of their extra-scientific interest are not very clearly isolated from each other. The affectivity and particularly the emotional partisanship spill over quite easily from the latter into the former.’ It is also worth noting that Elias seems to reject the use of the so-called ‘causal models of explanation’ models which commonly accompany ‘the retreat’. Causal models might give an impression that they are more useful in reducing the complicated nature of social life. However, this is a wrong impression for, amongst others, these models tend to imply social life can be analytically (and empirically) divided into categories of ‘cause’ and ‘effect’ variables. This leads to an artificial recognition of social life.

12

transmission of a society's basic means of orientation, of its fund of knowledge. (...) State-societies of our own time are highly dependent upon a scientific production of knowledge.'

With regard to the functions of the sciences, it has been emphasised that

the salient feature of the development of the sciences is their interconnectedness

with the long-term development process of societies themselves. This occurs in

such a way that sciences do not constitute only an ‘independent variable’ or

alternatively a ‘dependent variable’ with regard to the development of societies.

Far from that, this development is relatively rooted within society and at the same

time has active influence on the development of societies: sciences are not merely

a reflection of a particular set of interactional and/or institutional conditions.

Sciences require both an economic sphere and social value to come into existence

and to grow within society, as much as society needs the sciences to develop

(Elias, 1971). This is, as has been argued by Elias (1984:270), clearly evident

with respect to recent development:

'Production of new knowledge, or in other words research, has become one of the greatest industries. Discoveries, innovations in knowledge, fuel the development of societies and are fuelled in turn by their national and social rivalries and conflicts.'

To sum up, in characterising the sciences, Elias views them as both

product and process. And as is evident in the next section, the sciences are also

conceptualised with reference to specific community: the scientific establishment.

Before discussing any more of Elias’ conceptions of the social contexts of

sciences, it is worth noting that he is not the only scholar who regards sciences as

a semi-autonomous body of knowledge. From a different point of view Thomas

Kuhn (1970, 1977), for instance, proposed a similar model. Kuhn perceived that

his analysis was a reaction against empiricist and formalist conceptions of the

sciences which are articulated by logical positivism. He emphasised that sciences

are never autonomous vis-a-vis social contexts. He (Kuhn, 1977:xx) argued:

‘... though science is practised by individuals, scientific knowledge is intrinsically a group product and that neither its peculiar efficacy nor the manner in which it develops will be

13

understood without reference to the special nature of the groups that produce it.’

Indeed, there are certain conventional conceptions that he challenges

(Horwich, 1993:2):

1. ‘The idea that philosophy can and should specify how science ought to be done;

2. The assumption that there is such a thing as the absolute truth independent of language or theory;

3. The view that progress in science consists in finding theories that more and more closely approximate to the truth;

4. The idea that there are canons of rationality that determine, from the available data, the appropriate precise degree of confidence in any given theory;

5. The view that scientific development may be modelled within the thought process of an individual scientist;

6. The assumption that there exists a theory-neutral body of observable facts;

7. The conception of theory as a set of symbolic generalisations with individual empirical contents.’8

Kuhn’s belief in the semi-autonomous property of the sciences is

expressed in his analysis of the dynamics of the paradigm, the shared values and

norms which bounds members of a scientific community together.

According to Kuhn (1977:296) is:

‘A [scientific] community consists of the practitioners of a scientific specialty. Bound together by common elements in their education and apprenticeship, they see themselves and are seen by others as the men responsible for the pursuit of a set of shared goals, including the training of their successors. Such communities are characterised by the relative fullness of communication within the group and by the relative unanimity of the group’s judgement in professional matters. To a remarkable extent the members of a given community will have absorbed the same literature and drawn similar lessons from it. Because the attention of different communities is focused on different matters, professional communication across group lines is likely to be arduous,

8By this contention, Kuhn does not conceive of science as something which is completely unique. In comparison with art -- a field which has been commonly contrasted to science, he argued that there are certain intrinsic similarities as well as differences between these two enterprises (see Kuhn, 1977:340-51).

14

often gives rise to misunderstanding, and may, if pursued, isolate significant disagreement.’

It has been believed that the existence of scientific community is

inseparable from the existence of those shared beliefs, scientific as well as non-

scientific and technical as well as metaphysical, among its individual members.

This shared consensus is concerned with crucial components of scientific

activities, that is, subject matter, research method, theory, and certain scientific

works which are taken into account as an exemplar for the other three

components. This is the essence of what he has called a ‘paradigm’.9

In Kuhn’s frame of thought, a paradigm has been conceived of as

replaceable. In fact, he strongly emphasised that the progress of the sciences is

indicated by the dissolution and construction of paradigms through scientific

revolutions. To some extent, the paradigm is analogous to ideology emerging,

reaching maturity, and dying before being replaced by a new one. Moreover, this

new paradigm does not necessarily mean a movement closer to the absolute truth.

This is the most controversial issue which has been brought in by Kuhn, in

comparison with the traditional philosophical position of the gradual progress of

the sciences towards an absolute truth. He (1970:23) argued that certain scientific

works manage to reach a paradigmatic status because ‘they are more successful

than their competitors in solving a few problems that the group of practitioners

has come to recognise as acute.’ This, however, does not imply whatsoever that

the works are completely successful in the search of the truth.

Maturation of a paradigm paves the way to normal science. This is the

stage in the life of a paradigm, which is featured by accumulation process of

knowledge by members of scientific community based on the existing paradigm.

At this stage, a paradigm is used in such a way that its use basically contributes to

the strengthening of itself. This is a ‘puzzle-solving stage’ which occurs in so far

as there is no scientific discovery. Scientific discovery encourages the recognition

that an existing paradigm does not ‘suit’ reality: a recognition which promotes

9‘Paradigm’ is loosely defined in Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. This has been a subject of criticism which encouraged him to clarify his definition in a later work (1977:293-319). His clarification, however, seems largely to be a defence of what he wrote in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

15

paradigmatic disagreements between the proponents and opponents of the

dominant paradigm. In particular, further developments in scientific discoveries

(that is, if they manage to develop) promote growing awareness among scientists

that the existing paradigm cannot provide satisfactory answers to certain

basic/crucial questions. This is the main characteristic of the anomaly stage. And

when anomalies persistently occur, scientists begin to seriously look for

alternatives to overcome the scientific crisis. Here, specifically, anomaly and

scientific crisis are a transitional stage towards scientific revolution, which in

return stimulates the birth of a new paradigm in a revolutionary fashion.

According to Kuhn, scientific revolution is indeed an important stage in

the progress of science, which involves a combination of both scientific and other

kinds activities alike. The main point is that scientific revolution does not simply

replace irrelevant parts of the old beliefs with new ones, but the old belief is

completely replaced, both in its metaphysical and technical aspects. And yet,

either the proponents of the old paradigm or those who are in favour of the new

paradigm claim that their theories are rationally constructed.

The problem with Kuhn's analysis lies with his overestimation of the

magnitude of paradigms, to such an extent that he seems to be trapped in a

deterministic conception of scientific development ⎯ single or dual paradigmatic

sciences. Even his acknowledgment of the creative and innovative nature of

scientists has been a justification of his deterministic position. In this respect, a

science with multiple paradigmatic achievement, either by nature or by the

process of development, does not have a place within his frame of thought. To be

more specific, while criticising the philosophical foundations of natural sciences,

Kuhn tends to under-emphasise the scientific value of social sciences. Unlike

Elias, he tends to emphasise the non-scientific aspects of social sciences. Social

sciences, for instance, are conceived as an ‘undeveloped-immature science’ or an

‘almost non-scientific perspective’.

Another problem is with his formulation of the scientific community. This

group is conceptualised as an autonomous community which tends to demand

loyalty from its members with regard to professional matters; so much so that

there exists social distance in group relations. The point is that the social contexts

16

of science are actually more complicated than the one which is presented in

Kuhn’s model. The scientific community is closely related to society, to such an

extent that one cannot be understood without referring to the other. Moreover, we

would lose valuable insight if the importance of the state were overlooked. Within

this context, the non-scientific interests of those who have greater access to power

(e.g. government, capitalists) often influence not only the activities of individual

members of a scientific community, but also influence the existence of the

community at large. This is also true with regard to the influence of prominent

members of scientific community on the development of society: institutions and

society at large do not merely constitute an audience of scientific enterprise.

Furthermore, it is also worth noting that society and the scientific community is

not intrinsically in conflict as it appears in Kuhn’s work.10 On the contrary, there

are scientists, in particular the senior ones, who manage to mediate and move

between these two groups and achieve positions of influence in both.

C. THE FIGURATIONAL CONTEXT OF SOCIOLOGY PRODUCTION

Thus far, ‘social contexts of sciences’ and other similar expressions have been

widely used. It has considerable importance within Elias’ frame of thought. He

was concerned about the contextuality of intellectual exercises (ie.

operationalisation and theorising processes), the patterns of bureaucratisation of

scientific activities, as well as the full range of uses of the sciences. These social

ramifications of scientific activity are conceptualised as figurations. The problem

is: there has been no clear systematisation of specific figurations of scientific

production. However, it seems to me that within the present civilisation stage, he

refers to figurations that range hierarchically from local scientific establishments

at the bottom, to global organisations at the top, notably organisations closely

associated with their respective governments. His treatment of the variety of

figurations of scientific production is scattered throughout his work.

Basically, ‘figurations’ or ‘the figurations of interdependent human

beings’ (Elias, 1978; 1987; 1987a) mean pliable webs of interdependence,

10In Kuhn’s own words (1977: 344): ‘only they [fellow scientists] look critically at his [a scientist’s] work, and only their judgment affects the further development of his career. Scientists who attempt to find a wider audience for professional work are condemned by their peers.’

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characterised by a multi-faceted power balance. There are several salient features

of such figurations elaborated upon by Elias, which represent his basic

assumption of the relations between social groupings and individuals. However,

as this thesis is intended primarily to investigate more limited, operational

figurations (i.e. the relations between individual scientists and their social

contexts), the salience of such figurations is not analysed in detail here. Instead, a

very short summary of Elias' 'figurations' is presented now merely to achieve a

general delineation of his conception of sociology. For these purposes, the three

most prominent features of ‘figurations’ are the following:11

Firstly, social figurations are social constructions of reality. Against the

realist or nominalist conception of social structures, Elias believed that social

structures are an emergent reality in a continuous dialectical process between

individuals and society. The individuals who are linked to each other in various

ways continually construct them ⎯ and yet they have their own properties

distinguishable from the nature of the individuals themselves or the nature of

other composite units. This emergent property of figurational formations is

particularly associated with the pattern of interdependence among their composite

units and properties of formation, stability and change that are not wholly

dependent on the intentions of their members. Elias argued (1978:147):

‘It is perfectly possible that by their own actions, groups of people consciously orientated towards preserving and maintaining the present figuration in fact strengthen its tendency to change. It is equally possible for groups of people consciously orientated towards change just to strengthen the tendency of their figuration to remain as it is.’12

Secondly, there are relations between the asymmetries of power, patterns

of human interdependence, and the nature of social figurations. According to

Elias, these two are inseparably interconnected one to the other, so much so that

we cannot speak about the former without actually analysing the heart of the latter 11For an example of a comprehensive use of the concept ‘figurations’ see eg. Russell (1993) and Duindam (1994).

18

and vice versa. Both imply the existence of social relationships. Elias claimed

(1978:74):

‘Simply to use the word ‘power’ is likely to mislead. We say that a person possesses great power, as if power were a thing he carried about in his pocket. This use of the word is a relic of magico-mythical ideas. Power is not an outlet possessed by one person and not by another; it is a structural characteristic of human relationships -- of all human relationships’.

By the term 'power'13 Elias (1984) meant an inevitable (universal) aspect

of a relationship between parties (eg. individuals and social groups) having

different access to resources (eg. food, love, meaning, security, and knowledge).

Furthermore, the relationship is formed by a party who has the ability to withhold

or monopolise what is needed by the other party. Moreover, 'usually groups or

individuals from whom means of satisfaction are withheld, have something else

needed by those who withhold means of satisfaction from them' (Elias, 1984) ⎯

thus we can only speak of power relations as 'power balance' or 'power ratio': the

more a party depends on the other, the greater the power ratio of the latter. And

this does not necessarily mean that the one with greater power chances is less

constrained than the other. The main issue here is whether the power ratio

increases or decreases, whether the power differentials between the parties

involved increases or decreases. The ‘win-lose’ game or ‘winner takes all’ (ie. the

relationship between parties with complete access to power and the ‘powerless’)

appears to be an unrealistic picture of social figurations, and should be replaced

with ‘relative strength’. This includes the relationships between governments and

the governed and between different strata. In short, figurational formation takes

place somewhere within a subtle power balance, and this location within shifting

power relations has important consequences. According to Mennell (1991:369),

one of Elias’ foremost exponents, power, as Elias understood it, exists in a

12The acknowledgment of the distinctiveness of social figurations in their own right has been used by Elias to legitimise the existence of sociology as a science of social figurations. Social figurations are irreducible to psychological, biological or physical reality. 13The use of ‘power’ by Elias is interchangeable with ‘power relations’.

19

'flexible, labile and balance often changing in a discernible direction over time.'

Within this context, Elias himself has noted (1978:74):

‘Balances of power are not only to be found in the great arena of relations between states, where they are often spectacular and attract most attention. They form an integral element of all human relationships. [...] It must also be borne in mind that power balances, like human relationships in general, are bi-polar at least, and usually multi-polar.’

Thirdly, social figurations are subject to historicity. According to Elias,

social figurations are neither a static nor ahistorical entity, but they are in constant

flux, ‘social structures in motion’, within a long-term process without a beginning

or an end. Any figurational formation, that is, its differentiation and integration at

a particular time, has its connection with past and future figurations (or set of

figurational sequences), so much so that we can speak of the ‘inevitability’ of the

developmental nature of figurations.14 Here, the relations between figurations at a

particular time and the succeeding ones have been conceptualised by Elias within

a frame of interpretation that emphasises the conditions necessary for the

observed outcome. The main point is we can neither assert deterministic-unilinear

assumptions (and, accordingly, make an exact prediction for the future) nor use

causal analysis models in understanding figurational development. What

sociologists are able to do legitimately is ‘to examine the range of potential

outcomes as it is to discover the particular constellation of factors responsible for

the emergence of this one figuration rather than any other of the possible

alternatives’ (Elias, 1978:161). Furthermore, it is strongly stressed that changes

are understandable only with reference to changes, and movements by

movements. In addition, it is emphasised that examination of conflict and tension

is unavoidable in the study of figurational changes. He claimed that (1978:174):

‘The rise and fall of groups within figurations, and the concomitant structural tensions and conflicts, are central to all developmental processes. They have to be placed at the

14Although Elias’ conception of development basically deals with a long-term process of change comparable with the concept of evolution, they are not interchangeable terms and conceptions in Elias’ frame of thought. For one, ‘evolution’ has a biological connotation. See Mennell (1991) for a more detailed discussion.

20

centre of any sociological theory of development. (...) That problem is whether and to what extent uncontrolled conflicts and tensions between different groups of people can be brought under the conscious control and direction of those involved in them, or whether such tensions and conflicts can only be resolved through violence, either as revolutions within or as wars between states’.

With regard to the above three basic features of figurational formation,

there is indeed a wide range of social groupings which can conceptualised as

social figurations. These range in scale from families and other face-to-face social

groupings, organisations and other intermediate structures, whole societies, up to

the entire world. However, in so far as this concerns the production of the

sciences, the most relevant groupings are the scientific establishment which is

closely interrelated with the state.

When Elias refers to the ‘scientific establishment’, he identifies an

organisation of specialists whose main activities centre upon the development of a

specific fund of scientific knowledge within a long-term process of knowledge

acquisition. This is done both to maintain and improve the existing body of

knowledge, and to provide people with a means of orientation. At the same time,

the organisation also recruits and socialises new co-participants to fulfil societal

requirements. As is the case with other social figurations, the existence of a

scientific establishment is inseparable from the matrix of power relations within

which it operates. In Elias’ frame of thought, power relations impinge upon

scientific research. This can be analytically understood by means of two basic

interconnected terms.

Firstly, power relations affect science with respect to its structural

properties; and science is also influenced by its position within wider figurations.

In so far as its position within figurational formation is concerned, Elias has

argued that scientific establishments are a strategic composite unit whose power

surplus (ie. high power ratio) is derived from a monopoly on scientific

knowledge. This, however, does not mean that the power ratio of scientific

establishments and the scientists who form them are the highest in society. Elias

(1982) states that in comparison with politicians and the groups of economic

21

specialists (eg. entrepreneurs and trade unionists) their power ratio is not

particularly high, despite their central contribution to societal requirements.

Is the monopolisation of the sciences — particularly highly specialised

technical and scientific knowledge — by scientific establishments sustainable?

According to Elias (1984), limiting access to scientific advances in

knowledge only to groups of experts — ‘the oligarchs of knowledge’ — cannot be

effectively maintained in the long term. This is in contrast to prescientific knowl-

edge. There is evidence of the emergence of ‘alternative’ centres for science

production. Gibbons et al. (1994), for example, have claimed that scientific

knowledge is also produced in industrial and government laboratories, a

noticeable phenomenon in recent years. On the other hand, there is evidence of

the opposite: the use of scientific advances by scientific establishments to help

increase the power ratio of governments and (capitalistic) conglomerates. These,

at the same time, have supportive effects not only in increasing the power ratio of

the scientists involved, but also the monopolisation of sciences by the scientific

establishment they form. In short, there has been insufficient evidence up to the

present to claim that the emergence of these recent centres has dismantled the

monopolistic achievement of the establishments.

Secondly, with respect to their structural properties (ie. webs of

interdependence), scientific establishments exhibit power relations that are

ordered in hierarchical ways. He (Elias, 1982:4) has argued:

[each of them] 'consists of a hierarchy of offices headed by one of more people with the title, qualifications, power resources, and emoluments of a professor. He or, as the case may be, she or they, form a local scientific establishment, perhaps together with senior members of their staff who head the middle rung of an institute or a department followed at the lower rungs of the ladder by junior members hoping to ascend.'

Here, it has been emphasised that although individual and/or small group

of researchers are the direct producers of scientific works, their operations are

predominantly determined by those who occupy the top layers of scientific

establishments (eg. professors in universities and research institutes). According

22

to Elias, they form the core of local, national and international scientific

establishments, who play important roles in the development of the sciences

themselves, both as a means of communication and orientation (Elias, 1982:5).

Not only are these 'scientific elites' in control of managing and directing the

development of science, but they also have a monopolistic grip. As a

consequence, their power ratio is greater than those who are in the lower strata.

Thus far, if I have succeeded in presenting Elias’ idea of the social

contexts of sciences production, it would be clear by now how complicated the

contexts are. And when one takes into account the fact that scientific discovery

has become to a greater extent part of an institutionalised routine, the more

complex but realistic the context would be. Neither scientific establishments nor

scientists are immune to the influences of other social figurations. Accordingly,

scientific knowledge acquisition is no longer dependent on scientists alone (as the

direct producers), but also involves non-scientific considerations made by

administrators to such an extent that a blurred (and often inaccurate) snapshot of

scientific production has resulted.15 This expresses his idea of the semi-

autonomous features of both the sciences and the scientific establishments.

According to Elias (1984:254):

‘Science production is greatly dependent on organisers, coordinators, and decision-makers on a variety of levels, the highest of which is the governmental level. There are a number of fields where only state governments or (...) some top groups in business enterprises can decide or refuse to finance research needed for advances in scientific knowledge.’

Based on his firm belief of the long-term process model, not only are the

sciences and scientific establishments viewed from an evolutionistic standpoint,

but so is his analysis of the state. However, his analysis of the interrelations

between the production of the sciences and state formation seems not as detailed

as his analysis of the dynamics of science or the state itself.

15This fictitious intellectual picture can be and actually has been held both by social analysts of science production and ‘managers of society’. It is relatively easy for them to be trapped in assuming, amongst other things, that science is a commodity, scientific establishments another business company and/or viewing scientists as capitalists of different types.

23

According to Elias, a state is indeed a social structure with its figurational

features ⎯ ‘state formation within a very long process of human development’.

Despite Elias’ sympathy for a few aspects of Marx’s thought, his ideas on state

formation cannot be assimilated to either liberalist-pluralist or Marxist

approaches. In Elias’ model, for instance, economic and political spheres of social

life intertwine with consciousness (including interaction with the sciences as a

type of well-articulated consciousness) in such a way that they interdependently

contribute to the creation of a social formation. Here, while rejecting the static-

polaristic conceptions of either a society or state centred approach of the

nineteenth century tradition, Elias has focused on the process to which a state

emerges out of society in a very long-term process — ‘the structure of social

process’.

‘The state’ in Elias’ model refers to a complex, processual web of human

interdependences which are typically concerned with the formulation and

execution of public policy based on power chances held as a consequence of the

monopoly of the means of violence, taxation and cultural orientation within a

society.16 Its composite units ⎯ as diverse as the military, civilian bureaucracy,

police force, customs and taxation systems, as well as other non-privately owned

and non-voluntary public institutions17 ⎯ are intertwined in such a way that that

the state can simultaneously be viewed as a survival unit or an attack and defence

16With regard to the importance of the state in indirectly monopolising cultural orientation, Elias has noted that in communist China, India and basically in all new national state formations, there are attempts at the reinforcement and unification of codes of conduct. However, with the rise of democratisation, self-control becomes more important, partly to ensure the continuity of private and public life. Elias has argued (Fontaine, 1978:252): ‘Democratisation is a specific, less unequal distribution of power in society. There is thus no single model, as there had been with the court. And the necessary codes of behaviour will establish themselves on their own accord, by groupings, without being imposed externally. Such is perhaps the case, for instance, with the habits of motorists. What do they express? A greater control of drivers over themselves. I think that is the important point. In societies where inequality between groups is diminishing, greater self-control becomes necessary. When one group commands and the other obeys, it’s simple: every one knows what he has to do. When there is no longer a situation of superiority and inferiority, more precautions are needed if one is to get along with others, to work with them. This greater control over oneself, which tends toward moderation and authorises the lightening of taboos and external constraints, is still the process of civilisation’. 17This conception of state formation based on power differentiates Elias from the classical thinkers of the state, such as, Hegel or Durkheim, who tend to emphasise moral-ethical considerations of the state. According to Durkheim (1973, 1964a, 1956), for instance, states are the guardian of mutual trust, ‘civil religion’, which function to ensure the continuation of social harmony among increasingly different occupational groupings.

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unit.18 It has been stressed that the state is basically different from the

government. Whereas 'the state' denotes a figuration, 'government' (both central

and regional levels) refers to the hierarchically superior element within the state;

which is particularly responsible for public policy processes. Consequently,

'government' by definition is more flexible and labile than the state. As van den

Bergh has argued (van den Bergh in Gleichmann et al 1977:169), Elias

characterises the state based on its stability — 'to speak of states is to refer to

societies in which stable central monopolies of violence and taxation have been

established and which include an extended territory with a number of towns and

other local communities’. There are certain salient key points of state formation

worth mentioning in this research.

Firstly, state formation is conceived as a figurational formation, which

basically has its past and future. It is a processual phenomenon regulating

interaction between the individual and the rest of the human species. By this, it

has been argued that state formation has both a past, a pre-state survival unit, and

future in a long process of civilisational progress or a progressive control over

impulses. To be specific, states are considered an important human invention.

Furthermore, state formation is not conceptualised in contra mental position to the

individual, who forms (and at the same time belongs to) this social figuration to

such an extent that it is both theoretically and empirically inappropriate to reduce

the state to ‘active-rational actor’. Elias has noted that in the past survival units

take the form of city-state or the inhabitants of a stronghold, and might be

represented by amalgamations of several former states in the future.19

Secondly, state formation is the most significant figurational formation to

take into account in the present stage of civilisation. According to Elias, as a

survival unit, the state has certain unique functions to fulfil; amongst others, in

promoting solidarity (nationalism), social integration and differentiation. He 18According to Elias, as a survival unit has the potentiality for attacking other survival units and/or defending its existence against the invasion of the others, a survival unit might be called an 'attack and defence unit'. In fact 'survival unit' is used interchangeably with 'attack and defence unit' by Elias. 19This origin of state formation, however, cannot be traced back through the use of an ‘independent variable’ analysis ⎯ an analytical model which, as has been mentioned earlier ⎯

25

claimed (Elias, 1978:138-9) that they are to a considerable extent the 'object of

common identification, to which many individual valencies are bonded. [And] at

every stage of development, wherever people have been bound and integrated into

units for attack and defence, this bond has been stressed above all others'. At the

same time, these survival units are also regarded (Elias, 1978:167) as the basic

units into which humanity is divided in a functionally interdependent world20, as

well as 'the units of reference for social development'.

Within this context, the importance of the state can also be seen with

respect to the mental structure of the people who form the states, including the

man in the street. Based on his analysis of the social and mental structure of

European peoples, it has been found that they undergo drastic changes with the

increasing stability of state formations in Europe since the Middle Ages. For

instance, hatred, aggressiveness and delight in torturing others are more indirectly

expressed, more restrained and less unequivocal (Elias, 1978:230):

‘Nowadays cruelty, delight in the killing and torture of others, like the social use of brute force, is placed increasingly under strong social control vested in the organisation of the State. All these forms of pleasure, restricted by punitive threats, are gradually ‘refined’ and express themselves only indirectly. And it is only in times of social upheaval and war, or for that matters, in colonial territories where social control is looser, that they break through in a more direct and overt form, less subdued by feelings of shame and revulsion.’

This can also be seen in other kinds of sentiments and instinctual

expressions. Elias states that (1978:238):

[Prior to the Middle Ages], ‘the play of instincts and emotions was more spontaneous, direct, and unstable than at later stages of the civilising process. Only to us, for whom everything is more subdued, moderate, and calculated, and for whom social taboos are built much more deeply into the

which presumes an autonomous beginning independent of any social reality. State formation is a processual phenomenon that emerged out of prior processual phenomena. 20Elias suggested that the interdependency of (nation) states in the present is higher than in the past. Moreover, it is more likely to see such interdependency increase in the future (eg through the process of technological and social globalisation, within which extra-state associations emerge at the international level).

26

fabric of instinctual life as self-restraints, do the strength of this piety and the intensity of aggressiveness or cruelty appear antithetical.’

Thirdly, related to the above, the international context of state (and social)

formation has been emphasised in Elias’ theoretical approach: the

interdependency of survival units in wider figurational formation. Here, the world

is understood as a processual international system within which the states are

hierarchically ordered on the basis of differences in their power ratio ⎯ a

combination of manpower, capital, military techniques, violence potential and

other basic determinants. He (Elias, 1978:168) has claimed:

'Whether it is a tribe or a state, the internal development of every attack-and-defence unit is always functionally connected with the development of the prevailing ”balance of power” within the wider figuration in which the several interdependent attack-and-defence units are bound together.'

This standpoint has certain theoretical implications, that is, the rejection of

viewing ‘external’ and ‘internal’ dimensions of both the state and social formation

in contrast one to another (or even worst, to treat these two as alternative

theoretical approaches to understanding social reality). Elias argued (1978:168)

that the so-called 'endogenous processes of social development' 'will remain

incomprehensible and inexplicable unless the development of the system of states

is taken into account at the same time.' This international configuration of survival

units, furthermore, is not static entity. States and other types of survival units alike

are thought to have the probability of increasing (or alternatively, of decreasing)

their power chances -- often by the use of violence -- within the changeable

international context.21

21Wallerstein and other world systems theorists also explore this issue. However, as the concept of power is conceptualised by Elias 'in terms of plastic, flexible, labile, balance often changing in a discernible direction over time, he is able to bypass such debates as that concerning the definition of the periphery, semi-periphery and core in which world-systems theorists have tended to become bogged down' (Mennell, 1991:369).

27

Fourthly, in contrast to ‘hardliner’ Marxist points of view, state formation

is characterised as semi autonomous vis-a-vis the so-called ‘economic process’.22

Elias (1978:140) maintained:

'Marx depicted the organisation of the state as though it actually did nothing but that, and had no function other than defending bourgeois economic interests. In other words, he took over an ideology derived from the bourgeois science of economics, changing its sign, so to speak, from plus to minus. From the point of view of the working class, the defence of bourgeois interests seemed pernicious; therefore the organisation of the state must seem pernicious too.'

In contrast, Elias understands the crucial-interconnected issues of state

formation, social integration (and this implies social disintegration) and social

differentiation, within which economic processes predominantly belong to social

differentiation (or, imply social amalgamation). Furthermore, it has been claimed

that these two are 'functionally interdependent and irreducible one to another'. On

the one hand, the formation of capitalism and the spreading networks of trade and

industry require the state. Capitalist development needs a state which is capable of

reinforcing political stability, protecting business community against foreign

competitors, and ensuring the interdependence among national economic sectors.

It also mediates and stabilises relations between workers and those who own the

means of production. On the other hand, tax produced by and through economic

development is required by political institutions to develop. There is no state

formation which can be completely autonomous with regard to economic process.

To be specific, according to Elias (1978:167), these two processes are inseparable

from each other within the long term process of social development: 'It is closer to

reality to regard processes of differentiation and integration as the hub of the

dynamics of social development. Accordingly, the economic aspects of

development should be considered along with state formation. The latter are 22The semi-autonomous feature of state formation, however, is not confined to economic process, but also to the production of science, the controller of the monopoly of violence, and other sovereign states. This can be inferred from our discussion of Elias’ idea of the semi autonomous feature of the sciences and scientific production. However, it seems that this basic feature of the state is more complicated than the one offered by Elias. This is particularly evident within the

28

structured aspects of overall development, and certainly in the developing

countries it is impossible to separate them from the economic aspects'.

Based on Elias' formulation of state formation, what could we learn about

styles of governance? Although there are reasons to believe that Elias realises the

sociological significance of taking into account styles of governance in his model,

the issues have not been analysed in depth. To be specific, there are still spaces

within his model for an account of styles of governance other than democratic

regimes (e.g., authoritarian regimes), and their interrelationship with scientific

development.

D. POSITIONING ELIAS’ THOUGHT

We have seen that Elias has a concern with epistemology, and his understanding

of scientific knowledge is integral to his broader explication of the nature and

possibility of rigorous knowledge in general. This is important; too important to

overlook as the sciences aim for a relatively higher level of reality congruence.

Scientific methodology deals with such issues as 'how to conduct sociological

research' and 'how to gain more reliable knowledge'. This conviction is also

broadly shared by sociologists in their efforts to acquire sociological knowledge.

However, Elias does not let himself be trapped in some sort of instrumentalism,

neither the positivistic or humanistic version. In fact, this is the point where Elias

distinguishes himself from this trend to ideologise scientific methodology, from

the trend to consider expertise in the use of scientific methods as being far more

important than having theoretical understanding.23 In Elias’ framework of

thought, scientific methods are a means to acquire adequate knowledge. Scientific

methods in themselves do not produce scientific knowledge, and it is the users

who determine what scientific methods to use. Accordingly, it would be fallacious

to assume that quantitative methods are a more (or less) detached approach in

context of Third World societies where we also have to take into account the existence of religious conviction, ethnicity, and nepotism. 23The intellectual roots of instrumentalism in sociology could be traced back to the efforts in contrasting Comte’s and Durkheim’s ideas with Weber’s concept of sociological methodology. Dichotomising has been commonly found among sociologists in terms of hard data versus soft data, respondents versus informants, objectivity versus subjective bias, explaining versus understanding, structured versus unstructured interviews, and quantitative versus qualitative analysis.

29

producing knowledge than qualitative methods.24 In so far as it concerns scientific

methods as a group product, Elias (1987:20) argues:

‘The methods actually used in empirical investigations, inevi-tably, vary a good deal from discipline to discipline in accor-dance with the different types of problems that present them-selves for solution. What they have in common, what identifies them as scientific methods, is simply that they enable scientists to test whether their findings and pronouncements constitute a reliable advance in the direction of their common objective’.

How can we specifically position Elias’ interpretation within other

sociological conceptions of scientific production?

Generally speaking, there has been a trend in sociology to emphasise the

importance of social interaction within complex organisations in the analysis of

the generation of knowledge, the sciences and other cultural artefacts. This has

been noticeable particularly since the 1970s, along with the revitalisation of

cultural studies. The social and institutional context within which ideas are

developed has been extensively analysed within numerous studies of fields as

diverse as the media, religion, language, arts, popular culture, subcultures, as well

as the sciences themselves.25 Star (1989), for example, found that despite the fact

that scientific communities lack unified authority, 'unequal distribution of

academic rewards (eg. employment, career mobility, salaries, fellowships, and

prestige) should be interpreted with reference to the significance of their basic

social organisations in forcing them to act as if some ideas were better than others'

(Swidler and Arditi, 1994:312). Another example is provided by Peterson’s

studies (1976, 1979). He (Peterson, 1979:155-6) argued that each cultural field in

society, including science, has two dimensions of work milieux which deal with

academic purposes (ie. pure, basic, theoretical) and commercial purposes (ie.

practical, popular, applied); and there are determinant variables of knowledge

production and dissemination which operate in the work milieux. The most 24The ideologisation of research methods has given birth to such crucial issues as structuring research problems and findings according to the research method used, manipulation of data (ie, ‘How to lie with statistics’, empathy turns into sympathy or even into tyranny of subjectivism or intuitivism), and empiricism.

30

important determinants are rewards systems ⎯ symbolic and material rewards ⎯

for the production of knowledge; evaluation by peers; organisational dynamics in

producing and disseminating knowledge; cultural market structure ranging from

intense competition, oligopoly to monopoly; and types of technology in

knowledge production and dissemination.

Another example of the importance of complex organisation is Lamont’s

study (1988) of Derrida’s work. It has also been found that the success of

marketing26 Derrida's works both in the US and in France has resulted from two

distinct but simultaneous processes (Lamont, 1988). On the one hand, it involves

the process by which the producer defines himself and his theory as important.

The definition itself is conducted by means of legitimising and institutionalising

its academic-scientific values (eg. explicating his scientific contribution as well as

creating research teams, research institutes, and journals). On the other hand, it

involves the process through which peers and the intellectual community in

general accept the importance of the ‘new’ product. Actually by doing so, they

participate in constructing and institutionalising both the theory and its author.

Although those findings have their own significant contribution to the

development of the sociology of the sciences, it appears that there have been no

other well-developed efforts to redefine the contexts and content of science as

those made from an interpretative point of view. Within this category, the most

productive ones have been the constructivists, discourse analysts, ‘the strong

programme in the sociology of scientific knowledge’, interest model theorists,

ethnographic theorists, and ethnomethodologists. One important thing that ties

them together is their focus on the content of science. This has been done in order

to contrast their approaches against earlier theories. It has been claimed that

instead of focusing on the content and form of science, earlier theories (the so-

25Swidler and Arditi (1994) conceptualise this recent interest as ‘the new sociology of knowledge’. 26The specific term used by Lamont (1988) is 'intellectual legitimation', a process by which a theory becomes recognised as a part of a field, as something that can no longer be ignored by those who defined themselves, and are defined, as legitimate participants in the construction of a cognitive field.

31

called ‘sociology of science’) emphasise the institutional aspects of science.27

They regard their theories as belonging to the so-called ‘sociology of scientific

knowledge’.28

Although there have been multiple stances taken by the proponents of the

sociology of scientific knowledge about the scope and form of the sociology of

scientific knowledge, they share basic presumptions about the relations between

so-called ‘science, technology and society’, and about the methodology to

understand these interconnections. The shared assumption is concerned with

treating science as a relative body of knowledge which is deeply rooted in

discursive process. By discursive process, we mean a dialogical process that takes

place between scientists and policy makers as well as among the scientists

themselves. This ‘links them together through a series of family resemblances’

(Knorr-Cetina and Mulkay eds. 1983:1). Accordingly, we can group them into

one category; and for reasons of convenience, allow me to view them as

interpretative sociologists of science.29

Indeed, the broad themes from which multiple lines of argument have

emerged are as follows:

First, being cultivated within the era of the revitalisation of cultural stud-

ies, they have been predominantly interested in pursuing the answers to the 'how'

rather than the 'why' questions. And in accordance with this contention (i.e. to

understand, rather than to explain, the social process of scientific works),

preferences for qualitative method over quantitative method have been evident.

This has specifically dealt with efforts to understand science from the point of

view of ‘the natives’, an anthropological jargon to denote scientists in

laboratories, artificial intelligence researchers, and scientists qua scientists.

Knorr-Cetina, Collins, Latour, Woolgar and other theorists of this category have

27There are other terms used to differentiate between these two lines of arguments. Riggs (1994), for example, tends to use the ‘cognitive sociology of science’ for the sociology of scientific knowledge, and ‘non-cognitive sociology of science’ for the sociology of science. 28Discussion of these theories is intended to critically find the common ground among the proponents of the sociology of scientific knowledge. For a brief picture of each of these theories, see eg Riggs Introducing Philosophical and Sociological Theories of Science (1994). 29Some observers (see eg Riggs, 1994; Chalmers, 1990) have employed the term 'relativism' or ‘methodological relativism’ to include the ideas of philosophers Paul Feyerabend and Thomas Kuhn, and those sociologists of scientific knowledge (including Harry Collins’ relativism).

32

claimed that theories and facts are as relevant as artefacts to be taken into account

in social studies of sciences. For example, Hess (Hess and Layne eds. 1992:14)

has pointed out:

[This interpretative perspective is] ‘fundamental to establishing the idea that ethnographic study of science and technology should include the content of facts, theories, and artefacts’ -- a tendency which is, to some extent, encouraged by the participation of cultural anthropologists with their critical or reflexive anthropological perspective.30

All of these general features, furthermore, are consonant with their

preference for formulating 'middle range theories', which have also been

accompanied by a strong reliance on theory-detailed empirical research

relationships, or ‘fieldwork’. There has been no claim whatsoever to construct a

general theory of science production, let alone a general theory of society.

Secondly, their research programmes have been focused on the natural and

technological sciences rather than on the social sciences. The natural and

technological sciences are believed to be basically a type of cultural item which,

like other cultural products, are deliberately produced within organisational

contexts. In so doing, by directing their investigations to the content of the natural

sciences themselves, the subject matter which has been conventionally regarded

as having the monopoly on the philosophy of science has been challenged.

Within this respect, Downey has observed (in Hess and Layne eds.

1992:143-68) that there are basically two lines of arguments involved. The first

aims to show that ‘technological form is recast from an autonomous force to the

product of social judgement’. It involves diverse considerations spanning both

technical and non-technical factors and issues. The second line of argument

focuses on the social impact of products of the natural sciences: ‘technologies

themselves contribute to shaping human action, not as autonomous forces but as 30The participation of cultural anthropologists is significant in diverse respects. First, this signifies a new trend in anthropology’s research focus: from a science of tribal, primitive societies to a science of Western technoscience. This is partly due to the shift of research funding towards natural sciences, in particular those with high potentiality to increase the power surplus of governments and/or industrialists. Secondly, this signifies the emergence of social studies of science, a perspective which goes beyond the separational conceptions of sciences -- both in

33

socially-significant objects whose positioning in society endows them with the

trappings of agency’.

Taking consideration of these two, Downey himself has found out how the

development and use of CAD/CAM (Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided

Manufacturing) technology is basically loaded with political content which to a

considerable extent is rooted in the rhetoric of nationalism in the US, such as the

importance of enhanced productivity for American national objectives.

The third point about shared ideas concerns their theoretical and

methodological propositions and research findings. According to interpretativists,

scientists are opportunists, in a non-emotive sense in that 'they are aware of the

material opportunities they encounter at a given place, and they exploit them to

achieve their projects. At the same time, they recognise what is feasible, and

adjust or develop their projects accordingly.' (Knorr-Cetina, 1981:34). Based on

this recognition of the interpretive capability of scientists in general and in

particular their creative character, scientific theories are commonly believed to be

determined by the nature as well as, amongst others, the interpretative capability

of the theorists themselves (the thesis of the indetermination of scientific theories

by the evidence). It has also been believed that as observations are based on

theories, they do not determine theories: observations do not serve as independent

arbiters in determining the persistence of scientific beliefs in the face of reality

(the thesis of the theory-ladenness of observation).31 In short, a close relation

between observations and theories has been highlighted. In this respect, the

interactive bases of scientific reality have been accented. It has been argued that

interactions among members of a research team condition the manufacture of

scientific knowledge -- along with the influence of theoretical background, the

researchers’ personal background and expectations. For Knorr-Cetina (1981,

1983), for example, scientific reality is highly structured internally through the

process of laboratory fabrication, independent of questions of their external

structuring through some match or mismatch with 'nature'. The logic of non-

politico-geographical (ie American versus European social sciences) and traditional disciplinary (ie strict division of labour among social scientists) terms. 31 See Knorr-Cetina and Mulkay eds. (1983:3-17) for a detailed account of these two theses.

34

scientists' interaction is not excluded from scientific milieux (Knorr-Cetina, 1981:

33):

'The contingency and contextuality of scientific actions demonstrate that the products of science are hybrids which bear the mark of the very indexical logic which characterises their production, and are not the outgrowth of some special scientific rationality to be contrasted with the rationality of social interaction.'

Here, she (in Knorr-Cetina and Mulkay eds. 1983:132) has introduced the

concept of transepistemic:

'Laboratory reasoning and the involvements in which scientists perceive themselves to be entangled refer us to symbolic relationships which are transepistemic, that is, to relationships which in principle go beyond the boundary of a scientific community.'

She added (1981) that in order to be classified as scientific innovations,

research products must meet certain requirements, namely, success in the

laboratory, success in adoption by other scientists, success in convincing others

that the product is in fact an 'innovation'.

This opportunistic nature in scientists can also be seen with regard to their

professional identity. This has been shown, for example, by Zabusky’s research

on the scientists in the European Space Agency. She discovers that (in Hess and

Layne eds. 1992: 115-42) scientists have to deal with the desire of remaining

researchers, and at the same time they must cope with being part of a bureaucratic

system. Employees of the EAS tend to become ambassadors of science in order

to be able to gain access both to research facilities, finance and some measure of

power privileges, and at the same time they take great care to legitimise their

identity as scientists within the scientific community. To be specific, it has been

argued that (Zabusky in Hess and Layne eds. 1992: 134):

‘These scientific ambassadors must constantly negotiate among a variety of interested parties, all of whom are co-participants in the collective, cooperative effort that is putting together a scientific mission. In the process, they are seen variously as members of almost all these different

35

constituencies: now a member of the scientific community, now a member of the ESA bureaucracy, now a member of the mission team, and so on. They are able to assume this chameleon form because they represent and embody science, at once defending it from hostile interlocutors and celebrating it with peers.’

A fourth variant adopts the basic idea given prominence through the re-

emergence of cultural studies, namely that language should be conceptualised

more than as merely a neutral means of communication. It is also a means of

social interaction, which has persuasive functions in obtaining scientists' scientific

and social interests; both through scientific-formal speech, publication and/or

informal discussion.32 Within this context, so essential are languages that some

theorists have exaggeratedly emphasised scientists' languages themselves as a

social reality.33 According to the discourse analysts (eg. Mulkay and Potter, 1983;

Latour and Woolgar, 1979), as scientific knowledge production is likely to occur

within scientists' discursive actions, sociological research should be directed

towards the question of 'how are scientists' accounts of actions and beliefs socially

generated in different social contexts? What recurrent interpretative practices are

employed by scientists?' In other words, instead of landscaping scientists'

discourses as a source or basis of social actions and social interactions, they are

treated as a research subject.

Being similar to discourse analysis, ethnomethodological theories of

scientific production have also been taken a step further than the constructivists

achieved in understanding language. It has been claimed that as tacit

understanding among scientists plays an important role in the production of

scientific knowledge, sociological research should be able to answer such

questions as how scientists intersubjectively produce a sense of social order in a

laboratory (eg. Woolgar, 1983; Lynch et al, 1983).

32With regard to the issue of scientists’ interests, a Marxist notion of the sciences has been revitalised, particularly through Habermas’ Marxism on the scientisation of politics, technocratic ideology and critiques on positivism. For a detailed analysis see eg Barnes’ About Science. 33The use of discourse analysis is based on Foucault’s idea of knowledge and power (1974). For a detailed analysis of Foucault’s contribution to the social analysis of knowledge see eg Dant (1991).

36

Fifthly, social aspects of scientific works were firmly believed to be

integral in the technical and cognitive aspects of the works themselves. Here,

negotiation issues have been typically considered as a crucial phenomenon. Not

only are scientific outcomes negotiable, but every stage of scientific knowledge

acquisition is characterised by negotiation:

'...scientific outcomes may depend on the argumentative skills, the prestige or other symbolic and material resources which participants mobilise to convince each other.' (Knorr-Cetina and Mulkay, 1983: 12).

What are the values of these approaches to scientific production?

Firstly, the most important contribution of this approach concerns the

efforts to bring the content of natural sciences and scientists (qua scientists) under

scientific scrutiny. This goes further than earlier sociological analyses of science.

It has been achieved by arguing that they are not autonomous in relation to social

contexts as is philosophically viewed for instance by Imre Lakatos. In addition, it

has also been their claim that the so-called ‘universal character of scientific

methodology’ is highly questionable.34 Consequently, the natural sciences are not

considered as a type of knowledge whose nature is completely different from

other types of knowledge. The application of scientific methods in acquiring

knowledge about natural world does not necessarily make both natural sciences

intrinsically different from other types of knowledge and natural scientists

superior to religious priests or social scientists.

With this conviction in mind, the interpretativists have also stimulated

interest in delineating the distinction between the sociology of scientific

knowledge and the sociology of the sciences. Hess has argued (in Hess and Layne

eds. 1992:13):

‘Instead of allowing the natural sciences to colonise the social sciences via positivist rhetoric and methods, anthropologists’ new ethnographies can provide models of alternative, non-reifying ways of thinking and writing about science, technology and society.’

34For philosophical criticism of the universal method see eg. Chalmers (1990:ch.2).

37

In this context, it remains necessary to note that ‘scientists’, to some

extent, nevertheless diverge from other mental-cultural producers (e.g. artists or

religious priests). This can be regarded as an advancement when compared with

earlier claims regarding the sociology of science such as those proposed by

Peterson (1979; 1976) with his 'cultural fields' and 'monopoly of scientific credit',

or Zaret (1985, 1989, 1991, 1992) with his 'structure of authority' to mention but a

few. These theories tend to unrealistically categorise scientists and other mental-

cultural producers into a single group. Moreover, they appear to use some sort of

market model as their 'silent partner' in conceptualising scientists and the

scientific community. This is particularly evident in both Pierre Bourdieu’s works

on 'cultural capital' (1993, 1988, 1977) and Merton’s works. In these models,

scientists have been perceived as seeking and investing in credibility. Scientific

communities have been pictured as markets with their logic of competitive

struggle. According to Knorr-Cetina (in Knorr-Cetina and Mulkay eds. 1983:115-

40), scientists in this model are homo economicus with no significant rules of their

own: they are capitalists of different kinds.

Even so, there has been no clear discernment made by the interpretativists

about the characteristics of scientists. We can still see in their projects how

scientists are conceived of as social actors who are busy negotiating projects with

other participants, involved in controversies35 with other scientists to reach a

sense of consensus, and involved in manipulating one another. The point is that

‘the rules of the game’ in science — scientific integrity — have been left

unquestioned. This has lead to another major problem. Not only does this

approach not accommodate the scientists' rules sufficiently. It also overlooks the

fact that scientists are active members of their own state-societies as well as

participants in their own science communities at the local, national and interna-

tional levels. It is too simplistic to argue that what is referred to by the

interpretative theorists as 'the circumstances of science production' are an integral

part of the products which emerge. I strongly believe that investigations of these

35According to Collins (1982, 1983, 1985, 1989, 1990), a relativist, scientific controversies are mechanisms by which knowledge claims come to be accepted as true within science community.

38

structures would enrich our fund of knowledge about the sciences and the process

of their production.

However, the major theories employed by these sceptical relativist

approaches appear to go no further than the negative statement of an anti-thesis

against philosophical claims of the philosophers of science. However, as ‘loyal

opposition’, they have been enmeshed in their own dichotomous conception of

science: ‘science as an autonomous body of knowledge’ against ‘science as a

relative body of knowledge’. It appears that there are insufficient efforts to

formulate some sort of synthesis.36 Within this context, such efforts have been

(not surprisingly) the target of criticism from a philosophical point of view, which

regards them as, amongst others, a pseudo-scientific analysis of science.37

Another major problem deals with the determination to analyse natural

and technological sciences. So obsessed are the interpretativists in proving the

social process of natural scientific enterprises, that their work has been

overwhelmingly focused on the sciences and technologies in the Western

capitalistic part of the world, where natural and technological sciences are most

developed. Subsequently, we know little about the course of social sciences in

different parts of the world (upon which these interpretative theorists stand or

claim to stand). Are sociologists as opportunistic as natural scientists? Are

opportunism and the penchant for negotiation intrinsic to the nature of

sociologists or is it rather a response to social pressures within a particular epoch?

These and other similar questions appear to be left out of account.38

36There have been efforts to find a middle ground between the absolute-philosophical and interpretative-sociological conceptions of the production of science. See for eg. Chalmers (1990). While criticising both points of view, he has argued that there is a line somewhere which differentiates between the natural sciences and non-scientific explanations. Such a line should be found by rethinking the aim of the natural sciences themselves as a long process of objective knowledge about how the natural world works. However, his efforts are inclined to be a defence for the philosophical conception of science production, by accommodating recent developments in the sociological theories regarding science production in a philosophical framework based on illustrations of historical examples. 37See eg. Larry Laudan in Brown ed. (1984). 38The importance of taking into account the individualistic character of scientists is that it provides a position for answering the ‘How’ question of the production of science while Elias’ model focuses on the ‘What’ and ‘Why’ questions. However, it should be emphasised that this does not mean categorising Elias’ model into the same group with the interpretativist model.

39

A second major problem with many of these studies is the fieldwork site

itself. Can satisfactory investigations of the interactive basis of producing

scientific knowledge confine itself to the laboratory, or must a wider field of

social interaction be surveyed.39 And for those who acknowledge the centrality of

laboratory (and at the same time admit its differences to other workplaces), it

seems that the physical appearance of the laboratory is overemphasised. Knorr-

Cetina (in Stehr and Meja eds. 1984: 225), for instance, has defined ‘laboratory’

as:

'A local accumulation of instruments and devices within a working space composed of chairs and tables. Drawers full of minor utensils, shelves loaded with chemicals and glassware. Refrigerators and freezers stuffed with carefully labelled samples and sources materials: buffer solutions and finely ground alfa-alfa leaves, single cell proteins, blood samples from the assay rats and lysozymes.'

This picture of the intra-organisational contexts of science production is

reductionist and seems to be in accordance with the static-dichotomous view of

microcospic versus macrocospic sociological analyses. Consequently, while they

might be preoccupied with fighting against 'the over-socialised conception of

man', they certainly fall into the pitfall of overestimating the creativity of

individual scientists and the significance of face to face interactions. They would

do better to conceptualise social actions and social institutions as processual and

interconnected phenomena. It is unlikely, for instance, that their approach can

provide answers to the questions regarding why sociological empirical research

tends to focus on a short-term problem-solving rather than long-term-basic

research.40 In an apologetic way, it is said that organisations are generally too

large to allow the microcospic study of scientific works (Knorr-Cetina, 1981).

39There are efforts particularly by anthropologists of science to ‘decentre the laboratory and transforming it into just one of the “scenes” or “sites” for the ethnography of science and technology’ (see Hess and Layne, eds. 1992). However, their research focus has still been primarily on the interactive basis of scientists’ actions with the tendency toward a microcospic level of analysis in contrast with the macro level. 40Latour (in Knorr-Cetina and Mulkay eds. 1983:141-70) attempts to bridge the gap between micro and macro sociological analysis of science production: the construction of the science laboratory and its position in the societal milieu. He argued that (1983: 168) 'No matter how divided they are on the sociology of science, the microanalysts will end up tackling macro issues

40

In my opinion, it is a great challenge for sociologists to deal with this

problem: to understand the social process of science within a set of organisations

without losing a grip on the content of the sciences themselves. Unless we

acknowledge the relationship between social actions and social institutions, the

challenge is unlikely to be met. Moreover, not only is it unrealistic to reduce the

several hundred years of the history of the sciences and indeed their future ⎯

with their progressive and regressive tendencies ⎯ into localised face to face

situations. It is also less sound sociologically to maintain an ahistorical view of

social phenomena in addition to positing reductionist perceptions of political and

social structures.

Thirdly, although the theorists investigate the process within which

scientific works are produced, no satisfactory answers are provided to the social

implications of science production. 'Social implications' here mean latent,

unintended social consequences of science production.41 Here, Merton and

Bourdieu can be regarded as sources of inspiration regarding this social

implication. Merton, for example, has pointed out how a kind of 'spirit of

Protestantism' has contributed to the development of science in the Western

world. According to Bourdieu, knowledge has been continually manipulated,

reshaped and disseminated either to maintain or change power relations between

various groups; this has been done in the face of an ideology of egalitarianism

within the Western-capitalist societies. Cultural capital, for example, is oriented

towards the maintenance of class domination or as a means of recruitment into the

dominant class. Individuals, families and classes use their resources in education

to gain symbols which are valued by the dominant class in order to be reinvested

to gain further money and power.

The last-but-not-least note is on the application of discourse analysis and

ethnomethological conceptions to the social study of science. It is rather difficult as well, exactly like the scientist doing lab experiments on microbes who ends up modifying many details of the whole of French society'. However, he still could not free himself from the trap of micro sociology. Moreover, it should be emphasised that the existence of macro level of scientific reality is a consequence of the development of laboratory studies in many disciplines (Callon and Latour, 1981).

41

not to accept the claim that those conceptions are more useful as methodological

principles in gathering social data in order to check the validity and reliability of

participant-observation field notes so that they are available for 'second-order

interpretation' in understanding scientific works.42 Data provided by

ethnomethodologists on what a scientist knows (and he/she knows that other

people also know it) for example, is a rich deposit of details which can be

analysed by sociological theoretical frameworks.

E. CONCLUDING REMARKS

As can be inferred from the discussion in the preceding sections, the sciences are

not as structurally well ordered as they are presented to laymen. In fact to define

rigorously the nature of the sciences is an extremely difficult task. Does science,

with all its special and privileged features, really exist? Or, is it possible that the

scientists themselves who help create an illusion that the so-called ‘sciences’ and

‘research methods’ really exist and provide the most reliable means of

understanding how the world works? On the other hand, do we have strong

enough ground to argue that the sciences merely reflect a particular set of

interactional and/or institutional conditions? The answers provided either from the

mainstream philosophical and/or sociological points of view are as puzzling as the

questions themselves.

If I have managed to present Elias’ theoretical standpoint, it can be seen

that his basic arguments are more convincing and do not fall foul of the puzzling

and unproductive oppositions that plague other sociological approaches. He

argues that the sciences are a semi-autonomous human product constructed within

a figurational formation in a very long-term process of knowledge acquisition.

The semi-autonomous features of the sciences themselves are, in principle,

escalatable ⎯ from both the political and social ideals of the present.

41This has been one of the strongest points of sociology since its early years: the social implications of suicide to social integration, of Calvinist ethics to the emergence of capitalism, of religion to the promotion of class exploitation and domination. 42See eg. Coleman (1968) for a critique of Ethnomethodology and Dant (1991) for a critique of discourse analysis.

42

However, in order to maximise the use of his assumptions in an empirical

research project, there are certain aspects of his works which need to be

elaborated upon.

Firstly, although there is some mention of postcolonial societies in his

diverse works, it is a fact that Elias does not provide a focused analysis of such

societies within a social formation at an international level. His intellectual

interests rest rather on formulating relatively general sociological propositions

based on his familiarity with the ups and downs of European social conditions

since the beginning of this century up to more recent times. He does this both as

an individual and a sociologist. Subsequently, it would be interesting and highly

relevant to analyse possible relations between his ideas and those theories which

have been claimed to be constructed within and out of the post colonial societies

themselves (eg. the variants of Marxian and non Marxian models of state and

society in the Third World). Not only would such an analysis enrich Elias’

framework, but it would also sharpen his propositions.

Secondly, with respect to his claim of the flexible nature of social

formations, we can infer from his treatises that this primarily concerns the plastic

character of human interdependence which cannot be understood without

reference to the nature of human beings themselves as individuals. This is a more

realistic picture of social life, which denies the static sociological picture of social

domination over the individuals or the tyranny of individuals over social

groupings. Within this context, I believe that by emphasising the creative,

opportunistic and manipulative features of human beings, we may be able to

sharpen Elias’ concepts without losing the theoretical grip his sociology provides

on the larger dynamics of figurational formation itself. In so far as this is

concerned with the production of sociology, its rationale is the multiple

citizenships of sociologists (e.g. as members of a scientific community, state-

society and other social figurations). To a significant extent, this makes it possible

for them to take part in the making of history in their own way.

Elias’ ideas themselves developed within a particular figurational

formation that was, in many ways, markedly different from the Indonesian context

I propose to examine. Nevertheless, they are of sufficient generality to

43

accommodate the historical, cultural and political particularities that contributed

to the distinctive configurations of sociology in Indonesia. As we have seen, they

also promise to overcome a number of sterile oppositions within sociology,

philosophy and other cognate disciplines in their various attempts to understand

the epistemological and social foundations of the production of scientific

knowledge. While an Eliasian approach clearly has great theoretical strength and

is capable of generating new and fruitful questions about the nature of

sociological knowledge and the processes of its production, a specific national

case study of this kind requires that these general principles yield an appropriate

set of questions, methods of inquiry and other research objectives that will capture

the real character of the sociology produced in this Southeast Asian social

figuration. These matters define the scope of the study to which I now turn.

44

CHAPTER II THE SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Introductory remarks Research questions and the significance of the study

Research assumption The methods of the study

The implication of the research


In order to move from these complex theoretical considerations to the operational

issues of this research project, the understanding developed about the nature of

science in general (and sociology in particular) has been used to frame an

empirical investigation into the development of sociology in Indonesia. The scope

of the study had to be defined, and a methodological approach devised to yield

answers to the central questions implicit in this inquiry. The research questions

themselves have to be posed more precisely. The starting point is the issues

examined in the preceding chapter about the sociological analysis of the

production of sciences. Drawing upon the issues discussed in chapter one, I

suggest that five basic interrelated question are essential in a project of this kind:

1. What science(s) are we specifically talking about?

2. What dimension(s) of science are to be treated as an entry point ⎯ science as a product, as a process, as a community?

3. What type(s) of regime is to be discussed, and linked with this, what kinds of scientific knowledge are produced under such style of governance?

4. What strategies are used by the scientists in elevating the autonomy of their intellectual discipline within such figurational conditions? and,

5. Within what stage of world capitalist development do all those processual phenomena take place?1

1Elias does not restrict himself to conceptualising the world from the standpoint of capitalist development. As has been discussed in the preceding chapter, the world (i.e. world system) is basically viewed as a figurational formation made of inter-state relations. In his ideas about the development of civilisation, there are no explicit arguments about his preferences for the development of capitalist civilisation. However, considering the dominance of capitalist development in the world system (particularly since 1980s), the importance of world capitalist development could not be underestimated.

45

Based on these pointers, there are four items to be discussed in this

chapter: research questions, research methods to be utilised in pursuing those

questions, working definitions, and the value of this study as an entry not only to

understanding the dynamics of Indonesian society, but more importantly, to

understand sociology as processual scientific tradition which has existed for over

than 200 years or so.

It is worth noting that this does not mean that Elias’ thoughts are to be

used to dictate to the present study. Far from it, this thesis developed out of a

rigorous process of dialogue between Elias’ thoughts (as I understand them) and

the real world of sociology in Indonesia. As a result of this interaction, there are

points of accordance as well as points of divergence.

B. RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

What is sociology?

For Walter Buckley (1967) sociology is the study of social life. Buckley

views social life as a dynamic system that exists within an environment sustained

by the interaction of symbolic codes that constitute complex feed-back loops ⎯

both in terms of positive and deviational amplifying feedback. According to

Leslie et al. (1973:4) who are Parsonian sociologists, 'Sociology is a community

of scholarship that uses rational models to organise empirical data about human

societies and social behaviour.' For Peter Berger (1979, 1981) sociology is a study

of the social construction of modern society based upon certain typical modes of

consciousness. Anthony Giddens (1990: 7-8), defines sociology as 'the study of

human social life, groups and societies (...) ranging from the analysis of passing

encounters between individuals in the street up to the investigation of global

social processes.' He adds that 'sociology focuses in particular upon social life in

the modern world ⎯ the world brought into being by the sweeping changes in

human societies which have occurred over the past two centuries or so.'

(1990:11).

These are but a few of many definitions of sociology. Nonetheless, it can

be claimed that although sociologists tend to have different formulations of the

scope of sociology, it is generally accepted that sociology basically deals with the

46

relations between individuals and society in the modern era ⎯ a stage of human

civilisation commencing with the early stages of the Industrial Revolution in

England and the 18th century French Revolution. This is a distinctive feature of

sociology: an intellectual discipline whose subject matter simultaneously

constitutes its contexts of theorising as well as the social world of which the

sociologists themselves take part. Subsequently, whether we like it or not,

sociological treatises are firmly embedded in personal, social and scientific bias,

so much so that, as Elias has systematically suggested, the autonomy of sociology

as a scientific knowledge is one of the most crucial issues that sociologists must

deal with.

It is worth mentioning that Elias is not the first and only sociologist

concerned with sociology’s autonomy. Gouldner (1972), for example, found that

Talcott Parsons’ structural functionalism, one of the main approaches which

dominated the development of sociology both in the US and elsewhere, displayed

both personal and Western-capitalist biases with its orientation towards social

utilitarianism ⎯ it lent itself readily to the Welfare State ideology. According to

Gouldner, the Parsonian approach is a characteristic product of a capitalist-middle

class-industrial culture.

Within this context, Gouldner has also argued that the Welfare State is

capable of accommodating the interests of functionalists for, amongst others,

funding and new career-supporting resources. He claims: (1972:345):

‘Functionalism’s acceptance of the Welfare State, then, derives not only from the general reality but from the immediate power of the Welfare State itself and, most particularly, from its articulated and real support for sociology and the social sciences’.

On the other hand, functionalism’s usefulness for the maintenance of the Welfare

State was manifested in the vast growth of the applied social sciences (i.e. policy-

oriented use of social science by governments and, on a smaller scale, by

industrial management). This is possible due to the inherent bias of functionalism

itself. However, there are requirements of the state that cannot be met as easily by

functionalists (Gouldner, 1972:349):

47

‘The state, therefore, does not only require a social science that can facilitate planned intervention to resolve certain social problems; it also requires social science to serve as a rhetoric, to persuade resistant or undecided segments of the society that such problems do, indeed, exist and are of dangerous proportions.’

The state’s demand that social scientists give authoritative exposure to

problems (domestic and/or abroad) that the state had identified as sites for

intervention created serious dilemmas for functionalist sociologists.

In analysing functionalism (and to some extent, Marxism) a set of

conceptual frameworks has been used by Gouldner. It has been believed that

sociologists’ subjectivity constituted an inseparable part of the sociological works

themselves: producers’ subjectivity was undeniably expressed within their

products and the production process. He asserted that: (1972:28):

‘[...] whether or not an empirical study of social life develops, and the kind of study it is, depends upon certain prior assumptions about society and men, and, indeed, certain feelings about and relations to society and men’.

According to Gouldner, sociologists’ implicit conceptions are

differentiable into background assumptions and domain assumptions. The first

refers to (Gouldner, 1972:29) the hidden assumptions which provide ‘some of the

bases of choice and the invisible cement for linking together postulations. From

beginning to end, they influence a theory’s formulation and the research to which

it leads’. They are acquired through lifelong learning process (i.e. along with the

learning of the first language) and sensitise sociologists to the hidden and

obscured parts of the world outside and inside themselves. On the other hand,

domain assumptions Gouldner (1972:31) defined as ‘background assumptions

[which] applied only to members of a single domain, they are, in effect, the

metaphysics of a domain’. In so far as it concerns the domain assumptions about

man and society (Gouldner, 1972:31), they might ‘include, for example,

dispositions to believe that men are rational or irrational; that society is precarious

or fundamentally stable; that social problems will correct themselves without

planned intervention; that human behaviour is unpredictable; that man’s true

48

humanity resides in his feelings and sentiments’. Here, while background

assumptions are typical of human beings with their prejudices, domain

assumptions tend to differ from group to group. Gouldner argued (1972:35):

‘It is of the essence of domain assumptions that they are intellectually consequential, which is to say, they are theory shaping not because they rest on evidence nor even because they are provable; a social domain defined as real is real in its consequences for theory making’.

Moreover, feelings also constitute an implicit part of sociological works.

According to Gouldner (1972:39):

‘It is in part because social theories are shaped by and express domain assumptions that they are also sentiment relevant: reactions to social theories involve the sentiments of the men who read and write them’.

However, Gouldner admits that there is a general tendency to view

sociology as representative of an autonomous perspective. He remarks (1972:54):

‘When sociologists stress the autonomy of sociology ⎯ that it should (and, therefore, that it can) be pursued entirely in terms of its own standards, free of the influences of the surrounding society ⎯ they are giving testimony of their loyalty to the rational credo of their profession. At the same time, however, they are also contradicting themselves as sociologists, for surely the strongest general assumption of sociology is that men are shaped in countless ways by the press of their social surround’.

The argument about the semi-autonomous features of sociology have also

been emphasised by Therbon (1980) who addresses them from a Marxian

standpoint, emphasising the influence of the dominant mode of production. It has

been found that the development of sociology up to the present is inextricably

intertwined with the development of capitalism in Western Europe and North

America. He argues that sociology emerged as a bourgeois social theory whose

main concern was the social transformation brought about by the emergence of

capitalism (ie. the rise of capitalist and working classes and their structural

effects). It sought to solve the emergent social problems between the rise of this

49

new mode of production and the possibility of the emergence of socialist mode of

production. These preoccupations reach their high point of elaboration in the

hands of Talcott Parsons.

Therbon believed that sociology and other scientific perspectives are

deeply embedded in the social formation within which they emerge. This

theoretical standpoint has been clearly formulated in the last chapter of his work.

He claimed (Therbon, 1980:415):

‘Scientific enterprises do not subsist in a separate self-contained world. Neither are they related only to very broad and general values. They occur in specific societies at particular points in time, and are, therefore, part of particular historical economic, political and ideological conjunctures’.

The age of sociology had its roots in the era between the bourgeois and the

proletarian revolutions in Western Europe and Northern America, and it was

characterised by typical tensions, contradictions and struggles (Therbon,

1980:143-5). Moreover, the formation of other scientific disciplines (particularly

the central concepts of economics and political economy, and historical

materialism) which developed within the era marked by these two revolutions are

significant to the formation of sociology. Political economy, for example,

stimulated three major critiques which in turn gave birth to distinct sociological

projects. According to Therbon (1980:226), one line of critique centres on ‘liberal

economic policies and gave rise ⎯ or, more exactly, impetus ⎯ to a kind of

investigatory practice which is often labelled sociological, but which has

increasingly become part of normal administrative routine’. Within this context,

the other two lines of critique have focused on the ideological community2 and,

accordingly, directed the development of sociology as a distinct theoretical and

empirical discipline:

‘One of these started from a critical analysis of the epistemological basis of economics. The other was an across-the-board critique of epistemology, the utilitarianism and the

2The ideological community denotes ‘an external reality, to values and norms transmitted in empirical processes of socialisation and determining men’s social behaviour in ascertainable ways’ (Therbon, 1980:428).

50

policy recommendations of liberal economics. Max Weber may be taken to represent the second and Durkheim the third type of critique’.

Furthermore, according to Therbon (1980), although there are basic distinctions

between sociology and economics, both economics and sociology share similar

views. The similarities are noticeable when they are compared with historical

materialism. He claims (1980:428) that:

‘Economists may speak of capitalism and sociologists of classes and class conflicts, but the former do not see capital as a relation of production and the latter do not relate classes and class struggle to particular historical combinations of the forces and relations of production’.

Within this context, one of the main relevant issues for sociology is

democracy as it has been developed as the most important political institution in

advanced capitalist societies. Democracy has greater importance than efficient

administration or skilful elites in the maintenance of those societies.

Unfortunately, theories of democracy have not been thoroughly developed by

sociologists. Therbon states (1980:218):

‘Yet a true social theory of bourgeois democracy has never been developed in sociology ⎯ nor for that matter in what is today called ‘political science’.

To sum up so far, although both Gouldner and Therbon have a tendency to

attribute relatively little autonomy to sociology, they each have hold different

ideas about ‘how little is this little’. Here, Therbon seems to attach lesser

autonomy than that assigned by Gouldner, so much so that sociology seems to be

conceptualised as some sort of Marxian’ superstructure.

Similar to Gouldner and Therbon, Alatas (1993) has assigned a low degree

of independence to sociology as well as to other scientific discourses on social

affairs. Based on the Foucauldian idea of the interconnectedness of knowledge

and power, it has been found that the production of social sciences ⎯ both as a

means of communication and orientation ⎯ are dominated by theories and

methodologies derived from the practice, history, philosophy and culture of

51

Western civilisation. This has been manifested, amongst others, in the case of

development studies of both the positivist and empiricist traditions; and take place

at various levels of scientific activity, including at metatheoretical, theoretical,

empirical and often even at policy formulation levels. And yet they are often

disguised as universal social science, in such way that this Western construct is

commonly believed to be legitimate in influencing the structural processes both in

Western and non-Western (notably, post-colonial) settings alike. Here, Alatas

appears to rest his beliefs on basic differences between Western and non-Western

civilisations.

It is within this context, Alatas’ concept of ‘the captive mind’ or ‘mental

captivity’ has found its importance. He claimed that the captive mind is, to a large

extent, responsible for the institutionalisation and theoretical dependence of Third

World scholars on Western social science. By ‘the captive mind’, he means a way

of thinking which is dominated by Western thought ⎯ so much so that it tends to

be imitative and uncritical.

According to Alatas (1993:308), the most important features of the captive

mind phenomenon are:

‘The inability to be creative and raise original problems, the inability to devise original analytical methods, and alienation from the main issues of indigenous society. The captive mind is trained almost entirely in the Western sciences, reads the works of Western authors, and is taught predominantly by Western teachers, either directly or through their works. The captive mind uncritically imitates Western social science. This is manifested in the areas of problem selection and choice of research methods, as well as the suggestion of solutions and policies. It is also manifested at metatheoretical and epistemological levels as well as at the levels of theory and substantive work’.

Another important concept advanced by Alatas is the idea (or, at least, the

prospect) of the indigenisation of social sciences. He has proposed a way in which

to overcome the dependence of Third World social sciences within an

international context. According to Alatas (1993:309), indigenisation requires

more than simply a modification of existing Western concepts and methods:

52

‘It goes beyond this and refers to the idea that social scientific theories, concepts, and methodologies can be derived from the histories and cultures of the various non-Western civilisations’.

Alatas added (1993:312) that the indigenisation of social sciences is

different from the so-called nativism or orientalism in reverse: ‘Indigenisation is

not the rejection of Western social science but its selective adaptation to

indigenous needs’. Indigenisation of social sciences is in accordance with the real

effort of universalising the social sciences themselves. Furthermore, he argued

(1993:312):

‘Although Western social science originates in the West, it is not to be rejected on those grounds. Rather, Western theories and concepts, taking into account their epistemological and historical presuppositions, must be encountered, modified, and combined with indigenous ones’.

Thus far, by comparing Gouldner’s idea with Therbon’s and Alatas’, it can

be argued that the essence of the issue is not whether sociological knowledge is

(completely) immune or (completely) dependent on the social ideals of the

modern world. Rather, as sociologists from a diversity of theoretical frameworks

conclude, sociology is relatively dependent on the social ideals of the modern

world. The challenge is rather to understand the nature of that dependency — and

with that the scope for rigorous knowledge, if not immunity from its social

milieux.

These arguments certainly do not suggest that sociology has (almost) no

immunity at all vis-a-vis its social contexts. On the contrary, as a long process of

knowledge acquisition, it has been a fact that sociology has consistently had some

measure of autonomy. This can be observed, for instance, in the relation between

sociology and the development of the Enlightenment, an ideological movement

arising between the Industrial and French Revolutions. Its firm belief in the unity

of reason and observation in the scientific method basically is an ideology which

was critical of the dominant ideology of the ancien regime in Europe (Zeitlin,

1994). Here, although the emergence of sociology has been deeply rooted in the

basic convictions promoted by this ideology, sociology has developed into a

53

relatively independent science vis-a-vis the principles of the Enlightenment (eg.

the Romantic-Conservative ideology). It would be rather unreliable and

unconvincing, for example, to argue that contemporary sociology has not had to

respond to critiques of Enlightenment and modernist thought.

The big question subsequently is: to what extent can a sociological finding

⎯ both in terms of its conceptual and methodological aspects ⎯ claim relative

independence from the social ideals of the modern world? What criteria are to be

used to gauge degrees of autonomy? And yet the bigger question is how to

develop a sociology with a stronger scientific claims. This bigger issue, although

it remains a major current concern for sociologists,3 has been diligently addressed

by Gouldner with his ‘reflexive sociology’, Therbon with his ‘transcendental

sociology’, Alatas with his ‘indigenisation of social sciences’ along with other

sociologists or producers of science.

The present thesis believes that this bigger issue implies a necessity for the

testing and re-testing of sociological findings under different social contexts

and/or different epochs while simultaneously understanding the social contexts

themselves (i.e. not defeating the point of comparative analysis by ignoring

substantive differences in social contexts). This continuous testing must be

conducted to enable sociologists to produce a more object-oriented, object-

adequate, knowledge of social reality in the long run. This process of producing

fact-oriented theories is possible for sociology and is equipped with scientific

regulative patterns ⎯ the one point whose importance is often underestimated by

the relativists.

This is a great challenge that sociologists have to deal with through their

works. Through the process of acquisition of scientific knowledge, on the one

hand, they must seek to understand aspects of social life, and on the other hand,

they are expected to be critical of their own scientific convictions.

It is worth mentioning that the ‘testing and re-testing’ business does not

occur in vacuum. Methods and instruments utilised to test sociological

3For example, the American Sociological Association confirmed this growing concern. Its theme for the 1997 annual meeting (Toronto, August 9-13, 1997) was the importance and need to internationalise and interdisciplinarise sociology.

54

knowledge, bear similarity to their results, in that they too are socially constructed

in various respects. To use Elias’ concept of figurational formation, it can be

argued that not only are they formulated, but they are also used within the context

of power relations both at organisational and societal levels.

The questions to pursue are: to what extent does figurational formation

provide the opportunity for sociologists to operate legitimately? What kinds of

opportunity are provided? How do those in power define the importance of the

sciences? And, last but not least, how do sociologists manipulate opportunities in

the production of sociological knowledge?

To illustrate these challenges, one can compare extreme cases. For

example, the opportunities for sociological research framed within liberal-

democratic societies (e.g. North American and European societies) has not been

exactly the same as those found within societies dominated by communist

regimes. This has been found by King and Wang (1978). They argued that the rise

of communism de-legitimised the fifty years of sociology as an important

intellectual discipline in China. Under the communist regime, sociology was

amongst the first to be dismantled (i.e. to reduce sociology to Marxist sociology)

and then completely integrated into the dominant ideology. Consequently,

sociology can no longer claim intellectual autonomy despite efforts to

‘compromise’ with those in power. King and Wang concluded that:

‘Although democracy is not a sufficient condition for the development of sociology, it is nevertheless true that without some degree of academic freedom or some distance between academic freedom or some distance between academic discipline and political authority, sociology as a scientific discipline, a liberative enterprise, or as a social criticism, can hardly exist, let alone flourish.’ (1978:58).4

Within this context, the focus of the present thesis is on achieving an

understanding of how sociologists in contemporary Indonesia balance on the one

hand the maintenance of the scientific value of sociology and, on the other hand,

take part in providing social development in contemporary Indonesia with a

4Similar studies can also be found in Nordholt and Visser eds. (1995), and the Association of Asian Social Science Research Councils (1983).

55

scientific orientation. The latter inevitably involved close involvement with the

State under the New Order regime of former President Suharto.

To be more specific, I anchor my study on the following questions:

1. How do Indonesian sociologists fabricate democratisation in non-

democratic context?

2. How do they cope with ideological and political constraints?

3. What are the effects of the struggle to the development of

sociology in post-colonial Indonesia itself?

It is hypothesised that sociology and the strategies used by sociologists in

New Order Indonesia to maintain the scientific value of their work are related to

the existence of an authoritarian regime within present levels of capitalist

development. This is manifested, amongst other things, in the hierarchical

arrangement within scientific establishments, the types of sociological knowledge

transferred from the international fund of sociology, the types of sociological

knowledge produced in Indonesia, and, to a certain extent, in the types of

sociological knowledge contributed to the international fund of sociology. It is

also manifested in the regime’s domination of the material bases of sociological

knowledge production (such as scholarships and research funding) and over the

so-called ‘national ideology of social toleration’.

This has been the backbone of my project of the sociology of sociology.

The sociology of sociology study itself is far from new. There might be no

other scientific disciplines whose development has been simultaneously

intertwined by a constant scrutiny by their practitioners. Piotr Sztompka (1979:3)

claimed that this might indicate sociology’s level of development as a scientific

discipline:

‘Judging by its level of critical self-consciousness, sociology is, indeed, the most developed discipline. Perhaps no other science has paid so much attention to its own deficiencies, no other science has spent so much of its creative potential for self-destructive purposes, and no other science has bred so many masochists who denounce their own jobs as “sorcery” [.], “pseudo-science” [.], or a bag of ‘fads and foibles’ [.].’

56

Taking advantage of this situation, accordingly, there has been plenty of

data not only about how society works, but also about the development of

sociology and its use in different societal contexts. With regard to the latter, the

present study uses, amongst others, the works by Friedrichs (1972), Makagiansar

ed. (1975), Breckenridge and van Den Veer (1993), Said (1978, 1994), Mulkay

(1980), Bulmer (1984), Alatas (1993), Koentjaraningrat (1975), Gouldner (1972),

Therbon (1980), Kleden (1987), Sztompka (1979), Nordholt and Visser eds.

(1995), and Sunarto (1989).

In addition to the above advantage, there are other values to be considered.

For one, they represent the state of the art of sociological analysis of sociology, so

much so that it would be a great mistake to ignore them. And subsequently, they

can be viewed as a yardstick of positioning this study and others alike.

Generally speaking, these investigations into the sociology of sociology

lend themselves to classification along the following lines:

First, based on the type of research objectives, those studies can be

classified into trend reports and analytical studies. Here, trend reports indicate

those reports whose main objective is to provide an in-depth description of

leading sociologists and/or a chronology of momentous events in the journey of

sociology. They have been often conducted for policy-making purposes. On the

other hand, there have been analytical studies which do not emphasise the

reportage style of the development of sociology. Their focus has rather been on

formulating some conceptual framework to understand the development of

sociology. In short, while the former has a tendency to put emphasis on presenting

data more or less in an explorative fashion, the latter has inclined to

argumentatively convince readers of the empirical fruitfulness of certain frame of

thought to understand sociology and/or sociologists within a wider context (such

as to understand the relations between sociology and bourgeois ideology).

It is should be borne in mind, however, that to take these aforementioned

classifications and other (social) classifications alike, as mutually exclusive would

be fallacious reasoning. Trend reports, for example, have been by some means

constructed based on the writers’ theoretical tendency or, at the very least, on

some sort of common sense reasoning. Although the producers themselves, quite

57

often regarded as authoritative figures in sociology, might not subject their

theoretical approach to critical scrutiny, their product cannot be validly and

reliably viewed as a pure compilation of data. On the other hand, in so far as

analytical studies are prudently conducted, the producers need to handle relatively

comprehensive data although for the most part their data might be compiled by

other researchers.

Secondly, based on the subject of analysis, those sociological analyses

basically can be classified into individualistic and institutional types of analysis.

Individualistic types of analysis indicate those works which are produced based

on the assumption that the institution of sociology can be understood by

investigating the pattern of behaviour, thinking and/or (in some cases) feeling of

certain key figures within a particular social, political and/or intellectual contexts.

Accordingly, the individual life histories of leading sociologists and their relations

one to another are thought to have great importance, to the extent that in some

cases, the production of individuals’ biographies has become the goal of the

study. This can be distinguished from the institutional type of analyses, with their

tendency to emphasise the irreducibility of structural and/or cultural properties of

the sociological community to its individual members. The latter can only be

considered as a means to understand the sociological community. The so-called

Chicago school of sociology, for instance, has been thought to have its own

dynamics, to which certain leading figures in sociology at the school contribute.

Thirdly, categorised by the use of a general-theoretical approach, there

have been studies that have tended to favour functionalist, Marxist, interactionist

perspectives and/or a combination of perspectives. Such classification has been

particularly evident in the analytical type of studies with regard to, amongst

others, the formulation of research questions and conclusions. Friedrichs’

analysis, for instance, is different from Therbon’s (1980). Although being similar

to Therbon’s subject of analysis, Friedrich’s concentrates on the development of

American sociology.

Fourth, these studies may be grouped on the basis of the society within

which a branch of sociology develops. Here, while most sociological studies have

been concerned with the condition of sociology in advanced-capitalist societies,

58

there seems to be a growing interest to shift the research locus to the

industrialising capitalist or to socialist-communist societies. Along with this shift,

there have been efforts to redefine such issues as Occidentals versus Orientals,

and Centre versus Periphery. None the less, the redefinition appeared to be

influenced by dichotomous conceptions regarding advanced-capitalist societies

(which have often been improperly associated with Western Europe and North

America) and capitalising and socialist-communist societies.

Last but not least, these sociology of sociology projects can be categorised

according to whether they take the development of classical or contemporary

sociology as their research focus. The former has been often associated with the

development of sociology during the era of its founding fathers. On the other

hand, the latter appeared to be regarded as a further development of sociology

since the beginning of this century.

Taking into consideration the above, what the present study seeks to

achieve is to fill in some gaps in the existing literature of the sociology of

sociology. This has been done by pursuing some basic questions that, to my

knowledge, have been left open or, in most cases, have only been partially

answered by those sociologists.

This does not mean, however, that the significance of this study lies

exclusively within the confines of the sociology of sociology literature. In

addition to the aforementioned significance, the importance of the present study

can be viewed as an effort to understand the dynamics of contemporary

Indonesian society; this is possible by drawing interconnecting lines between

economic, political and cultural processes within this society. This way, as will be

shown in subsequent sections, one of the so-called ‘emerging new little dragons

(of the 1980s)’ can be understood to be more than a political economic (or

economic political) construction: not only are scientific processes irreducible to

political economic explanations, but scientists’ struggles for recognition have also

been broader than simply those dictated by the logic of political economy. This is

possible in so far as, amongst others, those research questions are taken as an

entry point to understand the world of sociology in Indonesia rather than to test

my preconception of the dynamics of sociology in Indonesia itself.

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C. RESEARCH ASSUMPTIONS

1. In adopting Elias’ convictions on the semi-autonomous feature of the sciences,

in the present study sociology is perceived to be an international fund of

scientific knowledge about the relations between the individuals and society

even since its early years. However, sociology has a stronger attachment to its

social contexts than the natural sciences.

2. Amongst the most significant social contexts of sociology in contemporary

Indonesia are the New Order state and scientific establishments (particularly

in state universities). It is within these units of figurational formation that

sociological knowledge is extensively and intensively produced and used.

Moreover, these figurational units mediate the development of sociology

internationally and the development of sociology in contemporary Indonesia.

3. The Indonesian sociologists are creatures of opportunity, whose belief in the

importance of scientific methodology is one of the most crucial things in

helping them both to create a semi-autonomous sociology and to obtain social

recognition in Indonesia.

D. THE METHODS OF THE STUDY

D.1. Working Definitions

1. The term ‘Sociologists’ in this research refers to those who declare (and are

also recognised by society to have) a professional affiliation with sociology,

and/or those scholars whose highest degree (Ph.D) is sociological. Moreover,

they earn their living by an involvement in the production and dissemination

of knowledge, and in the manipulation of cultural symbols in the relations

between individual and society.

2. ‘Contemporary Indonesia’ means a socially constructed period of the

Indonesian historicity characterised by the rise of the New Order regime since

1966.

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3. The ‘semi-autonomous feature of sociology’ is understood as a basic

characteristic of sociology: sociology can only be independent from both the

political and social ideals of a particular epoch to a greater or lesser degree,

but it cannot be completely independent from them.

4. ‘The opportunistic character of sociologists’ refers to the ability of

sociologists to achieve their ends by manipulating the social relationships

within which they are involved. This, in a rather Meadian fashion, includes

their capability to define their social worlds within which they, together with

others, participate.

D.2. The Fieldwork

The present study has used both primary and secondary methods.

With respect to the former, guided interviews have been primarily

conducted with informants from the following categories:

1. University professors and senior lecturers in sociology, particularly those who

have affiliations with the University of Indonesia (Jakarta) and Gadjahmada

University (Yogyakarta).

2. Senior editorial staff and/or managing directors of major publishing houses

(such as PT. Gramedia, LP3ES, UI Press and UGM Press) responsible for

most of the important Indonesian language publications on sociology.

3. Editors and/or managing directors of national newspapers and journals (such

as Kompas and Prisma). (The serious press in Indonesia prints more explicitly

‘sociological’ articles than is customary in the West).

4. Senior officers of international funding agencies, which are concerned with

the development of social sciences in Indonesia (such as the British Council

and the Ford Foundation).

5. Intellectuals with no formal sociological background but who are

professionally concerned with social problems in contemporary Indonesia

(such as scholars in political science and philosophers).

61

6. Activists whose affiliations are with Non Government Organisations.

7. High-ranking government officials dealing with the social sciences in

Indonesia.

The interviews were basically conducted in face to face situations.

However, there were occasions where interviews were also conducted over the

telephone.

There were 2 types of interviews employed for this research. They are:

(1) The Life History interview, which was used to construct an understanding of

key sociological figures in Indonesia, in terms of their recruitment into the world

of sociology, strategies utilised to produce sociological knowledge, their

conceptions of sociology, research methods and the roles of sociologists in

Indonesia etc. (2) Topical in-depth interviews which were used to construct an

understanding of both other sociologists’ and non-sociologists' conceptions of

sociology and sociologists in Indonesia. These considered for example, on the

relation between sociology and other scientific disciplines, and professional and

personal relations among sociologists and other intellectuals (see appendix).

Primary data has also been gathered by means of mailed questionnaires

sent to about 50 identifiable sociologists in different parts of Indonesia. This was

intended to get standardised and detailed curriculum vitae of Indonesian

sociologists in 1995.

Collection of curricula vitae is the subject of quantitative analysis. It is

used to approach informants and interviews with them are built upon their

curricula vitae.

With regard to the secondary data, trend reports of social sciences in

Indonesia and official documents produced by relevant organisations (such as the

Ford Foundation, AusAid, and the Centre for Strategic and International Studies)

are amongst the most valuable source for this study. Their value has been

considered as important as the primary data in the present study.

It is worth mentioning that data collection and interpretation were

conducted simultaneously during the period of fieldwork. Any cases of

ambiguous information and/or elaboration of informants’ views, for example,

62

were clarified in subsequent meetings. Moreover, the fieldwork itself was not

conducted in the traditional mode of social surveys. The distinctions between

interviewer and interviewees were so blurred that it is more appropriate to

conceive of the interview as social interaction of the kind associated with

participant observation.

E. THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE RESEARCH

Judging from his curriculum vitae, it can be claimed that this thesis was

constructed by a sociologist who has been involved in the contemporary dynamics

of sociology in Indonesia ⎯ both by formal qualification and profession.

Moreover, most parts of his daily life, including his recreational time, has been

spent with sociologists in Indonesia (most of whom are fellow Indonesians). In

short, this study has been conducted by a researcher who is also a participant of

the social reality that he belongs to and constructs with other participants. The

crucial issues at hand are: how can he maintain intellectual and emotional

detachment in light of such involvement? Is not it better to take this work as an

attempt at non-scientific self-reflexivity, a novel of a different sort? How can we

be sure that his personal bias and interests are controlled?

In dealing with those issues, my position has been heavily influenced by

Gouldner’s reflexive sociology (1972). Gouldner claimed that not only is it

important for sociologists to understand other people, but it is also important for

sociologists to understand their own scientific discipline in practice and their

position within social contexts. Sociology and sociologists should simultaneously

be the subject and object of sociological analysis. They are not merely objects of

philosophical understanding. Here, it has been assumed that sociologists are not

researchers who completely stand outside their society and produce autonomous

scientific knowledge, but they are also active members of their own scientific

community as well as their own society. Subsequently, it should be admitted that

the search for sociological knowledge about social reality basically has also been

contingent on the sociologists’ self-awareness.

In accordance with Gouldner’s conviction, this thesis was not intended as

a means to provide comprehensive information about the social world of

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sociologists in Indonesia, but primarily as a self-awareness raising effort: about

sociology, who and what sociologists within contemporary Indonesian society

are, and about their influences on their own work. Logically, there has been no

way to view this thesis as a value-free mirror of social reality, but rather it

embodies the researcher’ cognitive and value commitments as well as his

interests.

To get involved in a project such as this, however, is not an easy task.

Gouldner (1972) pointed out several necessary requirements ⎯ amongst others,

the availability of valid and reliable pieces of information about sociology in

practice and technical competency in generating such information. Courage to

face and deal with opposing views is also required. Moreover, on the deepest

level, the holders of knowledge are required not only to understand their

professional and personal bias, but also to make this understanding accessible to

others for purposes of critique.

In accordance with the above requirements pointed out by Gouldner,

although it is impossible to realise and name all the influences on the researcher,

it is an undeniable fact that Norbert Elias, Peter Berger, Karl Marx, Max Weber,

Herbert Blumer, Emile Durkheim, Robert Merton, the critical theorists of the

Frankfurt School and Pierre Bourdieu are amongst the most important

sociological interlocutors who have kept on silently accompanying him all the

way from the first to the last page of this thesis. Their uses, however, have been

put in perspective.

Can we be sure that the present researcher fulfils all the aforementioned

requirements? No one can tell with absolute certainty! However, there has existed

a social mechanism which prevents his analysis from being a pure fiction. The

mechanism rested on the need to constantly defend his ideas and materials in

public academic and professional contexts, where critical and rigorous

examination obliged him to identify and use only those materials that would

withstand the scrutiny of his peers and teachers. Thus, the mechanism took the

form of consultation with his supervisors, examiners’ criticisms, seminar

presentations and discussion with other people (including the informants of the

study). This mechanism has been an inseparable aspect of the use of research

64

methods. I will further discuss this and other issues in the concluding parts of this

thesis.

While the investigation is concerned with contemporary sociological

practice under the New Order regime of former President Suharto, the discipline

is viewed, following Elias, as a processual scientific tradition whose origins and

development owe much to its past. The history of Indonesian sociology, including

its colonial origins, is therefore important both for its evolved form and content

and for tracing the relationship between knowledge production and the formation

of the state in modern Indonesia. The appropriate point of departure, therefore, is

with the origins of the scientific study of Indonesian society during the colonial

era — with indologie.

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CHAPTER III INDOLOGY AS COLONIAL SOCIAL SCIENCE

Introductory remarks Centres for indology under state patronage

Orientalist discourse and colonial scholarship Indology in the hands of decision makers

From injustice to the independence of Indonesia Concluding remarks


Although it has been commonly acknowledged that the social sciences in

contemporary Indonesia have been preceded by indologie,1 an examination that

discusses the influence of Dutch colonial scholarship on our modern disciplines

has yet to be conducted. The heart of such discussion concerns not only with the

relations between social sciences in contemporary Indonesia and indology as two

distinctive institutionalisation processes, but also as types of scientific knowledge.

Issues such as the significance of indologie or Indonesianistiek to the

development of the social sciences in contemporary Indonesia, the extent to which

the dynamics of sociology in contemporary Indonesia differ in character from

indologie, and the historical roots of contemporary scholarly discourse on the

problems of community development, capitalism, national integration and social

impacts of economic development, for instance, have only been partially

conceptually established ⎯ while the data that we need are scattered in the

writings of colonial scholars.

Accordingly, not only do we have little knowledge of such issues, but

there is also a gap in our understanding of the way by which (Dutch) indologists

use the thoughts of Comte, Durkheim, Marx and Weber to understand social

phenomena in colonial Indonesia (then, the Netherlands East Indies).2

Within this context, it is my belief that it would be rather unrealistic to

think that the overthrow of Dutch colonial rule is necessarily associated with a

complete destruction of the influence of Dutch scholarly discourse. The influences 1See eg. Sunarto (1989), Koentjaraningrat (1975) and Soemardjan (1965). 2‘Indonesia’ is a relatively recent name compared with the ‘East Indies’ or ‘the Netherlands East Indies’. The latter was used when the Netherlands took over control of Indonesia in the 1820s from the VOC (The United East India Company) and established a colonial government run, at the

66

are still a part of the sociology in contemporary Indonesia, as well as a part of

Indonesia’s present existence, although they might be a sediment-hidden part,

which is not as accessible to direct observation of daily life as they used to be in

the past. Moreover, while there are both scholarly and political efforts to eliminate

the influences under contemporary economic conditions, some political and

scholarly discourse has strengthening effects on colonial scholarship. This is

exemplified, amongst others, in the way primordial attachments (ethnicity,

religion etc) are treated; such as in terms of (political) conceptualisation of inter-

religious relations between communities, of Indonesian Chinese, of the relations

between state and civil society. In a similar form but different content, this has

also been found in other post-colonial societies. Chatterjee (1986, 1993) has

observed in India how contemporary political and scholarly discourse is

conditioned by British colonialism. He has claimed (1993:174):

‘[...] successive generations of Indian sociologists, working with increasingly detailed and sophisticated ethnographic materials, have propounded the idea that there is a systematic form to the institutionalised practices of caste, that this system is in some sense fundamental to a characterisation of Indian society, and that it represents a way of reconciling differences within a harmonious unity of the social order.’

I will deal with some of these issues of primordialism in later chapters. What I

would like to emphasise here is the centrality of the present chapter in

understanding the development of both sociology and society in contemporary

Indonesia -- to provide historical background of contemporary sociology in

Indonesia to understand its continuity and discontinuity.

How should we discuss indology, which is narrowly defined in this thesis

as the analysis of the people and societies in the Netherlands East Indies from

‘modern’ Dutch and European scholarship in general? The argument that I offer

in this thesis is that indologie is both influenced by and influences3 the formation

apex, by Dutch civil servants. For the present purpose, ‘the Netherlands East Indies’ is interchangeably used with ‘colonial Indonesia’ or ‘Indonesia during the colonial era’. 3I owe the differentiation between social theory as the so-called ‘dependent variable’ and ‘independent variable’ to Ignas Kleden. Although this issue emerged during my dialogue with him, his ideas are better formulated in his collected essays (1987). The first refers to the reality-based formulation of social theory, while the second refers to the roles of social theory in the

67

of colonial state in Indonesia. Rather than a reflection of social reality in the

Netherlands East Indies (i.e. a perspectival based mirror), the works of indologists

take part in the formation of Indonesia during the colonial time onward. To be

more specific, the dynamics of indology can only be understood with reference to

colonial patronage; in the sense that its fabrication both influences and is

influenced by the dynamics of colonial state in the Indies.

Based on this idea, there are some questions to pursue:

1. To what extent can we substantiate the claim that colonial regime’s needs for adequate social knowledge was a crucial driving force for the fabrication of indology in the Netherlands East Indies?

2. How did indologists produce knowledge — both as means of communications and orientations — within this figurational context?

3. What are the basic features of indology as colonial scholarship?

4. How did indologists contribute to the destruction of the hegemony of

Dutch colonialism in Indonesia? To what extent are we able to

establish the argument that Indonesia’s independence is founded on

military and diplomatic-political bases as well as on indologists’

works?

In answering the above questions, my discussion is, broadly speaking,

divided into five sections. In the first section, discussion is focused on the

institutionalisation of indology in the Netherlands. This is marked by integrating

bureaucratic as well as scholarly efforts in dealing with the Indies. This

integration was crucial — it led to the monopoly by the Dutch knowledge

acquisition of the people, culture, and societies in the Indies. Section two

concentrates on the fabrication of indology, whose scientific features are

inseparable from its political features. The Dutch scholarship of Indonesia is

scientific as well as political. In other words, colonial rule has also been a colonial

scholarship. And these features are noticeable in the use of indology in the

formulation of policies. The usage of indology in policy formulation is analysed

construction of reality. It has to be noted that similar differentiation has been made by other scholars, particularly by those whose theoretical preferences acknowledged the roles of social theory in influencing the process of social change.

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in section three. The last two sections are given over to analysing the impacts of

colonial rule and discourse on the people, culture and societies in Indonesia. I will

show how indologists helped create (and in other respects, were unable to prevent

the creation of) a post colonial Indonesia with its main features of cultural

fragmentation, forced social differentiation and repressive political practices.

These are mainly intended consequences of Dutch colonialism. However, colonial

scholarship also gives birth to its destruction. This issue is discussed in the last

section, with special attention is given to analyse of the rise and character of

nationalist movement.

B. CENTRES FOR INDOLOGY UNDER STATE PATRONAGE

B.1. Centres for Indology during the Colonial Era

Although references to Indonesian social life have been found in the

writings of foreign visitors for centuries, it is only since the beginning of the

nineteenth century that effort has been made to understand social and cultural

aspects of the East Indies in a specific fashion, which was, at that time, regarded

as ‘scientific’. This has been marked, amongst others, by Sir Thomas Stamford

Raffles’ History of Java. This work has been commonly conceived of as more

systematic and based upon better documentation than those fragmentary works by

earlier foreign merchants (eg. Chinese, Indian and Arab traders) and (West)

European travellers (eg. sailors, missionaries and translators of the Bible

particularly during the VOC times).

However, it took about another half century for the emergence of an

extensive, systematic accumulation of reports on social and cultural life in

Indonesia. The deeply scientific manifestation of the systematic study of social

life in the Indies was the creation in 1851 of the Royal Institute of Linguistics,

Geography and Ethnology of the Netherlands Indies (Koninklijk Instituut Vor

Taal-, Land- En Volkenkunde Van Nederlandsch-Indie, KITLV) based in Leiden.

This organisation has made one of the most crucial contributions to the scientific

understanding of the basic principles of the people, culture and societies in the

Netherlands East Indies through specialised fields of study known as Indologie

and Indonesianistiek. As has been suggested by its name, KITLV was inseparable

69

from the strong colonial state patronage it received. This inseparability was

actualised in ways as diverse as encouraging studies, mediating communications

among scholars and contextualising its dynamics to the dynamics of colonial

bureaucracy in the Indies.

First of all, KITLV was founded by the collaboration between some

politicians in the Netherlands and various respected science and humanities

figures in the Netherlands; that is, a former governor general of the Netherlands

East Indies and former Minister of colonies (J.C. Baud), a physicist and director

of the Koninklijke Academie (G. Simons), and a professor of Javanese at the

Koninklijke Academie (T. Roorda).4 Each of these people had their own

knowledge and interest bases in the Indies and at the same time they were able to

work together not only in promoting such bases, but also advancing colonial

interests in general. Here, colonial interests were closely related to intellectual

curiosity.

Secondly, in addition to satisfying growing intellectual curiosity about the

East Indies, KITLV also intended to fulfil the needs of the colonial government

for knowledge (scientific as well as practical) in administering the Indies.

Specifically, KITLV was designed to replace the roles of the missionary as

producer of such knowledge. There is no doubt however that the efforts made by

missionaries were useful. The government promoted such efforts. However, the

political cost of acquiring the knowledge was minimised. Within this context, it

was believed that the replacement of the role of the missionary with a secular type

of research institute would minimise the conflict between Dutch missionaries and

Muslim leaders in the Indies.5 This was more efficient than maintaining the

previous support for missionaries during the VOC era.

Why was adequate knowledge of the Indies needed?

4For an historical account of KITLV see eg. Knapp (1994) and some other articles in the Bijdragen (1994). 5See for eg. Teeuw (1994). However, it must be emphasised that there were scientific research organisations during the VOC era (c. 1602-1795). According to Makagiansar (in Makagiansar ed., 1965:1), the first organisation to promote scientific research (the natural and social sciences and humanities) was founded in 1778 (Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen) to advocate the agricultural, trade and social welfare of the colony.

70

Generally speaking, this was in accordance with European intellectual

fashion of the time. As with other European scholars, Dutch scholars considered it

necessary to use speculative-theoretical criteria to understand not only their own

societies but also other societies, which were considered to be different. This was

the era of intellectual exploration. On the other hand, however, the need for the

adequate knowledge was reinforced by past experiences by the Dutch in dealing

with people in the Indies. Specifically, in the success of dealing with resistance,

such as in conquering Prince Diponegoro (‘the Java War’, 1825-30) and Tuanku

Imam Bonjol (the Padri War, 1830-1837).

In accordance with the above, another objective of the KITLV was to

promote discussions among scholars who shared interest in the study of the East

Indies. This was especially effected through the publication of the scholarly

journal Bijdragen (Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkunde), which attracted

the attention of scholars as diverse as linguists, geographers and ethnologists.

In the third place, KITLV and its activities, and scholarly interests of the

indologists in general were inclined to be in accordance with the interests of the

colonial state. Scholarly interests, as published in the Bijdragen, were intertwined

with colonial interests. The moderate standpoints taken by KITLV were hand in

hand with colonial interests in maintaining the status quo in the Indies. So fine

was this blend that basically the Indies and its people were initially de-constructed

and subsequently re-constructed by Dutch indologists for Dutch audiences under

the influences of the colonial state.6 Consequently, studies of the subject which

had little relevance to, and only indirect advantages for, the state were abandoned.

This could be exemplified in the case of the underdevelopment of basic research

in natural sciences such as in chemistry, physics and mathematics (Makagiansar,

1965:11-3). Another example is the studies of the manufacturing industry in

Indonesia. Studies on this issue were discouraged by the colonial state in its effort

to prevent competition with the Mother Country in the international market

(Samuel, 1990).

6The use of English in Bijdragen and the recruitment of non-Dutch members to the KITLV, for instance, occurred only later after the overthrown of Dutch colonial power. This signifies the effort of KITLV to modify its performance, as it did not have the supports of the state as much as in previous times.

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The inseparability of indology from colonial state patronage is also

indicated by the process of contextualising KITLV and most indologists’

activities to be components of the colonial state. For instance, since its infancy,

KITLV was organisationally linked to the Koninklijke Academie, an institute for

educating and training high ranking Dutch bureaucrats (civilian and military

alike) in the main languages and cultures in Indonesia before they were assigned

to a career in the colony.7 A similar institute was also established in the

Netherlands East Indies, in Surakarta (Central Java). The latter opened in 1832 —

earlier than the Koninklijke Academie (founded in 1842) — to provide training for

prospective petty officials in the colonial bureaucracy (Sutherland, 1979:15).

Institutes of this type were regarded as strategic for the Dutch and operated within

the framework of the colonial state in the Netherlands. The more the government

became involved in the social life in the Indies, the more strategic the position of

such institutes for the recruitment of prospective bureaucrats.

Moreover, the majority of direct producers in the development of indology

were bureaucrats. They were the backbone of indology and had been so due to the

policy to employ them at different levels of administration, including the smallest

subdistricts throughout the territory. This policy, which was propagated by the

launching of the ‘Ethical Policy’ at the end of the nineteenth century, provided the

opportunity for bureaucrats to conduct observation (both for personal and official

purposes).8 Indeed, they were well-trained in observation. As Koentjaraningrat

(1975:168) claimed, the relatively high quality of academic training, according to

scientific standards at the time, qualified them as satisfactory social researchers.

It should be noted, however, that the assignment of bureaucrats throughout

the archipelago since the Ethical Policy era was not primarily as observers. It was

to promote the living conditions of indigenous people by tailoring not only their

needs, but also the ways of fulfilling them in a fashion consonant with colonial

interest and policy. As Anderson (1992:97) has argued, ‘[under the Ethical

7See e.g. Higgins (1963:61-63) for a more detailed description. 8It is worth noting that the Dutch were not the first to formulate the policy. It was only an ‘improvement’ of Raffles’ policy. During Raffles’ short time of rule, government officials were required to make periodic tours of inspection and submit reports to their superiors. For a more detailed account see e.g. Sutherland (1979:9).

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Policy] education, religion, irrigation, agricultural improvements, hygiene,

mineral exploitation, political surveillance — all increasingly became the business

of a rapidly expanding officialdom, which unfolded more according to its inner

impulses than in response to any organised extra-state demands.’ While the

Ethical Policy did not bring about anything like the expected results in raising

welfare standards, the practice of state intervention in the life of indigenous

people — not by demand of the indigenous people but rather from paternalistic

colonial determination of what was good for them — became ever more extensive

and intensive until the Great Depression of the 1930s. I will come back to this

point later on.

In conclusion, we have solid grounds to claim that the institutionalisation

process of indology was heavily supported by the colonial government. As Knapp

has argued (1994:637) with reference to the establishment of KITLV and the

Bijdragen:

‘The establishment of both the institute and its journal can be interpreted as a sign of growing interest on the part of the West European elite in colonial affairs. In order to rule the colonies properly, the colonial powers of the time were of the opinion that they needed not only a strong army and navy and a well-trained civil service, but also scholarly and practical knowledge of indigenous society’.

The need for using a scientific approach was exemplified in the

formulation and implementation of the Ethical Policy (1900-1930), whose

significance was inseparable particularly from the works of Snouck Hurgronje.

According to Benda (1972:90):

‘not only were Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje’s views thus rooted in the temper of his times; they were in fact representative of a new era in Dutch colonial policy -- the so called Ethical Polity, which was officially inaugurated in 1901’.

Basically, the Ethical Policy was intended as an effort to improve the

distressing living conditions of the indigenous people in the Indies caused by

earlier colonial practice and policy. With regard to this effort an order was given

73

by the Queen to investigate specific causes for the deterioration of the welfare of

the indigenes. This was known as ‘The Diminishing Welfare of the People of

Java’ project.

To sum up, as Knapp claimed (1994:637):

‘Scholarly interest in the colonies can thus be interpreted as an offspring of the process of colonial state formation’.

Within this context, it is worth mentioning that academic sociology was

not completely absent in Indonesia during the colonial era. Recorded data has

shown that an ‘Introductory course in Sociology’ was taught — as a support

subject — at the Institute of Law (Rechtshoogeschool), which was established in

Jakarta (then Batavia) as early as 1924.9 The course was delivered by lecturers

who were sociologists by profession rather than by formal qualification.

Moreover, these early period sociologists in Indonesia were predominantly Dutch

scholars whose convictions were deeply embedded in Orientalist discourse while

sociology itself, at that stage, was under the influence of Orientalist discourse.

They were lecturers who at the same time conducted a range of scholarly research

on the people in Indonesia, not only for personal or publication purposes, but also

to satisfy the Dutch policy.

How can we confidently confirm that state patronage was significant to the

development of centres for indology?

B.2. Centres for Indology Since the Mid 1950s

The claim for the importance of colonial state patronage in the development of

Indology has been further supported by the overthrow of Dutch colonial rule in

Indonesia. Along with the overthrow of Dutch colonial power, KITLV and other

indologie establishments ⎯ including the Faculties of Indology at the University

of Leiden and the University of Utrecht ⎯ could no longer retain a monopoly

over Indology and major changes had to be undertaken to maintain the existence

of an Indology establishment in the Netherlands. KITLV itself, and its journal the

Bijdragen, still exist. In the effort to continue, for instance, KITLV collaborated

9For a detailed account of the early years of ‘sociology’ in colonial Indonesia, see for eg. Koentjaraningrat (1975), and Sunarto (1989).

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with national associations of cultural anthropology. Here, the main elucidatory

factors are as follows:

Firstly, as the overthrow involved military confrontation in the so-called

‘Revolutionary Struggle’, one of the highest priorities of the first independent

government of Indonesia was to abolish as much as possible anything which was

regarded as ‘belonging to the Dutch’. This included the nationalisation of Dutch

companies, the promotion of Bahasa Indonesia as the national language and the

creation of invisible barriers for indologists to conduct research in Indonesia. It

became more difficult for Dutch indologists to acquire scientific knowledge of

Indonesia based on primary data ⎯ particularly in 1957 and 1958. On the other

hand, indology also lost its attractiveness in the Netherlands. Having an expertise

in indology was no longer considered to be an easy means to secure employment.

Instead, holding a degree in a conventional scientific discipline ⎯ such as

economics or engineering ⎯ held more promise.

The de-monopolisation of the Dutch over indology also occurred due to

the establishment of similar centres (or sub-centres) of Indonesian studies in other

countries such as in Britain, France, USA, Australia, Japan and in Indonesia

itself.10 The publication of scholarly journals in English also has an effect on the

popularity of the Bijdragen ⎯ such as the publication of the Journal of South

East Asian Studies and Indonesia.11 Here, I share Koentjaraningrat’s (1975:169-

71) claim that the emergence of these centres should be understood as growing

scholarly and political interest in Post War Southeast Asia. This point is discussed

in later chapters, and suffice to say here the production of scientific knowledge on

Indonesia during the time of independence also occurred within the context of

state formation in Indonesia and the changing international order within which

Indonesia has a part.

10See also Teeuw (1994) and Koentjaraningrat (1975). 11For a detail account of the Bijdragen in independent Indonesia see eg. Knapp (1994)

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C. ORIENTALIST DISCOURSE AND COLONIAL SCHOLARSHIP

The strong attachment of indology to Dutch colonialism has been indicated in the

institutionalisation of indology as well as in the delineation of the content of

indology. With respect to the former, as we have seen in the preceding section,

this attachment was crystallised in the propagation of centres for Indology. With

respect to the content of indology, this attachment is rooted in the basic

assumptions upon which Indological knowledge rests. The preconception itself

concerns viewing the Indies and its people as inferior vis-a-vis the Dutch and

Western Europeans in general. This Orientalist preconception, however, was not

specific to indologists, but widely shared by Western Europeans in the eighteenth,

nineteenth and even in the twentieth centuries. It has been evident in as diverse

fields as colonial administration, anthropology, sociology and other scholar

enterprises of the social sciences during those times.

Said (1978, 1994) is responsible for the analysis of Orientalist discourse in

its contemporary Foucauldian sense rather than the high scholarship associated

with Orientalist studies in earlier (colonial) times. He understands Orientalism to

be an ideological pre-established conception held by Europeans in defining their

existence by emphasising their superiority vis-a-vis people in other parts of the

world. Such a mode of discourse, moreover, has political as well as cultural

impact on the people and societies outside Europe. In his own words (Said,

1978:3), Orientalism is:

‘The corporate institution for dealing with the Orient -- dealing with it by making statements about it, authorising views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient’.

With reference to Said’s claim of the predominance of Orientalist

discourse in the West, it should be emphasised that, although Dutch colonialism

was not as widespread as British or French colonialism, their Indological

knowledge was inseparably conditioned by this prevailing style of thought.

Indology was based on late eighteenth century Orientalism which went hand in

hand with the formation of the colonial state in the East Indies. We can learn this

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from the works and policy recommendations made by Dutch indologists; not only

by Snouck Hurgronje, Boeke and other influential figures of indology, but also by

Dutch bureaucrats in general.

C.1. Snouck Hurgronje’s Understanding of Islam and the Muslims in the

Indies

Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje was a scholar in the late 19th century whose career

centred around his expertise on Islam. During his career, he was appointed to

various offices including adviser to the Dutch government on Islamic and native

affairs, professor at Leiden University and consultant on native affairs to the

Ministry of colonies. His career was made both in the Netherlands East Indies and

in the Netherlands itself. His scholarship was based not only on the study of Islam

in Indonesia but also on long periods in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East.

However, there are many aspects of his commitment to Islam yet to be revealed.

There are still many questions that remain unanswered regarding his personal life

such as his marriage to a Muslim and particularly his conversion to Islam.12 These

issues must be left for scientific exploration and inspection and will not be dealt

with in my thesis. The focus of my thesis is instead on Snouck Hurgronje’s

scholarly works.

Based on the depth of his research experience on Islam in East Indies and

abroad, and his personal involvement in the Muslim community, Snouck

Hurgronje was significant in advancing the claim that the religious practices of

Islam itself must be differentiated from the political aspirations of various Muslim

communities. This was rather a startling claim in his time, when Westerners had a

strong tendency to conflate uncompromising religious doctrines, said to be

orthodox Islam, with entire Muslim communities, viewed as doctrinally unified

and prone to collective violence. This understanding was influenced by the history

of European involvement in mediaeval crusades and conflicts with the Ottoman

empire. This was further reinforced in the nineteenth century by the perceived

threat of Turkey in their continent and the resistance faced by the British, French

and Italians from Muslim Africans during the expansion of European colonialism.

12For an account of his career, see eg. Benda (1972) and Neil in Aveling (1979).

77

According to Snouck Hurgronje, Europeans needed to discriminate

between Islam as a religious doctrine and Islam as a political force in order to

achieve more effective rule over Muslim populations. It may seem obvious today,

but the two aspects were separable, and toleration of Muslim religious practices

could be effectively combined with the proscription of formal Muslim political

mobilisation. The latter appealed at most to a minority. This distinction lay at the

heart of Snouck’s policy advice. With respect to Islam as a religious doctrine, the

practice of Islam is comparable with the practice of Christianity or other religions.

Moreover, the practice of Islam is different from society to society. Muslim

communities in the East Indies practice their religion differently from the practice

of Islam in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, Islam as has been practised in Java is

different from the practice of Islam in other places. Although most Javanese are

Muslims, a considerable number of them are not fanatics but nominal Muslims

who constitute less threat to the government. There is no inherent feature in

Islamic doctrine to conceive of colonial rule as kafir government. It is a different

situation, however, with Islam as political force.

In Snouck Hurgronje’s view, Islam as a political force has a strong

capability to be manipulated into resistance against non-Muslims. Islam in this

sense can be manipulated by its leaders and turned not only into a collective

identity, but also into a tool for social movements.

In accordance with his claims, he suggested that the colonial government

should take into account these differences in its Islamic policies. He advocated

that Muslims be allowed to practice their religious convictions. On the other hand,

efforts to politicise Islam should be suppressed at the earliest stage.13

Furthermore, he suggested that persuasive control ⎯ rather than simply forced-

repressive measures ⎯ over Muslims would be more effective. Within this

context, Snouck Hurgronje also saw the necessity for the government to actively

create social conditions within which Muslims could internalise European

civilisation through the Dutch as well as accept a colonial political system.

Accordingly, Islamic education should be strictly controlled. Such conditions, he

believed, would introduce Muslims to non-Islamic culture and distance them from

78

Islam as a political force. They would strengthen the ways through which the

government could control the intellectual evolution of indigenous people.

Moreover, these conditions would benefit the government itself in terms of

recruiting indigenous people to promote colonial interests (eg. working as junior

civil servants in government offices). These policy recommendations were

among the most important he made. He sought to educate indigenous people in

the Western style and to employ them in the colonial bureaucracy based on the

principles that avoided racial discrimination. Access to jobs within the

bureaucracy should be based on Western educational attainment rather than racial

differences. He also stressed the importance of Adat14 institutions in

domesticating Muslims in the Indies. Snouck Hurgronje dedicated his career

particularly to these issues. As Carey (in Aveling 1979:103) claimed:

Hurgronje has made great attempts ‘to reorientate Dutch attitudes towards Islam and ended the period of blind reaction against Hajis and religious teachers. He stressed the great importance of adat institutions and the necessity of a close alliance between the colonial government and the priyayi elite in Java.’

Snouck Hurgronje also recognised the potential influence of Islam from

other countries, particularly the influence of the late nineteenth-century Pan

Islamic movement. This could be prevented not only by monitoring as closely as

possible the development of the Pan Islamic movement, but more importantly, by

accelerating the institutionalisation of Western education among indigenous

people. Here, his suggestions again reinforced his firm belief in the importance of

Western education.

What were the background assumptions upon which Snouck Hurgronje’s

claims were founded?

There was fundamental logic behind Hurgronje’s analyses and policy

recommendations. One with great importance was that Hurgronje had an

13See eg., Neil in Aveling, 1979: 106-65) 14 Adat: “custom” or “customary law”. almost all of the hundreds of ethno-linguistic groups in Indonesia organised life in their local communities according to “custom”. Adat is complex, and evolved over time. Dutch legal bureaucrats made considerable efforts to codify it as adatreht: “adat law”.

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inclination to favour the de-politicisation of the Muslims to such an extent that the

potential threats of Islam as a social force against the government could be

minimised. Here, it appears to me that Hurgronje’s thesis on Islam is in

accordance with a taken-for-granted assumption of his time, that is, the

maintenance of colonial rule and Dutch predominance. Snouck Hurgronje

conceptualised this in a cultural-political terminology of Westernising the Indies

and its people via the Dutch. Westernisation was associated with modernisation.

As with other contemporary European scholars, he was influenced by the

ideological discourse that Westernisation (modernisation) was inevitable and the

Indies needed the Dutch to modernise. Accordingly, he believed that it was a

moral duty for the Dutch to teach the Muslims, and at the appropriate time, grant

the indigenous people a share in administering the Netherlands East Indies (that

is, within the format of Dutch colonial rule).

In Snouck Hurgronje’s framework, the Javanese — particularly their

traditional prijaji aristocracy — occupied a special position. They were the most

feasible target groups for the creation of a modernised-Westernised East Indies.

The government itself was expected to abandon its old policy of restricting

Javanese access to Western education, and replace it with a policy which favoured

the dissemination of Western education. This was a means for fulfilling the needs

of low level bureaucrats, to elevate social welfare, and to modernise the largest

indigenous population in the Indies. According to Snouck Hurgronje, the

reluctance of the government to introduce Western education was inappropriate.

The small enclave of indigenous people with a Western education, which mainly

occurred since the mid nineteenth century, could no longer be justified.15

Acceleration in the spread of Western education was seen to be far more

important than fulfilling the immediate needs of the government in terms of lower

bureaucratic positions. This expansion was a political-cultural project. This has

been clearly expressed by Benda. According to Benda (1972:89), Hurgronje’s

idea was propagated on the background assumption that:

15For a detailed account of the colonial education policy prior to Snouck Hurgronje’s recommendations see eg., Neil in Aveling ed., (1979), and Sutherland (1979).

80

The Dutch ‘assumed the moral duty of teaching [the Indonesian nobility] and of making them partners in our own [i.e. Dutch] culture and social life. [...] Such a partnership would close the gulf between rulers and ruled’.

Thus far I have attempted to show that Orientalist discourse has been

operationalised in both Hurgronje’s analysis and policy recommendations. As not

only is Orientalist discourse in accordance with colonial interests, but both are

also mutually supportive, Hurgronje’s bias towards the Dutch rather than the

Muslims (i.e. his objects of scholarly discourse) is understandable. In his works,

Western superiority has gone hand in hand with the promotion of Dutch

domination and exploitation of the Netherlands East Indies. This has been

achieved not only by defeating anti-colonial Muslims, but also by culturally

assimilating ‘non threatening’ indigenous people through Western education (i.e.

co-optation through education). In other words, we could argue that, indigenous

people (particularly the so-called ‘fanatics’) have been basically regarded as

social problems, which could (and should) be resolved by a variety of modes of

social engineering. Although different problems required different ways of

handling, the end result (in any conceivable ways) was consistent. Policies should

contribute to the subordination of the indigenous people — Muslims as well as

non-Muslims, anti-colonial as well as co-operative Muslims.

This broad idea of Western superiority, as exemplified in Hurgronje’s

work, was based on understandings shared by both Hurgronje and those in power.

This made it intellectually manageable for Dutch audiences to take for granted the

truth of Hurgronje’s work and, accordingly, to formulate policies based on his

recommendations. His policy recommendation on Islam, however, was his

strongest point. This was particularly evident in the changing of colonial policy

towards Acehnese through the dual approaches of religious toleration and political

caution. The implementation of such an approach resulted in the subordination of

the Acehnese. As Benda (1972:91), has claimed, ‘it was, indeed, ... his

specifically Islamic policies which found immediate acceptance.’ On the other

hand, the fact that there were communities in the Netherlands East Indies which

used Islamic symbols to confront the Dutch and the fact that indigenous people

had poor education, strengthened the idea of Western superiority over Eastern

81

culture. In short, Snouck Hurgronje’s thesis, which was embedded in Orientalist

discourse, also helped reinforce Orientalist discourse and, accordingly, the

axiomatic superiority of the Dutch. Furthermore, this helped create a more rigid

contradiction between Orientals and Occidentals. As Said has claimed

(1978:224):

‘... orientalism aided and was aided by general cultural pressures that tended to make more rigid the sense of difference between the European and Asiatic parts of the world’.

The government’s concerns over the potential of Islam to generate social

movements was always paramount throughout colonial times. And this has

supported the birth of indologists specialising in the understanding of Islam and

Muslim communities. Their concern was somehow in accordance with this

particular feature of Islam, that is, the extent to which Islamic symbols are

capable of manipulation by indigenous people, including their deployment for

mass mobilisation.

Another Dutch scholar who shared interests with Snouck Hurgronje was

Bouman. He observed the role of Islam in the nationalist movement on the West

coast of Sumatra. He discovered that Islamic doctrine has a great potential to

generate solidarity. However, the process of development of indigenous people

also experienced the existence of preventative mechanisms for the actualisation of

Islamic symbols being manipulated for anti-government purposes. For one, there

was a growing interest in socialism among (Muslim) indigenous people. The

socialists had the tendency to oppose the widespread use of Islamic symbols in

social movements. Moreover, in accordance with his assumptions regarding the

differentiation between Islam and adat law, Bouman held a firm belief that the

traditional structure of adat chiefs also played an important role in domesticating

the Muslims or even maintaining some sort of separation between Islam and adat

law.16 This, however, is not completely true. In the Javanese context, this might

be plausible, but not elsewhere. Young (1994), and also Abdullah (1966) for

instance, found that among the Minangkabau people, Islamic symbols have 16For a more detailed account see eg., Wertheim (1969:195-217).

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intertwined with adat law to such an extent that separation can only achieved in

analysis, not in the empirical world.

C.2. Colonial Discourse in Boeke’s Dual Economy Thesis

Similar to Snouck Hurgronje and other ‘specialists’ of indology, the economist

Boeke pursued the dual career of academic (first in the Indies and later on at the

University of Leiden) and administrator/adviser to the colonial government. In

terms of scholarly product, Boeke left behind invaluable information on the

dynamics of economic conditions in the Netherlands East Indies. He produced

reports on the economic condition of the people — peasants, urban labour, etc.

And despite of his pessimism regarding the economic prospects of indigenous

people, he strove for their betterment by providing the colonial government with

policy recommendations. However, Boeke’s most significant contribution was his

thesis of Dual Economy. He first introduced the concept of a ‘dual economy’ in

his doctoral thesis in 1910 (Economics and Economic Policy of Dual Societies as

Exemplified by Indonesia) and he dedicated his scholarly career to this concept

until his death in 1956. He expanded this notion from a dual economy to a dual

society. The concept itself has survived much longer than Boeke himself. It has

been amongst the most controversial issues not only in the study of Indonesia, but

also in the study of South East Asia. According to King (1994:174), along with

the British scholar J.S. Furnivall, ‘Boeke has represented at least the beginning of

a distinctively South East Asian contribution to Sociology.’ His basic argument of

the existence of two contrasting economic systems has been used for social

studies as well as having been severely criticised. Sievers (1974), is one of the

scholars who has used Boeke’s thesis.17

The term ‘dual economy’ means the simultaneous existence of two

discrete and stable socio-economic systems within one society, each based on

completely different modes of production. While on the one hand there is a sector

dominated by Western-advanced capitalism, on the other hand, there exists pre-

capitalist peasant economy. These two systems have their own stability, identity,

mechanisms and transformation tendencies which have developed over the

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centuries and integration into a single capitalist system is difficult. So different is

the logic behind these two systems that cross-systems relations tend to generate

tensions and conflict. This has been a uniquely non-western phenomenon.

According to Boeke, indigenous people (particularly peasants) in the

Netherlands East Indies are typical Orientals. Their worldviews being different

from Occidentals in many respect, such as, their strong religious and magical

belief systems, strong communal cohesiveness, traditionalism, and their firm

belief in fate. These features were also exemplified in their economic attitude. As

Sievers summarised (1974: 287), the Orientals’ outlook was been manifested in

several ways:18

1. Total dislike for investment involving risk; 2. Lack of Western standards of completion and accuracy; 3. Lack of computing, accounting, and sound business

practices; 4. Lack of uniformity of product; 5. A negative elasticity of supply; 6. Lack of organisation and work discipline; and 7. Lack of product specialisation, except on a collective basis

between villages.

The Orientals’ outlook has great implications for the Orientals’ themselves

particularly for the development of their economy. According to Boeke, economic

development was manifest in the Western societies. These societies were able to

develop into modern and capitalist societies. And the indications of this trend

were also observable in the Indies, particularly in the running of businesses by a

minority of Dutch and other Europeans. They brought their economic attitudes

from Europe along with their investment. However, most of the population — that

is, the peasants — were not committed to such values. In contrast, their values

were not conducive for economic development, and in many respects represented

anti-capitalist attitudes.

Within this context, Boeke is certainly not the only scholar who held this

belief. Schrieke, for instance, also engaged in Orientalist discourse. In the West

17For critiques on Boeke’s conception of a dualistic society see, Wertheim, T.S. Giap, Gunnar Myrdal and Clifford Geertz. (Sievers, 1974:292) 18For a summary and review of Boeke’s concepts see e.g. Sievers (1974).

84

Coast Report of 1926, he characterised Minangkabau society as traditional, and

subsistence based. However, Young discovered, the findings were misleading. He

argued (1994:145): ‘[Pre 1908 Minangkabau society] was not a static society, and

although it was precapitalist it was not precommercial — nor was swidden

agriculture typical of its populous heartland.’

How should we interpret Boeke’s thesis and other similar economic

findings within Orientalist discourse?

As a scientific treatise, there has been no doubt that Boeke’s thesis (that is,

his major work) was based on the state of the art among social sciences of his

time. He was familiar not only with economic theories but also with major

concepts relating to other disciplines. This work also fulfilled the prevailing

contemporary scientific criteria. The problem is that the state of the art social

sciences — as conceptual and methodological apparatuses — during his time

were deeply embedded in Orientalist discourse. His thesis and successive works

were a crystallisation of Orientalist discourse in political economic issues.

Furthermore, his works and policy recommendations — as with Snouck

Hurgronje’s and other indologists works in general — had a share in reinforcing

Orientalist discourse. Allow me to elaborate on this point.

Generally speaking, it is common for social science scholars of Boeke’s

time to familiarise themselves with the works of (what we now regard as) the

classical thinkers. Boundaries between disciplined-oriented studies were still

blurred. Social sciences themselves were still growing during the eighteenth and

nineteenth centuries. The thoughts of sociological theorists, for example, were

blossoming in popularity among European scholars. They employed them not

only in the analysis of their own societies, but also of societies in other parts of

the world. In analysing Indonesia, the thoughts of Max Weber, Karl Marx, and

Emile Durkheim are amongst the works which received widest acceptance. The

Weberian approach, for example, was used by J.C. van Leur in his analysis of the

institutionalisation process of Hinduism in Javanese society, by D.M.G. Koch on

Sarekat Islam, and by B. Schrieke on the kingdom of Mataram (Wertheim, 1969).

Tonnies’ ideas were used by D.H. Burger. Durkheimian concepts can be found in

the works of A.D.A. de Kat Angelino — a defender of the Dutch record in the

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Indies — on Dutch colonial policy (Fischer, 1959:18).19 Boeke was also familiar

with the classical theorists.

Within this context, there was no serious objection to the classical

theorists’ fundamental assumptions about European societies at that time.

Disagreements might be directed only towards the degree of modernisation of

Europe and/or on the nature of life in the modernising era. Criticisms centred on

whether European societies were in transition towards ‘better’ societies (in

Durkheim’s concept, organic society), on the way to predominantly artificial

social relationships (in Tonnies’ term, gesselschaft), or on the way to self-

destruction. However, ‘mutual trust’ among the theorists, other members of

scientific community, Europeans in general, and those in power during that time

was far more significant. This was propagated within the imbalanced power

relations between Europe and its colonies, between ‘we’ (that is, the subject,

colonial masters) and ‘them’ (that is, the object, people to be modernised).

Accordingly, Durkheim’s term of ‘primitive societies’ denoting societies outside

Europe enjoyed an uncritical acceptance in Europe as did his ‘totemic religion’,

Weber’s ‘otherworldly ascetism’, and/or ‘Marx’ ‘Asiatic mode of production’. On

the whole, non-European people were labelled as deficient in rationality, lacking

in motivation, rebellious, and/or devoid of other advanced European features.

At the heart of the belief of modernising Europe is the issue of rationality.

Although this issue was less visible in Durkheim’s works on solidarity, it was

commonly accepted that rationality was crucial as a basis of categorising social

behaviour. Here, the Orientals were regarded as non-rational, ‘false’ or ‘inferior’

(according to Western standards). Unfortunately there were no answers provided

to such questions as ‘how it was that the Javanese empire of Mataram was

established by means of such non-rational behaviour?’ ‘How would it be possible

for such a large number of people to stick to such a “false belief”?’20

There have been attempts to relativise rationality, by claiming that each

culture has its own criteria regarding rationality. Behaviour is understandable only

with reference to the totality of the culture within which the behaviour itself is

19For more detailed description of this issue, see eg. Sunarto (1989) and Sutherland (1979). 20See also Chatterjee’s critique (1986) of the issue of rationality.

86

enacted. None the less, these attempts have not provided satisfactory solutions to

the issue of rationality. Chatterjee has reminded us about the problems faced by

such a relativistic view. He claimed (1986:13):

‘[...] a strictly relativist position would have to be based on a holistic conception of cultures which would make any kind of interpretation, whether from within or without a culture, impossible, because our own perception of the full cognitive map of a culture -- even the one which we belong to -- can only be partial, and in many respects individually specific.’

In formulating his thesis, Boeke particularly was engaged in an intensive

dialogue with the ideas propagated by Marx and Weber. This is revealed, amongst

other things, by his use of such concepts as ‘Oriental despotism’, ‘stages of

capitalist development’, ‘ideal type constructions’ and the ‘holistic approach to

social reality’. However, it was also signified by his attachment to Orientalist

discourse, upon which those sociologists’ conceptions of social reality were

constructed. In Weber’s works this was expressed, in part, by his spirit of

capitalism thesis: modernisation required (instrumental) rationality, which was

not the main characteristic of so-called Islam and other religions in the East.

Similar background assumptions of contrasting Orientalism with Occidentalism

also characterised Marx’ and Durkheim’s sociological approach — in different

degrees and contexts. In the conservative approach employed by Durkheim, for

example, he used ‘primitive societies’, ‘traditional societies’ and other terms with

similar meanings to denote non-European and/or past European societies.21

Within this context, as Boeke stands on those giants’ shoulders — to use

Merton’s concept — the truth of his findings was inclined to be constructed on

authoritative bases (i.e. the authority of the theorists whose works he used) rather

than by object-oriented criteria. His thesis was founded on a combination of

detailed observation as well as what could be deduced within the state of the art

social sciences. This blurred his findings to the extent that problems with

misinterpretation were not immediately recognised.. With respect to his

characterisation of the peasantry, for instance, his findings on the limitations of

peasants’ economic needs were not immediately subjected to any strong scrutiny.

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It was only later recognised that this was not the case. The fact is that the

economic needs of villagers were broader than allowed in Boeke’s frame of

thought. Furthermore, as King (1994) claimed, rural dwellers have been more

active and responsive to social circumstances than Boeke thought. Peasants also

have shown organisational ability. With regard to his conceptualisation of two

autonomous economic systems, it took decades before it was widely understood

that the capitalist and non-capitalist systems basically belong to the same world

system which was constructed on differential strengths for centuries. Moreover,

each of the systems has its own problems and was far from being fully integrated.

The broader issue is the impact of Boeke’s works on the fortification of

Orientalist discourse: Boeke’s works were used as significant evidence to justify

the subordination of the indigenous people. It should be emphasised, however,

that this dynamic was not specific to Boeke’s works, but was also evident in the

works of other indologists, particularly those which were rooted in the variants of

‘modern-traditional’ typologisation. To varying degrees, indigenous people were

categorised as traditional rather than modern. The significance of such an

intellectual construction overlapped with a tendency to regard it as real. Within

this context, there were indologists who emphasised the possibility of

modernisation. Snouck Hurgronje, for instance, emphasised the potential for

Javanese elites to modernise through social engineering. This was in accordance

with the view that indigenous people have the capability of maintaining their

traditions and at the same time acquiring modern values through Dutch

intervention. Unfortunately, Boeke’s works belong to the view that tends to make

the distinction between indigenous people and Westerners more rigid, to the

extent that it has been almost impossible for indigenous people to modernise.

Said captured the essence of these fortificatory effects of Orientalist

discourse: learned Orientalists tend to make the Oriental more Oriental and the

Occidental more Occidental. He also explained this dynamic in his claim (Said,

1978:52) that:

21For a more detailed analysis of Durkheim’s major works see e.g. Samuel (1990).

88

‘When a learned Orientalist travelled in the country of his specialisation, it was always with unshakeable abstract maxims about the ‘civilisation’ he had studied; rarely were Orientalists interested in anything except proving the validity of these musty ‘truths’ by applying them, without great success, to uncomprehending, hence degenerate, natives’.

Why, generally speaking, have scholars of indology been unable to escape

the trap of Orientalist reasoning? Why is it that their works tend to share in the

maintenance of the “truth” of Orientalist beliefs? This can be illustrated by

Boeke’s case.

There has been no evidence to claim that Boeke and other indology

scholars deliberately constructed empirical evidence to justify Orientalist

discourse. They were prevented from doing so by their commitment to the value

of scientific integrity. The problem might be related to insufficient analysis of

Dutch colonialism and the way in which indologists conceptualise the traditional

features of indigenous people.

Generally speaking, Boeke and other influential indologists during his

time had a tendency to regard the traditional characteristics of peasantry and

indigenous people as a starting point for their research, rather than to regard it as a

product of the VOC and Dutch colonial rule. Explanations for deteriorating

welfare conditions in pre-capitalist peasant society, for example, were researched

from a demographic perspective (ie. population explosion) as well as peasant

value systems or other cultural factors. These factors were seen as so significant

that the effects of colonialism with forced capitalist penetration, massive demands

for unpaid use of land and labour and imposed distortions (restructured authority,

property and land tenure systems, etc.) in pre-capitalist society were overlooked.

Furthermore, as Clifford Geertz argued in his Agricultural Involution (1963), the

fact that dualism itself is a product of colonialism has been largely under-

emphasised.

The tendency to under-emphasise or ignore the effects of colonialism (and

thus, reinforce the truth of Orientalist discourse) can also be detected in Boeke’s

policy recommendations. Boeke acknowledged the necessity for promoting

peasant participation and involvement in efforts to elevate their own welfare.

89

However, this had to be conducted without disturbing the existing structures of

domination, rather than through the abolition of colonialism. In addition, due to

the “inability” of indigenous people to develop along Western lines, Boeke and

others of his persuasion believed such efforts would be more feasible if conducted

in a non-western fashion i.e. without disturbing the (highly manipulated and

regulated) “traditional” social systems based on adat. The preferences for this

might be due to Boeke’s (and other leading indologists’) understanding of himself

as a social democrat, and a cultural ‘conservative’. As Sievers (1974:289-90)

claimed: ‘As a “conservative”, [Boeke] wanted to avoid the tremendous social

cost and dislocation attending the transformation of European peasant societies,

capitalist and socialist’. It seems to me that Boeke’s (political) view was in

accordance with Orientalist discourse.

Before ending this section, let us compare some important aspects of

Snouck Hurgronje’s and Boeke’s thoughts in an effort to learn more

comprehensively about the scholars of indology.

The main differences between Boeke’s and Hurgronje’s works are

concerned with the entry points to understanding Indonesia: while Hurgronje

focused on Islam, Boeke’s entry point was the economy. Yet other indologists

have their own research focus, such as the adat law or other aspects of the people,

society and culture in the Netherlands East Indies. This was in accordance with

broader differences between indologists due to sub-specialisations within

Indology — literary-historical, social-political and social economic orientations

(Koentjaraningrat, 1975:167-8). The similarities as Orientalist scholars, however,

are more significant to note. Said (1978:207) was correct in claiming that these

scholars tended to share the dominant conceptual views about indigenous people

as problematic and in need of normalisation:

‘Orientals were rarely seen or looked at; they were seen through, analysed not as citizens, or even people, but as problems to be solved or confined or -- as the colonial powers openly coveted their territory -- taken over’.

Furthermore, Said (1978, 1986) also reminded us that Orientalist discourse

itself was established within the context of colonial relations between Western

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colonial rule on the one hand and exploited and dominated indigenous people on

the other hand. Within this context, the a-priori assumptions of Hurgronje, Boeke,

and other indologists mutually supported their a-posteriori conceptions in

legitimising colonial rule in Indonesia and subordinating the-already-assumed-

inferior indigenous people in as diverse realms as the economic, political and

cultural.

D. INDOLOGY IN THE HANDS OF DECISION-MAKERS

From the discussion in the preceding two sections, it would be reasonable to argue

that Dutch colonial state in Indonesia has been influential in both the

institutionalisation and content of indology. So significant have the influences

been that we are on firm ground in believing that colonial interests were

reproduced in the indologists’ works. On the other hand, indology provided the

colonial administration with justification for social engineering and the

continuation of colonial rule. Both the intellectuals and bureaucrats were involved

in this process. In short, the scientific value of indology is as important as its

political value.

How were the two values manifested during the colonial era?

D.1. The Creation of Underdevelopment

When the Dutch were forced to renounce their claim over Indonesia in 1950, they

left behind a society which was fragile, uncertain, and which had minimum

coherency in economic, political and cultural terms. The development of civil

society had been curtailed to a large extent. This was also due to the material

effects of Indology, which worsened during the three and half years of Japanese

Occupation (1942-1945) and the revolutionary struggle between 1945-1949.

Economically speaking, although there were limited efforts to industrialise

Indonesia, this has been heavily concentrated in urban areas in Java. These efforts

did not have positive effects in promoting the living condition of indigenous

people, nor were they conducive to the growth of a domestic capitalist class. The

establishment of companies to manufacture commodities as diverse as biscuits,

cosmetics, cigarettes, dyes and tyres and General Motor Corporation’s assembly

plant has brought about few advantages for indigenous people, except the creation

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of poorly paid jobs for a minority of people. Broadly speaking, industrialisation in

that era only created an enclave sector within a predominantly agrarian economy.

This was also concentrated on the overpopulated island of Java. Furthermore, its

development was interrupted during the Second World War in the years of

Japanese occupation and the five years of Revolutionary Struggle that followed.

In short, the colonial economy was largely underdeveloped or undeveloped.

Poverty was widespread and accompanied by deformity, differentiation and

discrepancy in economic conditions between rural and urban areas, and between

Java and the other islands.

There were desultory programmes designed to improve the welfare of

indigenous people, particularly those in rural areas. These were mainly a

response, at the turn of the century, of social democratic governments in the

Netherlands seeking to redress scandals of famine and immiseration in fertile

areas over-exploited through decades of wealth extraction through the crippling

policies of the “cultivation system”. The colonial government responded by

launching the “Ethical Policy”. The scenario focused on improving agricultural

productivity through improving irrigation, reducing population pressure in the

overpopulated island of Java (eg. by encouraging emigration to other islands),

promoting popular credit facilities and expert agricultural advice, and advancing

education and hygiene (Wertheim, 1969:96-105). However well-intended, the

implementation was seriously flawed and the programmes did not bring about the

intended consequences. By the 1920s more conservative governments in the

Netherlands and Batavia began to retreat from the original welfare objectives.

While the economic structure of indigenous people (particularly in Java and some

other islands) was opened up to the world economy, the welfare of the majority of

indigenous people did not improve. The economic struggle of the Javanese

remained difficult (Wertheim, 1969:98). And this turned from bad to worse when

the Great Depression of 1930s hit the Netherlands East Indies. This was also

exacerbated by increasing population pressures: while the health programme

significantly reduced mortality rate, fertility rate remained high, to the extent that

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the population of Java increased from 28 million in 1900 to 41 million in 1930

(Wertheim, 1969:99).22

D.2. The Construction of a Pluralistic Society

Society was also divided according to primordial attachments. Numerous groups

in Indonesia distinguished themselves from others with cultural markers based on

assumed blood ties, race differences, language differences, and differences of

region, religion, or custom (Geertz, 1973:259). And this cultural division has

resulted on numerous occasions in severe social distancing between groups, to the

extent that tensions and conflicts have been unavoidable. Interpersonal conflicts

can turn into collective violence without too much difficulty. And the absence of

collective violence has only meant subliminal social pressures. Geertz (1973:255-

310) was correct in claiming that these features are created in the long process of

colonial rule. According to him (1973:259):

'By a primordial attachment is meant one that stems from the "givens" -- or, more precisely, as culture is inevitably involved in such matters, the assumed "givens" -- of social existence: immediate contiguity and kin connection mainly, but beyond them the givenness that stems from being born into a particular religious community, speaking a particular language, or even a dialect of a language, and following particular social practices.'

Furthermore, this cultural fragmentation has been intertwined with

economic underdevelopment and other disparities. Muslim businessmen, for

instance, established their own organisations by using Islamic symbols to promote

their shared economic interests. They saw economic associations based on

religion as a necessary means to fight the economic domination of the Chinese

(particularly in trade networks). The urban workforce also divided along assumed

primordial lines not only in the private but also in the public sectors. With

reference to the former, there has been division of urban labour according to

22For a detailed account of the effects of colonialism on underdevelopment in Indonesia, see eg., Wertheim (1969), Bulkin (1984), Robison (1986), Shin (1989). For underdevelopment in other parts of the Third World, see the library of imperialist, dependency and structuralist theories, particularly the works of Andre Gunder Frank, Samir Amin, Cardoso and Hamza Alavi.

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ethnic identities both in the manufacturing sector and in the informal economic

sector (Ingleson, 1986; Samuel, 1990).

The creation of both cultural fragmentation and underdevelopment was

largely due to Dutch intervention — particularly since the integration of the

Indies into the state in the Netherlands. Ethno-religious differences were

deliberately fostered and manipulated following the ancient strategy of “divide

and conquer”. Such a society is a creation of colonialism, largely as an intentional

consequence of Dutch colonial practice, within which colonial scholarship went

hand in hand with political discourse. Indologists have played a role in this

process by reinforcing the sense of the separateness and plurality in the Indies.

They encouraged community leaders and intellectuals among localised groups

while acting vigorously against movements which showed a capacity to mobilise

or unify large populations in geographically extended regions. The elevation of

adat as a foundation of group identity fed this fragmentation, and eased the

burden on the mechanisms of state repression which only had to deal with a series

of localised failures of social and political control. Their search for the basic

principles and established norms of the social and cultural systems in the Indies

combined with their intellectual sensitivity to social changes there and crystallised

in policy recommendations which reinforced the policy not only to maintain the

‘traditional power’23 structure in the Indies, but also to strengthen the structure —

particularly in rural areas. As Clifford Geertz found, preserving the traditional

power structure and institutionalising dualism in the very broad sense was

regarded by the government as in accordance with efforts to bring local products

to the international market while preventing the people themselves being involved

in that market: ‘to keep the natives native and yet get them to produce for world

markets’ (Geertz, 1963:48). Young (1994) also noted a similar phenomenon. He

discovered that colonial writers played active roles in codifying adat law. These

attempts, in most cases, reflected colonial interests combined with colonial

scholarship and Java-biased knowledge, which eventually had the effect of

23As Jan Breman has demonstrated the structures and practices deemed to be “traditional” and celebrated as expressions of local culture were neither traditional nor ancient, but in fact the product of systematic state intervention.

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subordinating the indigenous people. With respect to Minangkabau social life,

Young (1994:141) claimed:

‘[throughout colonial period], Dutch scholars and the colonial administration recorded numerous studies of Minangkabau villages, [...]. These texts do not, however, give us a simple unmediated view of Minangkabau society in these times. Again, it is vital to see how these constructions of Minangkabau social life were shaped by the larger colonial project of fashioning traditions that could be integrated into imperialistic power relations.’ (italics are mine).

This traditionalisation was accompanied by an institutionalisation of

Western education. Schools of different strata were set up mainly in urban areas.

This was in accordance with the realisation of the Indologists’ recommendations,

such as those proposed by Snouck Hurgronje. As with the fashioning of traditions,

this was also intended as an attempt to maintain the continuation of colonial rule.

We have discussed the latter point in the preceding section. The point to make

here is that the latter had considerable effects on the inability of traditional elites

to generate symbols for a social movement: a new class of intellectuals and near-

intellectuals were able to position themselves as another type of elite indigenous

group, whose compatibility with the traditional elite has been established with

difficulty. As Wertheim (1969:146-7) has noted:

‘Whereas in the past people had looked up only to traditional chiefs and religious leaders, they now began to rank the authority of the new spiritual leaders, the intellectuals, above that of the regents and the kyahis (Moslem religious teachers)’.

These patterns have remained imprinted on the social dynamics, and have

long out-lived Snouck Hurgronje and his term as a policy adviser to the colonial

government.

The traditional character of Chinese communities was also maintained

along with their separation from the indigenous Malay peoples (called collectively

“pribumi”) of the archipelago. The power hierarchy within the Chinese

communities was established and maintained as a matter of policy, and this was

accompanied by the integration and subordination of their leaders within the

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context of colonial rule. The creation of ‘Chinese Major’ and schools for the

Chinese are examples of this extensive process. Here, Boeke’s study of dualism

and its policy implications made an important contribution. The study of various

aspects of the adat law also played a role, as the findings were evident in the

construction of multiple sets of civil law based on racial differences. While

indigenous people were bound to the hukum adat and the Dutch and other

European to Western law, the Chinese and other foreigners from Asia had the

option of adhering to either their traditional laws or to Western law. Thus, cultural

fragmentation was sustained and secured with a legal basis. With respect to

economic activities, while the Dutch and other Europeans were mainly in large-

scale business and the Chinese were conditioned to engage in medium-scale

enterprises, indigenous people predominated in small-scale activities. This

inevitably lent statistical support to the cultural view that indigenous people were

unable to improve their economic conditions. Furthermore, not only did this state-

sponsored economic division of economic functions obstruct the growth of

domestic capitalist classes, but the emergence of a well-structured civil society

has also been largely curtailed. In short, this was in accordance with the dominant

objective of modernising the Indies without democratising it.

Generally speaking, indologists regarded the systems of colonial

domination built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by the merchant

adventurers of the VOC as mechanisms for the exploitation of the people of the

East Indies — amongst other things, by integrating the power structure of the

indigenes into the VOC’s own administrative structure and maintaining this

hybrid hierarchical system by authoritarian measures. Indologists labelled such a

system as ‘feudal’.24 None the less, as has been shown in the preceding sections,

the same indologists also subscribed to the belief that the development of

indigenous people should accord with colonial notions of modernisation.

Communist disturbances on the West coast in 1926, for instance, encouraged the

use of both military and scientific approaches to deal with communism in the

24According to Kahin (1970:6), the term has been inappropriately used. An explanation of the use of ‘feudal’ probably partly can be sought by contextualising the derogatory connotation of ‘feudal’ and ‘feudalism’, which was popular during that era to denote the dark side of the European system prior to the arrival of capitalist and liberal development.

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Indies. The Netherlands East Indies government Investigation Committee was

established in 1926 and chaired by the eminent sociologist B.J.O. Schrieke to

investigate these disturbances.25

This does not mean that there were no supporters in the Netherlands for

self-government and democratisation in the Indies. Cornelis van Vollenhoven, an

expert in Adat law, for example, set up within the University of Leiden a

programme to promote economic conditions and democracy in rural areas,26 but

the programme has little impact. Feith (1962) discovered in his study that the

supporters of this idea emerged in 1930s. However, these supporters had little

influence over policy formulation and their efforts were somewhat sporadic. On

the other hand, the government itself had a strong tendency to favour the status

quo. The colony was very important to the Dutch not only in economic and

political terms, but also in personal and psychological terms. Feith (1962:2-3)

provided an explanation for this. Economically speaking, both the Netherlands

itself and the Dutch who lived in Netherlands East Indies were dependent on the

continuation of colonisation. Their total investment was about $1,422 million in

1940 and annual earnings in interest was about $103 million (Feith, 1962:2-3).

Moreover, the Dutch population in the Netherlands East Indies was large — in

comparison with the Dutch population in the Netherlands Itself — and these

people preferred the preservation of the colonial government. In addition to that,

the Indies was the only Dutch colony of such size and economic importance (the

basis of its prestige in Europe).

D.3. The Construction of a Strong State

Not only was society underdeveloped and culturally fragmented, but political

activities were also strictly controlled. Political participation was primarily a

privilege for a small number of indigenous people (that is, the educated elite in

the urban areas — those given access to higher education were mostly from

privileged or “aristocratic’ families). The scope for practising such privilege was

also limited. Movements — as diverse as the communist, Islamic and nationalist

25For a detailed analysis of this report see Young (1994). 26For further description, see eg., Sievers (1974:135-7).

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movements — within civil society which were regarded as endangering colonial

rule were banned, placed under strict control or put down by force.

Accompanying this phenomenon, those political activities that were

allowed to take place were dominated by the state bureaucracy. The maintenance

of social integration also lay in the hands of state apparatuses. Forced integrative

mechanisms of an administrative or bureaucratic kind (by contrast with the

discouragement of integrative cultural identities) were successfully imposed over

society by colonial rulers almost throughout the entire colonial era. Various

judicial and bureaucratic apparatuses were set up for this purpose. Most

importantly, the state bureaucracy was strengthened and became increasingly

detached and unresponsive to the society it administered27. Within this context,

the Governor General had an important role. The authority of Governor-Generals

was so extensive that any suggestion to increase political participation was easily

refused. This capacity remained even after the Volksraads (People’s Assemblies)

had been established due to the large proportion of appointed members (compared

to the elected ones) in these impotent popular assemblies, and the authority of the

governor general to overthrow decisions made by the consultative assembly.

The creation of a strong state was inseparable from the direct and indirect

contributions of indologists. Most producers of knowledge about the peoples of

the Netherlands East Indies were government officials as well as scholars. Their

recommendations were, to a large extent, reformist in character. Any

recommendation for fundamental political transformation would not have been

accepted. Even when a sound fundamental recommendation surfaced, the

producers were able only to see the materialisation of part of their

recommendations. Although Snouck Hurgronje’s recommendation of Western

education for indigenous people was largely realised, the government maintained

the policy of employing Dutch graduates to fill vacancies in middle and upper

positions. Of the minority who were allowed a Western education, their

instruction was limited to primary or middle school education. Only a tiny group

was allowed to continue on to higher education. Racial discrimination in jobs was

27Towards the end of the colonial era, it was accurately characterised by McVey as a beamtenstaat — a society run by and on behalf of its officials.

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retained in pay, job requirements, etc. At a deeper level, Snouck Hurgronje’s idea

of increasing the share of indigenous people in the administration of the Indies

encountered significant obstacles to realisation. This particular recommendation

was far from popular within government circles. For conservative bureaucrats

within the Binnenlandsch Bestuur (Home Affairs), his idea was regarded as too

liberal and having potentially destructive effects on the traditional arrangements

of the indigenous people themselves particularly on their traditional

bureaucracies, the Pangreh Praja. On the other hand, Snouck Hurgronje criticised

their views and policy. As Sutherland noted, Hurgronje regarded them as

bureaucrats who ‘... were too rooted in their ways to see the need for change, too

biased to admit reform could work and too inflexible to achieve a reasonable

relationship with the few educated priyayi. He criticised Batavia for drawing its

ideas from the BB, the most prejudiced body against administrative reform.’

Attempts to strengthen the colonial state in the Indies were pursued from

the beginning. Under the Ethical Policy, for instance, bureaucrats were installed in

various parts of the Indies and interfered in various aspects of social life in the

name of improving the welfare conditions of indigenous people. Here, the direct

involvement of the government in the life of indigenous people was extensive and

intensive. Traditional Javanese elites (the priyayi) were also transformed

gradually from aristocratic overlords into colonial bureaucrats. These attempts

also continued throughout the Great Depression of 1930s. Anderson (1992) and

Sutherland (1979) have discussed this issue in depth.

Thus far, there is no doubt that Said’s and Chatterjee’s thesis of Orientalist

Discourse has sensitised us to the key problems faced by the Third World during

colonial times. From a discursive point of view, they have convincingly pointed

out how colonial scholarship has been stamped socially and politically on

European colonies, which furthermore had immense impact both on the process of

social differentiation and integration in those societies. The predicament itself

continued well beyond the official abolition of colonialism.

The next immediate question is: Can we draw inferences that indology has

merely represented a means of a different sort used by the colonial rule in

advancing their dominating and exploitative interests in Indonesia since its early

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existence? Does the Ethical Policy only facilitate the use of indology for the

advancement of colonial interests?

It is certainly prejudicial to regard all the analyses and policy

recommendations made by indologists as simply fulfilling colonial needs. I share

Baharuddin’s (in Nordholt and Visser eds., 1995:101) belief when he claims that:

‘It is also necessary to recognise the fact that not all of the social scientific studies conducted in the colonial era are simply fulfilling colonial needs. Some, such as Firth’s classic work, Malay Fishermen (1946), and, I am sure, Wertheim’s many contributions on Indonesia, have generated debates and new research and have become classics in their fields’.

Furthermore, although the works of indologists have brought about the

intended results (that is, as expected by the colonial government), they have also

produced unanticipated consequences that sometimes worked against the

continuation of colonial rule. While on the one hand indologists have played their

part in the underdevelopment of Indonesia, in the creation of a plural society, and

in strengthening the colonial state, they have also contributed to the emergence of

social movements to overthrow the colonial rule itself. The following section

discusses the latter point.

E. FROM INJUSTICE TO THE INDEPENDENCE OF INDONESIA

The insistence of colonial scholars on improving the welfare of indigenous people

in the Indies contributed substantially to political decisions in The Hague. They

were able to voice their point of view in the Parliament in the Netherlands around

the closing years of the nineteenth century, when there was a shift in the political

climate in the Netherlands. Their claim that it was the duty of the government to

take an active part in the reformation of the Indies received sympathetic political

support. At that time, the political influence of Dutch capitalists had grown, and

they supported the reformation because they could take advantage not only of the

creation of a healthy indigenous people with education, but more importantly, in

the opening up the Indies for industry. Snouck Hurgronje’s and other indologists’

convictions were also shared by politicians with liberal humanitarian beliefs. The

Dutch declared that they owe a debt of gratitude (een ereschulde) to indigenous

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people, who suffered due to the exploitation of first the VOC and then Governor

van den Bosch’s Cultivation System in appropriating agricultural produce.

Therefor the advancement of their welfare through active government roles would

repay the debt. Christian political parties also shared the indologists’ convictions

but for different reasons. Their reasons were mainly rooted in the constellation of

political parties in the Netherlands, within which they sought to be the dominant

party. In short, the decision made by Queen Wilhelmina in early 1900 to adopt the

Ethical Policy was the result of the struggle of various supporters with different

interests against various other advocates of the status quo. Amongst the supporters

of the Ethical Policy were the owners of large-scale plantation and mining in the

Indies, some capitalists whose market outlets were in the Indies, and Dutch

labour. The decision was based on a rather odd mixture of reasons. And I share

Sutherland’s claim (1979:ch 4) that, the interests and motivations in pushing

forward reformation were as diverse as those facilitating exploitation,

humanitarian considerations, and the promotion of parties’ interests in the

parliament.

None the less, as we have seen, the implementation of Ethical Policy and

successive colonial policy failed to elevate the social welfare of the majority of

the indigenous people. It was only a minority of people of the Indies who

benefited from colonial policy, particularly from the policy of institutionalising

Western education. However, even this privileged minority were aggrieved. They

resented the injustice of the frustration of their own careers in government.

‘Natives’ were denied promotion past relatively junior positions. Government

officials maintained their preference for employing Dutch people. When non-

Dutch officials were employed, his or her rate of salary was also lower. In short,

the educational achievements of non-Dutch people in Western schools and their

mastery of the Dutch language and their internalisation of Western civilisation

only served to sharpen their sense of injustice, particularly in a Western culture

that celebrated freedom and national self-determination (notably the expulsion of

the Spanish from the Netherlands).

Under such conditions, a sense of injustice was unavoidable, however

people sought to overcome this problem. The knowledge that indigenous people

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had been systematically exploited first by the VOC the by the colonial state

strengthened the sense of injustice among this western educated elite. Both the

elite and others who understood the injustice of the colonial system began to

organise. In so doing their unity crossed the boundaries of primordial

associations. A national consciousness was growing. The workers in the modern

sector, for instance, were involved in strikes, demonstrations and protests in

demand for better pay and better working conditions. The initial protests however

were ill-organised at the local level and to a large extent were oriented to make

the existing system work to accommodate their interests. However, labour

organisations then underwent improvements, and some organisations also began

to emphasise the abolition of colonialism in their demands.

Within this context, while there was a tendency to employ a reformist

approach (such as the cultural association Boedi Oetomo[1908]), certain

organisations stimulated public debate on such issues as nationalism and

independence. These organisations played crucial roles in the articulation of

interests among ‘extra-state’ people in the Indies — as diverse groups as

indigenous people (pribumi), Chinese, Arabs and Eurasian descendants, and a few

Dutch who lived in the Indies.

Amongst the most important organisations that put forward the emerging

idea of nationalism in the second decade of the twentieth century was Sarekat

Islam. This organisation was established initially by some Javanese traders to

protect their interests against the economic domination of Chinese business

people in 1911. However Sarekat Islam was rapidly transformed within few years.

While maintaining the use of Islam to characterise their organisation, members

realised that their economic problems constituted only part of the problem faced

by the majority of people. It also became apparent that economic problems were

intertwined with political issues. At its first national congress in 1916, Sarekat

Islam adopted a new objective, that is, to take part in an awareness-raising

movement among indigenous people for nationhood. This inevitably encouraged

sentiments that were anti-Western, anti-Chinese and anti-colonial. The activities

of this organisation went far beyond the initial interests of boycotting Chinese

merchants. Its primary focus shifted to the fight against injustice suffered by

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Muslims at large, including the Muslim petty bourgeoisie and Muslim urban

workers.

Another important organisation was the PKI (the Partai Komunis

Indonesia or the Indonesian Communist Party). The PKI grew out of the most

radical section of Sarekat Islam from members who were dissatisfied with its

limited development. The PKI was established in 1919, and according to its co-

founder (that is, Semaun), while radical actions are unavoidable in the struggle

against injustice, Sarekat Islam was not a suitable organisation for this purpose. It

did not take the PKI a long time to gain supporters, and about 7 years after its

establishment, the PKI initiated a series of revolts in West Java (November 1926)

and on the west coast of Sumatra (January 1927). This resulted in the suppression

of the PKI for the first time in the history of Indonesian politics. The idea of

communism which was propagated by the PKI, however, won acceptance from

various ‘extra-state’ groupings — across religious, ethnic, and race lines —

beyond the colonial era and later was crystallised in the re-establishment of the

PKI in the 1940s and 1950s. Before its annihilation in 1965, it grew to massive

size, claiming 20 million members in affiliate organisations in the 1960s.

Yet another important organisation in the nationalist movement was the

Perhimpunan Indonesia (Indonesian Union, PI). Its establishment was also an

‘extra-state’ response to colonial policy. However, being different from earlier

organisations, the PI had significant impact on the development of political and

semi-political organisations in the Indies. It assisted the birth of the PNI (Partai

Nasionalis Indonesia — the Indonesian Nationalist Party) and other nationalist

organisations after the banning of the PKI in 1927. Furthermore, it determined the

character of the Indonesian nationalist movement (Kahin, 1970:88-90).

Perhimpunan Indonesia itself was established in the Netherlands by Indonesian

students who studied there in 1922. Their family background was sufficiently

influential and prosperous to allow overseas study for higher education. The

members of the PI itself had diverse political affiliations — as different as

communist and non-communists. However, they all shared the unifying idea of

achieving the independence of Indonesia through non-cooperation with the Dutch.

This idea was cultivated amongst members as early as 1923, and spread across the

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Indies, including among the Muslims. The majority of leading nationalist leaders

in the Indies after 1927 were activists in the PI.

The establishment of the PI was part of the phenomenon that developed

from the 1920s onwards, that is a rapid growth in the number of young students

and intellectuals. On the one hand, these people acknowledged the importance of

knowledge and skills which they acquired through education. On the other hand,

they rejected the hidden curriculum in their education, which stressed the

superiority of the Dutch over indigenous people and the need of the latter for

guidance and protection from the former. They learnt that indigenous people

could struggle against Western colonialism, particularly as evidenced in the war

between Japan and Russia. As has been noted by Kahin (1970:50) a high ranking

government official writes in 1921 that the war between Japan and Russia

inspired indigenous people with the idea that Asiatic populations could govern

themselves and defeat the organised might of European states (even though

Tsarist Russia was a dubious exemplar). Thus, they also gained a rough idea of

nationalism — unity in fighting the same enemy (that is, colonial rule by Western

industrial powers).

These people were alienated from colonial authority. They rejected the

right of colonial administration to rule the Indies and envisaged the independence

of Indonesia from colonialism. They also thought about the necessary conditions

for achieving an independent nation. Here, not only did they come to a decision

that the nation needed a national language, but they also chose Malay to be the

Bahasa Indonesia that would be the common tongue for the entire archipelago.

Moreover, they conceptualised themselves as the potential leaders of the rising

generation that would aspire to rule themselves.

The fact that the government in Java primarily introduced Western

education also contributed to the conditions that fostered growth of a nationalist

movement. Because educational facilities were best on Java, people from the

other parts of the Indies were drawn there to obtain education. Education thus

mixed and unified the diverse regional cultures of the Indies (Anderson 1983).

Most of them remained in Java after finishing their study. Firstly, Java offered

more employment opportunities for them. Secondly, their knowledge and skills

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were more useful in Java rather than elsewhere. In short, Java had the

concentration of intellectuals and near-intellectuals, within which the floating

urban intelligentsia has emerged. These people were relatively mobile in terms of

occupation and thinking. They associated with people from different backgrounds

(eg. peranakan Chinese, Arabs, and Indo-Europeans), and used the media to

disseminate their ideas. According to Sutherland (1979:56):

‘These people were no longer comfortable in any of the established niches of Indies society; they had access to new occupations, new means of support, new ideas and information.’

One of the most important organisations within which former PI activists

channelled their aspirations was the establishment of the Indonesian Nationalist

Party. This party was founded by Sukarno and some other former PI activists in

1927 and gained wide acceptance in the Indies. Leaders of Sarekat Islam and

some other influential organisations supported its establishment, which resulted in

the PNI being amongst those in the centre of the movement, coordinating

interlinkages with other nationalist organisations. The PNI was established on the

idea of complete independence — non-cooperation with the authorities, self-

reliance and boycotting government employment.

These were but a few of the significant organisations formed in this time

during colonial era. A survey of such organisations would show how various

organisations were set up, such as Boedi Oetomo, Nahdatul Ulama,

Muhammadyah, and Jong Sumatranen Bond. Furthermore, so complex were the

organisations that it is difficult to establish a single criterion to categorise them.

Those organisations have varied according to, amongst other things, formal

objectives, scope of membership, ideological basis, level of complexity and

formalisation, and approaches in dealing with colonial government. There is no

ground to claim that those organisations represent a single unitary nationalist

movement. None the less, each of them played a role. Organisations which used a

moderate approach (that is, emphasised the importance of co-operation with the

government), for example, were less restrained by the government in their work

of promoting social welfare and religious reform, establishing discussion groups,

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and publishing newspapers. Accordingly, these organisations were at the forefront

in popularising the use of Malay — the seeds of the Bahasa Indonesia — among

the common people.

In short, therefore we are on solid ground in claiming that not only has

indology been the product of colonialism, but it has also influenced unintended

social changes in the Netherlands East Indies. The Westernisation process (in

particular) in Java, which was facilitated by Hurgronje and other indologists to

co-opt the elites, turned out to be a boomerang for the Dutch at large.

Generally speaking the colonial government watched closely the

development of organisations in the Indies, particularly those organisations which

employed a radical approach. Whenever possible, their leaders were imprisoned

or sent into exile. In a broader sense, the ups and downs of the organisations

regarding government tolerance had a function. The more the tolerance, the more

open the activities of the organisations. However, in contrast to this dominant

view, the emergence of the organisations were also taken as symptoms of the

inability of the colonial bureaucracy to accommodate societal interests or even the

growing dissatisfaction with colonial rule. Furthermore there was a view which

regarded the emergence of the organisations as an inevitable part of the

progressive movement in the Indies. This view was common among indologists

and was also shared even by the minority within the colonial administration.

Sutherland (1979:63) has found, for instance, that there was optimism about the

development of Sarekat Islam:

‘Governor-General A.W.F. Idenburg (1909-16) regarded Sarekat Islam as an inevitable part of the native awakening that was a prerequisite for progress. He was encouraged in his tolerance by the Advisers and men of the Snouck school, but bitterly opposed by most of the European community, the Dutch language press and the majority of his own civil service.’

The Governor-General labelled the dominant view as racist and extremely

conservative, a view which prevailed among high ranking government officials.

He regarded those officials as part of an administrative machine lacking insight.

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The nationalist movement survived during the colonial times. In fact,

when the Japanese forced the Dutch to leave the Indies in 1942, nationalist

organisations and national awareness received popular acceptance; nationalist

leaders were encouraged to foster nationalist, anti-colonial ideas — that is under

strict supervision of the Japanese. National awareness crystallised largely into a

consciousness which was anti-Western and anti-colonialist, racist and supportive

of the Japanese. Here different nationalist leaders attached rather different

meanings to such consciousness. The Japanese themselves needed sections of

society to support their claim that the Japanese occupied the Indies to liberate it

from a Western colonial power, and to help prepare for the Independence of

Indonesia. Hence, they publicly humiliated the Dutch in various ways, and Dutch

bureaucratic positions were filled by Japanese officers (for higher-ranking

positions) and Indonesian personnel (for lower positions). The Japanese also

recruited people to form semi-military organisations under their strict supervision.

In short, they helped strengthen political consciousness. Life, however, was far

from easy during the three years of Japanese Occupation. Many factories were

closed down and the work force assigned to the cultivation of foods. On their

return from exile in remote islands, nationalist leaders continually reminded the

Japanese of their promise and they gradually made advancements in the

preparation for Independence. For the first time they gave legal recognition to the

peasantry and spread the idea of nationalism among them (Feith, 1962).

Moreover, together with the military, nationalist leaders were the most organised

sections of society in preparing for Indonesia’s independence. The nationalist

leaders — particularly Soekarno and Hatta — were popular among the people;

and they were also relatively well-informed about international affairs during that

time. In short, they were able to position themselves as leaders of the nation.

When the Japanese surrendered to the Allies around the middle of August

1945, nationalist leaders took advantage of this political vacuum to declare the

Independence of Indonesia. This declaration was very sudden, followed by brief

consolidation among the leaders of nationalist movement. The armed forces were

also included. They shared in filling vacant positions left by the Dutch, with

Sukarno as the President and Hatta as Vice President.

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The collaboration among nationalist leaders and between politicians and

the armed forces remained strong due to the threat of the return of Dutch

administration. The threats were even bigger as the Allies backed up Dutch armed

forces. Disagreements were avoided to a large extent during the so-called

Revolutionary struggle (1945-1949). Instead, they created some sort of division of

labour among themselves in establishing the new Republic. Feith (1962:24-6) has

clearly explored this phenomenon. He claimed that revolutionary leadership

called for collaboration between two types of nationalist leadership, that is leaders

with administrative skills and leaders with integrative skills — a co-operation

between ‘administrators’ and ‘solidarity makers’.

Feith (1962:24) defined ‘administrators’ as ‘[...] men with administrative,

legal, technical, and foreign language skills, such as required for the running of a

modern state. Such men, … normally had Western university or at least senior

secondary education [...]’. Their service was crucial in taking charge of the higher

brackets of the government service, including the organisation of the armed forces

and the negotiations with the Dutch and other diplomatic tasks.’ He (1962:25)

defined ‘solidarity makers’ as nationalist leaders whose skill was primarily in

promoting national integration, in manipulating symbols and organising the

masses for support:

‘[...] which might have higher Western education or only secondary or primary Western or [Muslim] education. They might exercise their leadership on the basis of traditional or charismatic authority or (most usually) a combination. They might be military figures [of different sorts].’

Additionally, the ‘solidarity makers’ might be political propagandists,

teachers, or leaders and organisers of various types of organisations (such as,

religious organisations, political parties, trade unions, or peasant associations).

F. CONCLUDING REMARKS

Based on the discussion on this chapter, we have enough evidence to claim that,

not only has indology been institutionally framed within the formation of the

Dutch colonial state, but the colonial state has also had great impact on the

content of indology itself. The relations between these two phenomena —

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colonial state formation and state patronage over indology — accordingly, could

be regarded as intentional. The dynamics of indology have been engineered in

such a way to be largely mutually supportive of the dynamics of colonial state

formation.

However, we should admit that there has been a ‘leak’ within this

figurational formation. Indologists have also taken part in producing the seeds for

Indonesia’s independence. In the successive chapters, we will see how these

effects have persisted — in varying degrees — in the relations between the state

and society in the contemporary era. Both the dynamics of state formation and

social sciences in contemporary Indonesia still have some attachments to their

figurational origins. I believe, for instance, that the state in Independent Indonesia

remained basically a beamtenstaat, dominated by a strong bureaucracy which

tended to stand outside societal interests rather than servicing societal interests.

This will be elaborated upon in subsequent chapters.

To conclude this chapter, it will suffice to claim that indology has meagre

features vis-a-vis its social contexts. And there are at least two factors responsible

for this. First of all, there have been demarcation lines between indologists and

the colonial government on the one hand and Indonesians on the other hand in

many respects. With regard to power distribution, the strength of the first has been

overwhelming in defining situations and in materialising them. On the other hand,

Indonesians themselves, that is the subjects of indology, have had little say. The

sociological features of Indonesia and Indonesians have largely been determined

from ‘outside’, mainly by the Dutch indologists. In the second place, the minimal

differentiation within indology (ie. into literary-historical, social-political and

social economic orientations) has minimised the possibility of checking and re-

checking arguments put forward by indologists. Contradictory findings have been

largely buried under relatively homogenous background and domain assumptions.

Scientific findings by indologists and the thoughts of classical scholars, which

have provided an intellectual basis for these findings, have been largely derived

from Orientalist and European colonial discourse.

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CHAPTER IV THE SHIFT TO AMERICAN CENTRED SOCIAL SCIENCES: THE FABRICATION OF SOCIOLOGY FROM 1945 TO 1965

Introductory remarks Parsons: from classical to contemporary sociology

The Fabrication of ‘Indonesia’ from an American point of view The establishment of the social sciences in Indonesia

Intellectuals under the Guided Democracy format Concluding remarks


The proclamation of Independence in August 1945 heralded a new era in the

development of Indonesia. Vacant government positions left by the Dutch were

filled by the republicans ⎯ politicians and armed forces personnel alike. When,

following the armed struggle against the colonial forces, the transfer of

sovereignty was finalised in 1949, the existence of the Republic of Indonesia

gained political recognition from USA, Australia and other countries.

Accordingly, the role of the Dutch in managing Indonesia was also de-

monopolised. When the nationalist government implemented the policy of

nationalising foreign companies, the role of the Dutch in the economy was also

dismantled. Within this context, the term ‘Indologist’ gradually lost its popularity

and was replaced by ‘Indonesianist’.

This whole process, however, did not isolate Indonesia from external

influences in political and economic terms, and certainly not in scientific terms.

The positions of Dutch scholars were gradually occupied by American scholars.

Other foreign Indonesianists quickly joined the American scholarly enterprise

(such as European, Australian and Asian scholars). Indonesian scholars

themselves also developed interest in understanding their own society. This has

continued right up to the present day.

This chapter discusses the development of the sociology of Indonesia in

the first twenty years of Indonesia’s Independence from 1945 to 1965. It shows

both the limited transition from colonial social science practice to that of the new

elite of indigenous Indonesian sociologists. Modern Indonesian history, up to the

fall of Suharto in 1998, divides sharply into the Old Order under Sukarno, and the

New Order under Suharto. This chapter is predominantly concerned with the

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political, institutional and intellectual shifts of the Old Order. However, since the

key social scientists of the New Order (1966-1998) had some of their most

influential formative experiences in the Old Order period, this chapter will note

people and developments that prepared the ground for the consolidation of the

state and social scientific production of a particular character which moved from

the margins of the Old Order to the mainstream of the Suharto period. The

character of the New Order State (Bureaucratic Authoritarianism) will be

examined in chapter V and its intellectual correlatives in chapter VII. The Old

Order itself was characterised by growing American scholarly interest in

Indonesia, which inspired other foreign scholars to do likewise and also

encouraged some Indonesians to initiate the development of a scientific

community in Indonesia. This was also the era where sociology and other social

science perspectives, in the hands of American social scientists, firmly reached

beyond Europe. The term ‘Orientalist’ became unpopular and lost its prestigious

connotations. Wertheim and other scholars, who in the past were well regarded

and tended to associate themselves with Orientalism, started to abandon the use of

the term. Instead they were inclined to regard themselves as sociologists,

anthropologists, scholars of law, scholars of linguistics and so forth. Within this

context, as these two issues are interrelated, we need some understanding of the

dynamics of sociology in 1950s as well as the dynamics of US foreign policy and

the orientation of the Sukarno government (1945-1966). This will provide an

understanding of the context and content of sociology in Indonesia.

In dealing with such a complex issue, there are several important questions

that I would like to pursue. They are:

1. To what extent can we claim that the autonomy of scholarly products on Indonesia in the hands of American observers was of a higher calibre than colonial discourse?

2. To what extent did American political interests influence the context and content of scholarship of Indonesia between 1945 and 1965? How did American scholars accommodate the products of Dutch indologists fabricating ‘Indonesia’?

3. What roles did Indonesian scholars play in this whole process?

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To answer the above questions, this chapter is broadly divided into four

sections: (1) Some features of Parsonian functionalist thought, (2) The American

fabrication of ‘Indonesia’, (3) The emergence of Indonesian sociologists, and (4)

Intellectuals and politics under the Guided democracy format.

B. PARSONS: FROM CLASSICAL TO CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

Although American Indonesianists have a strong belief in the importance of

empirical research, their studies on Indonesia have nevertheless been influenced

by social scientific theories and methodologies that were developed particularly in

the study of society in the US. To be more specific, their scholarly discourse was

conditioned by the functionalist paradigm, which reached its high point in the

1950s. The way they approached Indonesia was also influenced by functionalist

thought. Their research questions and justifications were derived to a large extent

from functionalist convictions. They were also in dialogue with a Parsonian idea

of social reality, to such an extent that for them understanding the dynamics of

Indonesian society was as significant as identifying the applicability of

functionalist propositions. When the sociological community was founded in

Indonesia, these Parsonian concepts were amongst the most debatable of issues —

the most contentious issues being as diverse as its theoretical bias and material

effects of application of this method. We discuss this issue in the next section.

Suffice to say here that Talcott Parsons provided Indonesianists with the

analytical tools with which to approach Indonesia. Moreover, it was also partly

due to their efforts that the significance of Parsonian sociology has been indelibly

reinforced.

The use of Parsonian reasoning had been common since the 1940s. This

resulted in research findings on different aspects of America and other societies

which were highly diverse in content — for example, focusing on the military, the

political and the economic. This also encouraged attempts to modify Parsons’

propositions. Robert Merton, for instance, was amongst those scholars who made

a significant contribution. He introduced the term ‘functional analysis’ to label

Parsonian sociology. His attachment to empirical research has great importance in

demonstrating the fruitfulness of using functional analysis to obtain insights into

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social reality. In the meantime, the Parsonian project also aided the emergence of

other sociological perspectives. Parsons’ convictions about social reality were

criticised as under-emphasising the creativity of human beings in interpreting

situations and/or engaging in social exchange. This encouraged the emergence of

interactionism, behaviouralist and social exchange theories. The way he

understood tension and conflict as dysfunctional also gave birth to variants of

conflict theories. There were no scholarly works which could afford to neglect

functionalist analysis. This was also evident with the emergence of Habermas’

critical theory.

Touraine (1988, 1995) is amongst those sociologists who compared the

significance of Habermas’ critical theory with Parsons’ works. His contribution to

sociology is as significant as that of Parsons. While Parsons bridged classical and

contemporary (academic) sociology, Habermas made great contributions in

moving towards some sort of post-Parsonian sociology. None the less, Habermas’

works have been founded largely with reference to Parsonian ideas, that is, since

the 1960s onwards, he attempted to refute Parsonian assumptions and to

demonstrate their material effects in the maintenance of the capitalist system at

the expense of subordinating human needs and freedom.

In providing a bridge between classical and contemporary sociology, what

Parsons did was to analyse the works of European thinkers, particularly the works

of Comte, Durkheim, Weber, and Pareto and, to some extent, the works of Karl

Marx. In particular, he used the ideas developed by Weber as building blocks for

his theory of social action in the 1930s. Later, he utilised the sociological ideas

propagated by Comte, Durkheim and other founders of sociology to construct his

conceptions of pattern variables and general systems of action. Here, he

developed his interests together with his former students to establish a structural

functional approach to society — and ‘exported’ the approach to other societies

(including Europe). This whole project was so successful that what we know

about classical sociologists’ ideas have mainly been channelled through his

analysis or through his critiques of them. This approach, however, does not

necessarily make for superior knowledge. The perception of Marx’s theory as

economically deterministic was largely shaped by Parsons and his followers, as

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has the idea that Weber’s works are an improvement of Marx’s concepts. It was

common among scholars under the influence of Parsons — in the US and in other

countries — to regard Marx’ class distinction only as a dimension of the

Weberian concept of social stratification (Parkin in Bottomore and Nisbet eds.

1978).

In bridging classical and contemporary sociology, Parsons also made a

great contribution to institutionalising sociology and anthropology as two distinct

perspectives. Although he has never made a convincing argument on the basis for

this intellectual ‘separation’, sociologists firmly believed for decades that the

distinction is fundamental. This encouraged the establishment of centres for

sociology and anthropology as two different departments within the academic

world of the US. Along with the growing popularity of Parsonian sociology, this

distinction was also adopted in varying degrees in other places, particularly by

those sociologists who were influenced by Parsonian sociology up to the 1960s.

Collaboration between anthropologists and sociologists is rarely viewed as

collaboration at the level of the content of science.

The history of contemporary sociology has instructed us that Parsonian

sociology lost its attraction around the 1960s. However, this decline was followed

by the emergence of neo-functionalism. This was particularly evident in the late

1980s, for example, by social thinkers such as Luhmann.

This thesis is not on Parsonian sociology itself. It rather considers the

influence of Parsonian sociology on the development of the sociology of

Indonesia. Accordingly, instead of analysing it in detail, it is more relevant to

analyse Parsons’ works with reference to Orientalist discourse.

B.1. Talcott Parsons and Orientalist Discourse

Is Parsonian sociology value-free?

There have been many works which emphasise the embeddedness of

functionalism in the development of American society. I have pointed out in

chapter two that Gouldner (1972) is one of the scholars who analysed Parsons’

concepts within the dynamics of the Welfare State in the US and the rise of the

middle classes in America. Furthermore, his concepts were also in accordance

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with a utilitarian philosophical standpoint, which was widespread among the

middle classes in the US. In accordance with this, the optimistic Parsonian

inclination towards social planning to obtain a ‘better’ future was also shared by

the middle classes in the US.

Habermas has been another leading scholar who criticised Parsonian

positivistic concepts and bias towards defending the status quo, for example in his

Knowledge and Human Interests. He refuted the functionalists’ claim that their

scientific enterprise was characterised by value neutrality. Instead, Habermas

argued persuasively that the use of positivism in social science encouraged the

development of social sciences and technical academics who were prepared to

serve the interests of capitalists and those in power, that is to satisfy their need for

social engineering and scientific rationales of legitimacy.

I will discuss in the next sections that the strong growth of functionalism

beyond America has been partly due to the US academic dominance

internationally particular in the non-communist developing world. Suffice to

claim here that we would be on fragile ground to establish a claim that

functionalism is value free.

However, with reference to European theories, Parsons did make some

intellectual advancement. In his early career as a social theorist, he shared

Weber’s conviction of the importance of focusing sociology on social action and

its basis for rationality. None the less, rather than differentiating social action into

rational and non-rational variants, he stressed the voluntaristic feature of social

action. Later, the inclination towards rationality was much less obvious as he

developed intellectual interest in the systemic approach. Specifically his focus

was on the maintenance of society as a system: societal integration, its functional

requirements, A-G-I-L, and the tendency of systems to move towards equilibrium.

Here, although Parsons was making use of Durkheim’s work, he used it

selectively by taking over Durkheim’s basic assumptions of social reality rather

than the findings of his case studies. He abandoned Durkheim’s basic conviction

of differentiating Europe (in particular French society) from other non-European

societies. The same is true regarding his use of the thought of other classical

scholars, including the use of Tonnies’ gemeinschaft and gesselschaft. In short,

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there have been fewer attempts to stress the need for distinguishing societies

according to their attachment to Western civilisation.1 This was in accordance

with his claim of establishing a universal sociological apparatus to understand

(universal) society — even though Parsons himself was not successful in

propagating a universal sociology. We will see in the next section how the

modernisation perspective — an offspring of functionalism — had an impact in

reinforcing the non-Western (that is, non-American) features of Indonesia and

most societies in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Why was Parsons’ frame of thought less detached to Orientalist discourse?

Or, to formulate the question in a more appropriate way, why has Orientalist

discourse been less visible in Parsons’ frame of thought?

This was partly due to Parsons’ inclination to armchair sociology. He was

preoccupied with formulating abstract concepts and propositions about society

rather than being involved in empirical case studies. This was one of the main

criticisms made by other sociologists, including by C. Wright Mills in his

Sociological Imagination. For the purpose of my study, this has a further

implication: it was difficult to detect Orientalist discourse in such abstract works.

Answers can also be found by contextualising functionalist studies within the

tensions between the proponents of qualitative and quantitative methods — before

the tensions resulted in an ideological battle between the proponents of these two

methods. Within this context, functionalist researchers had a strong urge to use

the principles of positivism for empirical analysis. They elaborately developed

aspects of the quantitative method in attempts to acquire enough knowledge about

society. The advancement in computer technology was used by functionalist

sociologists to improve quantitative methods in later days while they were

simultaneously aware of the criticisms made by their opponents. In short, the

tension helped functionalist researchers to develop some sort of scientific-

technical control mechanism over their work while claiming that the essence of

1See also the analysis of Parsonian sociology by Said (1978, 1994) and Chatterjee (1986, 1994).

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functionalist studies was to generate empirical-objective knowledge,2 detached

from the moral message of the Christian doctrine.3

However, the answer can largely be found by contextualising the

development of Parsonian ideas within the dynamics of American politics and

economy. As the emerging New World superpower in its own way replaced

European predominance, Parsonian ideas were embedded in the fight against

communism — communist ideologies as well as Marxian theories — while at the

same time differentiating itself from being a cultural-ideological satellite of

declining Europe (Britain). This was particularly evident in the post World War

era. This way, Parsonian ideas were formulated in an anti-Marxian spirit as well

as one with little preference for European colonialism and the so-called European

‘speculative social sciences’. Instead, he propagated the idea of society as an open

(democratic, capitalist) system to be studied empirically. He used the works of

Durkheim, Weber and other non-Marxian thinkers with care so as to refute the

basic assumptions made by Karl Marx about the development of society while at

the same time distancing himself from their Euro-centric bias. This was in

accordance with the beliefs of mainstream Americans, who tended to view

American society as a society which emerged from a European-Christian

civilisation into a distinctive society in its own right and which considered the

American people to be optimists and pragmatists.

C. INDONESIA FROM AN AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW

Although their functionalist parentage attempted to sever any attachment of the

social sciences to Orientalist discourse, the qualities of Orientalist made a return

via the modernisation perspective in era of the 1950s-1960s. At first, this

Orientalism was less powerful than the discourses of the colonial era when

Orientalism was intimately blended with colonial scholarship. Later, however, it

became more complicated and powerful when indigenous scholars from Africa,

2For an analysis of the promotion of objective social sciences in pre-Parsonian era America, see eg. Bannister (1987). 3Parsons was not the first American scholar to institutionalise the separation of sociology from Christianity. His works were only a greater development of such a separation. The pioneers of American sociology initiated the effort alongside the emergence of academic sociology in America (see eg. Bottomore and Nisbet eds., 1978:287-318).

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Latin America, and particularly Asia adopted the modernisation perspective to

interpret their situation and to apply these ideas in the development of their own

societies. There has been less (or even no) racial distinction in post-colonial

society between scholars, the power elite and the common people. They also

tended to share the same religious convictions just as they all claimed the same

citizenship. The foundations of class and status distinctions primarily focused on

their economic conditions, differences in levels of education and familiarity with

the symbols of advanced societies. The ill-educated local poor were faced with a

wide cultural gap between themselves and the highly educated technocrats trained

in developed societies, who now made far-reaching decisions that brought great

changes to their world.

Differing from the discourse of colonial times, the proponents of the

contemporary version completely abandoned the distinction between civilised and

less civilised parts of the world. They particularly favoured dualisms that

contrasted modern and traditional societies (Parsonian pattern variables resonated

strongly here). Those segments of their societies which were deemed to be

conducive to modernisation were favoured and the other part, the “traditional”,

was seen as standing in the way of progress, prosperity and modernisation. They

also actively elaborated such dualisms that marked off aspects of society, culture

and economy that belonged to their vision of a modernised society, and

deprecated those that stood in the way4.

The focus of this section is the dynamics of the modernisation perspective

as they were used by functionalist scholars to understand Indonesia before

Suharto’s “Pancasila Democracy” replaced the “Guided Democracy” format of

his predecessor, Sukarno.

C.1. Functionalism and the Modernisation Perspective

Social sciences in the 1950s were characterised by the predominance of theories,

which could broadly be categorised as belonging to the modernisation

perspective. Those theories were evident in as diverse fields as politics,

psychology, anthropology, and economics. So diverse the coverage of this

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perspective and so intense the interchange of ideas among the scholars of social

sciences that it was difficult to determine which theories belonged to which sub-

discipline of the social sciences. Those theorists took social psychological,

cultural and political structural variables into account, albeit with disciplinary

emphases. In David McClelland's 'need for achievement', social psychological and

cultural variables were considered along with structural variables, as was

Rostow's 'stages of economic growth' and Smelser's 'structural differentiation'.

The thoughts of various scholars were also utilised by modernisation theorists

including those of the founding fathers of the social sciences — Max Weber’s

‘spirit of capitalism’, Durkheim’s ‘division of labour’, and to some extent,

Herbert Spencer’s ‘structural differentiation’.

There was nothing new about the return of classical ideas. Social scientists

have revitalised them from time to time up to the present. None the less, during

the 1950s, Parsons' beliefs had a pre-eminent position within the modernisation

perspective. His ideas were taken into account in formulating modernisation

theories to varying degrees. Parsons’ theories of pattern variables and functional

requirement have even been so obviously used that they can be regarded as an

offspring of functionalism, as is the case with the deployment of Parsonian

sociology to understand social changes in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

In the hands of modernisation theorists, Parsons’ pattern variables

crystallised into a typology of societies in those areas. They were classified as

traditional, modernising, or less developed. Their characteristics were measured

principally in terms of the ways in which they were seen as diverging, in various

ways, from idealised characterisations of North American and Western European

societies. With respect to normative expectations, while in the former (Eastern

societies) ascriptive orientation predominated, the emphasis in the latter (Western)

societies was on performance expectations. In terms of the range of demands in

relationships, differences were conceptually rooted in diffusivity of social

relations in contrast to specificity (that is, a social relationship is built upon

specific demands). Actors' expectation of emotional gratification in relationships

4 See, in the case of Malaysia, the highly programmatic prescriptions set out by Dr Mahathir Mohamed in his early book The Malay Dilemma (1970).

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between the models of developing and advanced societies was dichotomously

conceptualised into affectivity and neutrality. Basic differences also focused on

the basis of individual reaction toward each other: particularistic and

universalistic and the gratification of collective obligations (collectivity and self-

interest). In short, while the modernists placed societies in North America and

Western Europe closer to the pole of modernity, they regarded most of the

societies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America to more distant from that pole.

Within this conceptual format, it was thought that while modern societies

— often exemplified by relations between the state and society in the US — were

'better' than traditional ones, the latter could be transformed into the former. Using

either the logic of evolutionism, neo-evolutionism or diffusionism,5 modernist

theorists firmly believed that the traditional features of newly independent

countries could be replaced by modern ones, with either the business sector or the

government as the main agent of social change.

This was in accordance with the creation of the plurality of interests,

market economy, the idea of citizenship, and the separation of public and private

spheres,6 with relevant issues for academic studies being the predominance of an

authoritarian regime, non-democratic society, elitist policy processes, the

transformation of primordial ties into semi-modern state apparatuses, the

importance of nation-building in fragmented societies, and patrimonialism in

politics. Those were the main focus of academic discourse in the 1950s: the

criteria used in the West were applied to deconstruct and reconstruct the so-called

developing countries and societies following World War II.

What features do variants of the modernisation perspective share?

At a deeper level, the modernist discourse rested on the systemic view of

society. Societies were basically conceptualised as complex institutional

arrangements whose political, economic, and cultural dimensions are intertwined

5A common term for the deliberate process of transformation has been 'development'. Although this term essentially has the optimistic meaning of progress and advancement, later on it had derogative connotations. It should be emphasised that it was Robert Nisbet who was among the first US modernists to introduce 'developmentalism'. For British observers, the meaning of development is maintained: evolutionism. See Mennell (1991:369) for details. 6There have often been claims that pluralism, liberal-democracy, parliamentary-democracy are morally superior to other political systems such as communism or fascism.

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one to another. The more modern the society, the more elaborate its level of social

differentiation, and corresponding with this, the more widespread the so-called

modern mentality among its members. Furthermore, societies were viewed in

relation with other societies. Development of a society inevitably required some

collaboration of its modernising elements with ones from other societies. As

Parsons argued, societies are open systems.

Another functionalist belief shared by the modernisation perspective was

its detachment from a Marxian position. When the thoughts of Karl Marx were

employed, it was been mainly interpreted through Parsons. ‘Classes’ or ‘economic

strata’ often replaced the term ‘class’. Marx’s studies were chiefly treated as

specific findings about a specific form of modernisation in Western Europe

around one or two centuries ago, rather than concerning the conceptual

development of capitalist modes of production. England might represent a class-

based society, but America had developed a classless society (Kerr et al., 1973).

However, on the whole, they tended to view capitalism as superior to socialism.

The third feature of modernisation theories was their strength in

generating common consensus between scholars and policy makers in advanced

industrialised countries, particularly in the US. They were agreed, too, about the

need to be involved in the development of newly independent countries. This was

unavoidable in order to prevent the spread of communism. Moreover, a common

consensus was also shared by most policy makers and scholars in those areas.

Apparent tensions between a minority of scholars and policy makers in advanced

industrialised countries occurred only in 1960s (stimulated by dissent over US

involvement in Vietnam). Here, Chomsky was one of the few American scholars

who actively opposed US intervention in the early part of that conflict. By the late

1960s anti-war sentiment was strong.

Shared consensus between modernist scholars and policy makers was

possible for several reasons. For one, they have believed that scholars could

produce value-free knowledge. Their analysis was regarded as adequate in the

sense of its accordance with technical scientific criteria. The second reason

concerned the ability of modernist scholars to provide some sort of ‘normalisation

treatment’ based on their description and factor analysis. Moreover, their policy

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recommendation was reformative, which was easily accommodated within the

stock of knowledge of policy makers in general. Here, we must admit that the

shared consensus was largely responsible not only for the popularity of the

modernisation perspective, but also for its persistence beyond the 1950s. Scholars

in Asia, Africa and Latin America also took part in maintaining the existence of

the modernisation perspective with its American biases in the 1950s and 1960s —

particularly those who graduated from American universities. As Feith (1980)

claimed, 'a lot of thoughtful political intellectuals of the Third World countries

(...) associated themselves with the forces of Americanisation in their country.'

Even when the popularity of Marx’s conceptions was revitalised in the hands of

dependency theorists and others who revived theories of imperialism, such as

Andre Gunder Frank and Samir Amin, the latter was used to modify them instead

of rejecting the basic assumptions of modernisation perspective comprehensively.

The arguments made by critics of imperialism and dependency theorists

also had an impact on Parsonian functionalism. They have helped the diminishing

popularity of Parsonian sociology. However, this occurred alongside the

emergence of Mertonian functionalism. The systemic approach survived in the

hands of Robert Merton, although some of Parsons’ basic assumptions were

modified. He proposed what he called the ‘three functionalist postulates’.

Within this context, the use and development of the modernisation

perspective and to some extent, functionalist thought on Indonesia was promoted

by the Indonesia studies centres. The first centres were established at Cornell,

Yale and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

C.2. Pioneers of Indonesia Studies Centres in the US

Post World War II Indonesia was part of this Americanisation process. This was

particularly due to the involvement of Americans in the development of

Indonesia, within which their scholars shared in the fabrication of knowledge

about Indonesia. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cornell University and

Yale University facilitated the involvement of American scholars, to a large

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extent. These three universities accommodated the first Indonesia studies centres

in American higher education (Koentjaraningrat, 1975).7

At MIT, research on Indonesia lay under the auspices of the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology Centre for International Studies, which contained the

Indonesia Project and the Indonesia Field Team, with financial support from the

Ford Foundation. Benjamin Higgins chaired the first, and Rufus Hendon chaired

the Indonesia Field Team. However, the two groups shared similar concerns about

the issue of political and economic development in Indonesia, and not only were

their members involved in intensive discussion, but they also collaborated with

each other during field work (that is in the period of 1952 to 1959). These

facilitated the MIT Centre for International Studies acquiring knowledge about

various aspects of Indonesia, such as the village economy (Robert Jay), the

market (Alice Dewey), administrative organisations (Donald Fagg), family

organisation and socialisation (Hildred Geertz) and the Indonesian Chinese

community (Edward Ryan). Later on, when the project was terminated, the

intellectual interests of its former members remained, with Clifford Geertz —

former member of the Indonesia Field Team — who remained among the most

productive of Indonesianists. He continued visiting Indonesia and doing fieldwork

in various parts of the country — Java, Bali, and Sumatra.

Clifford Geertz himself has been associated with prominent institutions in

the US. He graduated from the Department of Social Relations of Harvard

University. Later, he taught for a decade at the Department of Anthropology of

the University of Chicago, and at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton

University. His career as an Indonesianist itself was mostly facilitated by his

involvement in the MIT Indonesia Project and his celebrated research skills. He

claimed that his works on religion were primarily influenced by Weber. In his

own words (Geertz, 1968:v):

7It is worth mentioning that this was part of the dramatic expansion of American universities from the end of the World War II to 1995. Not only did the student body and faculty undergo significant diversification, but their research capacity was also strengthened. For a detailed account of the development of American universities in the fifty years following the World War II see eg. Bender (1997).

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‘Let me, then, merely record that my approach to the comparative study of religion has been shaped by my reactions, as often rejecting as accepting, to the methods and concepts of Talcott Parsons, Clyde Kluckhohn, Edward Shils, Robert Bellah, and Wilfred Cantwell Smith, and their intellectual presence can be discerned, not always in the forms of which they would approve, throughout the whole of this little book, as can that of the man whose genius made both their and my work possible, Max Weber.’

None the less, it was also true that his interpretation of Weber accorded, to

a large extent, with the interpretation made by functionalists.

Another Centre of Indonesia studies is the Cornell Modern Indonesia

Project, which was founded by George Mc.T Kahin in 1950s. This was the era

when the US replaced the role of Europe as the pre-eminent home of area studies.

The establishment of the Cornell Modern Indonesia Project was greatly

encouraged by efforts to understand newly independent states in Asia, Africa and

Latin America which were emerging out of colonialism. And, similar to other area

studies, programmes, centres and/or institutes which were established in the US

during that time, the Cornell Project was funded both by the US government and

other agencies, who shared an interest in acquiring knowledge about this

relatively new post World War II phenomenon (Feith, 1986). The Cornell Project

also produced prominent scholars, such as, Benedict Anderson and Herbert Feith.8

The Indonesia studies centres also produced non-American Indonesianists

and helped the establishment of similar centres abroad, such as in Australia. Feith

(1986), a Cornellian who has dedicated his career to developing the Centre for

South-East Asian Studies at Monash University has provided us with its

description.

The Indonesia studies centre at Monash was founded by John Legge under

the title, Centre for South-East Asian Studies in 1964. Until the early 1970s, the

Centre maintained close relations with Cornell’s Indonesia Project to such an

extent that Cornell’s Modern Indonesia Project has often been considered as a

model (Feith, 1986:88). John Legge himself is an Indonesianist who graduated

from Cornell University and later became an influential Australian Indonesianist.

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He has had a critical role in the transition from Orientalism to modern Asian

studies. As McKay (1986:178) claimed, ‘More than any other it has been John

Legge who helped Australia to make the transition from Orientalism to modern

Asian studies. This was a move from dependence on the traditional disciplines of

language, literature, philosophy and religion to the comparatively new

methodologies and preoccupations of modern history and the social sciences.’

Indonesia studies centres at Monash and other Australian universities have

subsequently played important roles in acquiring knowledge about Indonesia.

This was due to the fact that Australia and Indonesia lie in the same geographical

region, while their political, economic and cultural characteristics have been

noticeably different. Here, Indonesia has been regarded as strategic to Australia.

Probably this is what Mackie and Millner (1986:173-4) meant in emphasising the

higher importance of Indonesia to Australian scholars than to European or

American scholars:

‘Most Australian scholars working on Indonesia are likely to have in the back of their minds a strong sense of the political and strategic importance of Indonesia to Australia and thus a heightened awareness of the need to understand that country and its component societies and cultures, which were almost a terra incognita to the Australian scholarly world, as well as the general public, in the years immediately after World War II. For American and European scholars, the study of Indonesia is likely to be regarded as a recherch interest in a remote and exotic part of the globe (or, for the Dutch scholars now working in the field, perhaps as a residue from their colonial past, but no longer a matter of such vital national interest), no matter how compelling might be the intellectual attractions of the subject in some cases. For them, Indonesia as a new nation-state is merely one of many Third World countries, of only limited relevance to their nation’s most pressing concerns. For most Australians working on Indonesia, however, the situation is very different. Nearly all of us know that Indonesia is a country Australians must learn to know and understand better; we all need to clear away the colonial and postcolonial mythology, prejudice and ignorance so as to see what has been happening there (and why) during the last half-century or so’.

8The Indonesia studies centre at Yale also emerged out of a similar context. Its concern, however, has mainly been the history of Indonesia.

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Another factor of importance in the establishment of Indonesia studies

centres in the US was the policy of recruiting outstanding Indonesians as social

science scholars, such as Selo Soemardjan and Mely G. Tan. Those Indonesian

scholars later were involved in networking with foreign Indonesianists.

What was the position of Dutch indologists within the Americanisation of

the social sciences of Indonesia during the 1950s-1960s?

While the number of Dutch indologists decreased between World War II

and the mid 1970s, the number of American scholars grew. The roles of

Hurgronye, Boeke, Burger and other Dutch indologists were replaced by

American scholars such as George Mc. T. Kahin, Donald E. Willmott, Clifford

Geertz, Hildred Geertz, Robert Jay, and A.C. Dewey (Koentjaraningrat, 1975;

Sunarto, 1989). Australian Indonesianists also joined the Americans. And this

whole process is inseparable from the establishment of the three Indonesia studies

centres. Not only have they marked the growing interest of American scholarship

in Indonesia, but they have also replaced Dutch indology in achieving a near

monopoly of scholarship on Indonesia. Within this context, the three centres also

promoted a diversification of intellectual interests in the study of Indonesian

society, replacing the minimal sub-disciplines of Dutch indology.

Dutch scholars themselves could no longer enjoy political stability in

1950s-1960s. This was primarily due to the Republican government’s unfriendly

attitude towards the Netherlands and a significant drop in interest in Indonesia in

the Netherlands. Despite this instability there were some Dutch scholars who were

able to hold scholarly positions in Indonesia. H.J. Heeren, for instance, held a

lecturing position in sociology at the University of Indonesia from 1954-1957,

during that time he started collecting materials on the transmigration process in

Indonesia. And with respect to the production of scholarly works on Indonesia,

H.G. Schulte Nordholt, for example, submitted his thesis to the Vrje Universiteit

te Amsterdam in 1966; while H.J.Heeren submitted his thesis to the University of

Utrecht on the transmigration process in Indonesia in 1967 (Koentjaraningrat,

1975:169).

Along with a decline in the popularity of Dutch Indological products in

Indonesia, the importance of the Dutch discipline oriented textbooks grew. With

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respect to text books in sociology, up to the late 1960s, sociological treatises on

Indonesia were mainly written by Dutch scholars (such as by S.R. Steinmetz, P.J.

Bouman, J. Bierens de Haan, and A. Lysen). Some of these works were later

translated from Dutch into Bahasa Indonesia. There have only been very few

Indonesians who have written sociological treatises in Bahasa Indonesia, that is,

Djody Gondokusumo, Bardosono and Hassan (see Soemardjan, 1965; Sunarto,

1989).

To end this section, it is worth noting that the involvement of American

academics went beyond producing scientific treatises on Indonesia. While the

scholars themselves pursued their own intellectual and research agendas, and were

at times critical of American policy towards Asia, there is also no doubt that the

generous funding of scholarship in Southeast Asia benefited from the US

government’s obsession, in the 1950s and 1960s, with halting the spread of

communism. Conflicts in Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam heightened their

concerns. Thus there was stronger support for US scholars willing to participate

directly in the process of economic development in Indonesia. Some of them were

even involved in the Indonesian government’s policy formulation processes.

Benjamin Higgins, for example, was assigned to work at the National Planning

Bureau for Economic Development (see Higgins and Higgins, 1963). Another

example was the establishment of the Kentucky Contract Team (the Kenteam),

which worked in Indonesia from late 1957 until its withdrawal in early 1966. Its

assignment was the development of the Agricultural Institute at Bogor (IPB), both

in technical as well as social aspects of applied agricultural sciences, such as,

agronomy, forestry, and rural sociology.

This direct involvement was just a part of the wider involvement of

American academics in newly independent countries in various fields during the

1950s. During that time, groups of American scholars were sent to work in host

countries in various fields, such as in higher education institutions, government

ministries and other public service institutions. Interestingly, these assignments

were more like a political and scientific adventure for the scholars. When the

Kentucky Contract Team (Kenteam) was sent to Bogor, its members had limited

knowledge about IPB, tropical agriculture or Indonesia. Beers (1971:7) described

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their prior qualifications at the University of Kentucky for the work at Bogor

neither came from extensive past experience abroad nor from agricultural

expertise in tropical problems. Professionally speaking, the institution was

actually ill suited to the task.

C.3 The Fabrication of ‘Indonesia’ from a Modernisation Perspective

Unlike in earlier times, American scholars succeeded in directing the development

of social sciences to accommodate the importance of empirical research in order

to generate scientific findings. They shared a strong commitment to the

abandonment of what they claimed was speculative social science. This is a mark

of the American influence over the development of social sciences internationally.

I have already discussed this earlier.

Mainstream American scholars also made a contribution in establishing

specialisation within the social sciences according to subject matter. Different

branches of the social sciences should study different aspects of the relation

between the individuals and society. In this respect, sociology was regarded as an

intellectual discipline which should be distinguished from anthropology, politics,

economics, psychology, history, and other scientific disciplines that we know

today. And this distinction was introduced into the structure of management of

higher education as well as the management of the social sciences. Although there

has been a growing tendency for favouring a multi-disciplinary approach in recent

years, this has been achieved without successfully breaking down the boundaries

within those disciplines.

However, such disciplinary-based distinctions have been blurred in the

hands of Indonesianists and other area study specialists. They were in general

agreement with American scholars on the issue of empirical data. However, they

seemed less concerned with establishing some sort of disciplinary boundaries, and

instead identified themselves with the dynamics of their object of study (that is,

the societies upon which their findings are established). Indonesia is more than a

research field — which is basically replaceable — for establishing scientific

findings.

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In accordance with this, Indonesianists and other scholars of area study

have been more flexible in using different points of view to acquire knowledge.

Although Clifford Geertz has a strong attachment to anthropology, Benedict

Anderson and Herbert Feith to politics, and John Legge to historical analysis,

such distinctions were not emphatically pursued. They grounded their scientific

beliefs in conceptualising Indonesia from a holistic point of view. Indonesian

society has intellectually been viewed as a complicated phenomenon that can be

better comprehended by using a multi-disciplinary perspective — which is more

or less centred around anthropology.

This has been an advance in the study of Indonesia. While Indonesia has

been studied from a point of minimal division of scholarship during colonial

times, in the hands of American scholars, Indonesia has been studied from a more

diversified scientific perspective. Moreover, the attitude in approaching Indonesia

has also changed. This can be seen in the abandonment of the term ‘Oriental

studies’. I share Said’s observation (1978:2) that American scholars have regarded

‘Oriental studies’ as too vague and general. The term has also been taken to have

‘a strong connotation of high-handed executive attitude of nineteenth-century and

early-twentieth-century European colonialism’. Accordingly, ‘Oriental studies’

has been replaced by ‘area studies’ — along with efforts to popularise ‘area study

specialists’ and ‘Indonesianists’.

What are the basic features of ‘Indonesia’ from a modernisation point of

view? In what respects do they represent continuity (this also implies

discontinuity) from colonial scholarship?

As Indonesia has been regarded more as an object of fabrication in

scholarly discourse than a context for scholarly discourse, it appears to me that the

main concern of American Indonesianists has been understanding Indonesia (from

a scientific point of view) rather than formulating scientific propositions (based on

the reality in Indonesia). Research questions concerning democracy, the Javanese

family, local entrepreneurship, ethnicity, or Muslim communities have been

treated as an entry point for understanding Indonesia.

Geertz’s research questions about the religion of the Javanese, for

instance, were answered with reference to the dynamics of the state, nation

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building, culture, history and the economy of both the Javanese and Indonesia at

large. In Feith’s The Decline of Constitutional Democracy, another example, the

analysis of economic and cultural dimensions of pre-1959 Indonesia was

conducted in relation to the political format during that time. Here, they held a

firm belief that Indonesia was a complicated entity, whose cultural dimensions

were inseparably intertwined with its political and economic dimensions.

Moreover, the complexity of Indonesia was also established by positioning it

within the continuity of its past, present and future. American Indonesianists

seemed to have shared a belief that the situation and condition of Indonesia during

their research period contained the marks of past performance and the seeds of

future Indonesia. I will argue later that ‘future Indonesia’ has been viewed by the

Indonesianists according to what has been commonly regarded as the universality

of societal development. For now, it is sufficient to claim that probably this

tendency has provided us with explanation as to why American Indonesianists

have a strong methodological preference towards qualitative analysis (over factor

analysis), with its tendency of ‘going native’ -- despite the fact that quantitative

methodology was more popular in America during that time.

As a logical consequence of understanding Indonesia within a temporal

dimension, there has been no other way for the Indonesianists but to understand

the works of Dutch scholars of Indonesia. Their success in setting up a new

intellectual trend in understanding Indonesia and in shifting intellectual discourse

from a Dutch to an American centred barometer, has been due to an important

extent to their understanding of the past.

The value of Dutch Indologists’ works themselves have been mainly

treated as empirical data about Indonesia during colonial times, while the

conceptual value of their works has been under critical scrutiny. Although it is

hard to differentiate whether the scrutiny has been on an a-priori or a-posteriori

basis, it appears to me that the less they are concerned about the history of

Indonesia, the less the need for using the works of colonial scholars. My analysis

of major Indonesianists’ works has convinced me that there have almost been no

efforts to use their concepts as the main tool for empirical studies. I have no

evidence for claiming that American Indonesianists have deliberately

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acknowledged that their scientific interests are a continuation of Dutch

Indologists’ products. In contrast, the significance of Bijdragen and the Dutch

indologists’ scientific products is predominantly reduced to rich and detailed data

about Indonesia during colonial times. The American Indonesianists have even

neglected the theoretical value of the works of Dutch scholars of post

Revolutionary Struggle Indonesia. Accordingly, little do we know, for example,

that Wertheim proposed a process sociology understanding for approaching

Indonesia in his Indonesian Society in Transition. Thus, along with the

replacement of Dutch scholars by American Indonesianists since 1950s, the

intellectual deconstruction and reconstruction of Indonesia which was undertaken

by the former has also been largely dismissed.

Along with the shift from Dutch to American scholarly discourse,

American Indonesianists joined the political discourse of colonialism as an

antecedent variable — particularly regarding political invention during the pre-

Pancasila Democracy (pre-Suharto) format. This can be observed, amongst others,

in Clifford Geertz’s Agricultural Involution. As I have pointed out in the

preceding chapter, he made a claim that dualism in Indonesia was largely due to

Dutch colonialism in Indonesia. This can also be detected in Geertz’ concept of

primordial attachments and the works of other American Indonesianists, which

attained wide popularity. To Indonesian political elites, Kahin’s Nationalism and

Revolution was regarded as an important document on the early years of the

Republic not only because of the comprehensiveness of his work, but also because

the work provided scientific justification for the struggle of Indonesians to obtain

their independence as a nation-state. Here, while scholars of the colonial era had

been keen on what has been regarded by Young (1994) as re-fashioning tradition,

American scholars have been involved in re-inventing colonial practice. This has

been achieved by emphasising the effects of colonialism in almost every aspect of

Indonesia in their efforts to reconstruct the histories of Indonesia. This has made

plausible the claim that Dutch colonialism has prevented Indonesia, unlike

American and European societies, from developing “naturally”. Unfortunately, it

is difficult to tell the difference between natural development and universal

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development on the one hand, and the American version of societal development.

Allow me to elaborate this latter point.

Amongst the most significant conditions which have prevented Indonesia

from developing smoothly on a path of modernisation are cultural fragmentation

and economic backwardness. I have shown in the preceding chapter that these

have been in part due to the material effects of indologists. In his the Decline of

Constitutional Democracy, Feith (1962:32-45) argued that the big issues faced by

Indonesia in the post revolutionary era were nation building, economic progress,

and establishing a political format (that is, democracy and constitutional

democracy). And these constitute a difficult task due to the legacy of Dutch

colonialism. The Indonesianists shared this idea (particularly) during his time,

which emphasised the negative effects of Dutch colonialism on the modernisation

of Indonesia. And my analysis of Indonesia during colonial times has confirmed

this. The main problem is: Indonesia has been kept inferior to Western

civilisation. To be more specific, although there has been a less obvious emphasis

on analysing Indonesians from the criteria of rationality, Indonesia has been

regarded as less modern society. American society itself has been unconsciously

viewed as representing a society at the other end of the spectrum of modernity.

This accorded with the basic assumptions and conceptual implications of the

modernisation perspective, particularly its analysis of social differentiation. Thus,

while the fabrication of ‘Indonesia’ in the hands of colonial scholars ended up in

subordinating Indonesia to the Dutch, American Indonesianists have replaced the

Dutch formulated criteria with American ones, but in ways that still viewed

Indonesian society as deficient when measured against an implicit measure of

advancement that was unambiguously American.

Within this context, successive works have become more complicated,

particularly those works which are deeply embedded in the cultural-political

discourse of Indonesia. Thus, Indonesianists have, to a certain extent, again re-

fashioned the traditional character of Indonesia. In collaboration with Lance

Castles in seeking to understand Indonesian political thinking, Feith (in Feith and

Castles eds. 1970:22) emphasised the importance of comprehending what they

called ‘Indonesian political thinking’. And they believed that the formulation of

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Indonesian political thought in 1945-1965 ‘should be seen in relation to the

interests of particular groups and to particular types and phases of socio-political

transition as well as being regarded as residues of traditional values and

perspectives.’ Other scholars have also emphasised the significance of culture in

understanding Indonesia. Castles’ (1967) work on the Kretek cigarette industry in

Kudus emphasised the cultural significance of Islam and Javanese tradition in the

development of that industry and of indigenous entrepreneurship. Studies of

population, migration, patron-client relations, ethnic-based communal loyalty,

dominant culture, the entrepreneurship of the Minangkabau and the Acehnese

ethno-linguistic groups in Indonesia, the inefficiency of bureaucracy, the

persistence of corruption and other studies during this era have also greatly

emphasised culture as a key explanatory variable.

Broadly speaking, the unanticipated revitalisation of colonial scholarship

has been evidence of the way influential Indonesianists have intellectually

handled the relationship between economic interests, political affairs and cultural

identities during the 1950s and 1960s. The idea of Indonesia as a mosaic-like

figurational formation found its empirical expression in the (common) discourse

upon which primordial identities come before the idea of citizenship. And

drawing upon their established intellectual orientations towards the analysis of

conflict and consensus, their analytical predispositions crystallised in their studies

of Indonesia, which became absorbed, to varying degrees, with studies of ethnic

and religious relations. This has been a form of interpretation of ‘Bhineka

Tunggal Ika’9 from a non-nationalist point of view, which — I will argue in the

next chapter — has found its advanced elaboration in the hands of (particularly)

American influenced Indonesian scholars under the Suharto-era Pancasila

democracy format. Suffice to say here that although I am not completely

convinced by Said’s works (1978, 1994), I have found it difficult to fault his

claim (1994:27) that ‘Westerners may have physically left their old colonies in

Africa and Asia, but they retained them not only as markets but as locales on the

ideological map over which they continued to rule morally and intellectually’.

9 Bhineka Tunggal Ika — the official Indonesian national motto. It is Sanskrit for “unity in diversity”.

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If I have been successful in presenting my notion of the fabrication of

‘Indonesia’ thus far, it would be clear that although American Indonesianists have

attempted to debunk Dutch colonialism, in their works we find the revitalisation

of some colonial scholarship, and in correlation with this, the maintenance of

Indonesia’s subordination: Indonesia has always been regarded as a transitional

society. This can also be found with reference to the significance of their studies

as a means of orientation.

Here, Indonesia has been viewed as a society in need of normalisation

according to certain criteria of normality. I have discussed that during the colonial

era, when these criteria were embedded in the discourse of modernisation and

Westernisation through the hands of the Dutch. American Indonesianists

themselves have also maintained belief in what they regarded as universal criteria.

However, they have held rather different criteria, that is, an ideal of an open and

democratic society with a strong capitalist basis. These features have been absent

in Indonesia and other newly independent countries in Asia, Africa and Latin

America. Probably it was Feith (1962:xi) who was one of the few scholars to

formulate his own conception of democracy (‘Constitutional Democracy’) within

the Indonesian context of his time:

‘Civilians played a dominant role. Parties were of very great importance. The contenders for power showed respect for ‘rules of the game’ which were closely related to the existing constitution. Most members of the political elite had some sort of commitment to symbols connected with constitutional democracy. Civil liberties were rarely infringed. Finally, governments used coercion sparingly.’

What are the main key points of normalisation according to American

scholars?

In the first place, the modernisation of Indonesia has been thought to be

the subject of deliberation through the engineering of its sectoral aspects. Here,

the emphasis has been primarily focused on economic development backed up by

a conducive arrangements within the Indonesian political institutions.

Secondly, in accordance with the intellectual atmosphere characteristic of

that period, Indonesianists firmly held to a modernisation perspective.

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Normalisation was predominantly understood as modernisation and development.

Here, while they differentiated exogenous from endogenous factors conducive to

normalisation, modernisation and development were considered inseparable. In

scholarly terms, this positioned the US in the forefront of generating exogenous

factors, both in terms of the transfer of technology (in a broad sense) and basic

experience or ‘know-how’ in developing systems and institutions essential to the

transition to modernity.

At first, this big push was viewed with reference to development of

Indonesian entrepreneurial classes within a conducive (that is, democratic)

political framework. These were regarded as essential means for escaping from

the backwardness of Indonesia. As the basis for policy formulation, they accorded

with US political interests that newly independent countries in Asia, Africa and

Latin America be immune to communism. Higgins’ view was typical of American

Indonesianists. In his foreword to Geertz’s Agricultural Involution, (1963:ix) he

argued:

‘[...] a take-off is most likely when the growth of an indigenous entrepreneurial class occurs simultaneously with the appearance of a political elite which has the power and the will to provide a policy framework favourable for the exercise of entrepreneurial talents -- whether in the public or the private sector.’

In the third place, the Indonesianists shared a firm belief that

modernisation and development should occur through reform rather than via

radical routes as proposed by Marx. My research has indicated that this concurred

not only with the intellectual atmosphere, but also with the negative connotations

held by Americans in general to such term as Marxism-Communism. In fact,

Americans were particularly hostile to the growing influence of communist

regimes in the Cold War era and the fact that the Indonesian communist party

(PKI) claimed twenty million members in its affiliate organisations (youth front,

women, workers, peasants etc) was of deep concern to US policy makers .

The implementation of Sukarno’s populist Guided Democracy (1959-

1965) strengthened American belief in the importance of economic development,

in the importance of maintaining influence in state apparatuses in Indonesia

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(above all in the Armed Forces), and alarm at the predicament of Indonesia at

large. This was also stimulated by the fear of the re-emergence of the communists

in national politics. The dissatisfaction of Indonesians with the directionless

internecine squabbling of parliamentary democracy, which gradually developed

after the mid-1950s, reinforced American scholarly beliefs that a liberal

democracy format had certain social, institutional and cultural pre-requisites —

and these were perceived to be absent in Indonesia.

According to American Indonesianists in general, the Guided democracy

era was not conducive to modernisation, but rather inhibited economically-

generated modernisation. ‘But while Communists and nationalists provide

political leadership, they do not [...] provide economic leadership or

entrepreneurship -- if anything, their actions and attitudes are such as to

discourage the growth of entrepreneurial activity’. (Higgins in Geertz, 1963:xi).

At the time, Indonesian politicians regarded this view as being unhelpfully critical

of Indonesia, and they were drawn to Sukarno’s radical third world populism

which dismissed it as merely being imperialist criticism. It was only with the

coming to power of Suharto’s New Order in 1967, that these criticisms were taken

seriously. Then the military10 dominated New Order regime broke the dead-lock

of social development in Indonesia by collaborating with various interests

groupings within civil society to satisfy each other’s interests.11

What features have scholars attached to the state in Indonesia?

The emergence of the Guided Democracy regime (1959-1965) reinforced

the belief of Geertz, Jackson, Crouch and other modernist theorists in their view

of Indonesian politics as being dominated by a non-pluralist, non-democratic

state. Mass mobilisations in society itself involved the manipulation of primordial,

especially religious, loyalties linked to patronage — the so-called ‘aliran’ politics

of the Sukarno era. Under Suharto, the influence of the electorate was greatly

attenuated, and these same analysts had a strong tendency to emphasise not only

10For a detailed analysis of the role of the military in the development of Indonesia see eg. King (1982), Crouch (1988). 11The interests of civil society were formulated as the Tritura, short for Tri Tuntutan Rakyat (the People’s three demands), that is reducing prices, purging leftists from the cabinet and banning the PKI. For an account of the fall of Sukarno see eg. May (1978).

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'the way in which societal interests had been increasingly excluded from political

participation and policy formation',12 but also the reduction of the New Order state

into patterns of conflict and consensus among the governing elite or state-

bureaucracy (MacIntyre, 1991:250).13 Moreover, MacIntyre (1991:251) argued:

'We are on a strong ground to conclude that an enduring fixation by political scientists with the State and ideas of political exclusion are at least partially responsible for the failure to recognise the greater plurality and complexity of Indonesian politics.'

In speaking of plurality here, MacIntyre was referring to a plurality of

elites, not to broader currents in society. To sum up, while Dutch scholars

emphasised the significance of the government in the making of the history of

Indonesia, the Indonesianists replaced the colonial government with the

Indonesian government as the only effective agent of social transformation in the

country.

C.4. Area Specialists and the Political Interests of the US

To conclude this section, allow me to discuss the relations between US political

interests and the dynamics of Indonesianists, that is, how US political interests

have helped shape both the context and content of American construction of

‘Indonesia’. This has been rather a small point within US government backed area

studies centres (programmes or institutes).

The Second World War had a big impact on the US foreign policy, since it

ushered in a period of massive US involvement in international affairs beyond the

Western Hemisphere. Specifically, the US realised that its economic, political,

and social interests were dependent on the dynamics of the Third World as well as

on the dynamics of domestic development. Internal instability within each country

in the Third World was regarded as a root problem within an international

12For an account of the influence of the modernisation perspective on Indonesian politics see eg. Robison (1986), MacIntyre (1991), Feith (1980) and Shin (1989). Shin (1989), for instance, differentiates between the proponents of modernisation perspective into early modernists, revisionist modernists and the economists. There are nuances between their ideas. For general criticism, see eg. Badie and Birnbaum (1983). 13This reduction occurs, as we have seen, due to the unimportance of the concept of 'the state' in their works. See Shin (1989) for detailed description.

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context, which could inhibit the survival of American interests and its efforts to

increase prosperity. This went hand in hand with its efforts to influence the Third

World, that is, to be some sort of model state for those countries. As Girling

(1980:15) has noted:

‘The fact of revolution and the fear of revolution have dominated American policy towards the Third World for more than a quarter of a century. Both fact and fear converge in the belief that ‘indigenous’ insurgencies and urban mass struggles as well as explicitly communist-led revolutions can be manipulated -- at first by “international communism”, than either by Moscow or Peking -- in a chain reaction of revolt against “transitional” structures of authority in one Third World country after another. This is seen as a “universal” threat, encompassing America’s own security; thus it requires an equivalent response.’14

It is mainly from the perspective of this foreign policy that the transition

from Indology to Indonesian Studies should be understood. Since the end of

World War II American universities began taking part in the development of

societies outside the US (particularly in the newly independent countries in Asia,

Africa and Latin America) on a massive scale. The US government provided

financial and political support for this involvement.

President Harry Truman’s administration, with its innovation of the Point

Four concept of technical assistance, marked the commencement of the era of US

involvement. According to Beers (1971:vii), the Truman administration

encouraged ‘American universities go beyond their earlier small-scale ventures in

international exchange programs to undertake major projects overseas.’ This

technical cooperation scheme was also used by American universities and the US

government to acquire first-hand knowledge about those countries. In many of

them, the US had little prior knowledge. In this respect, we can see a similarity

between area studies in the US and European Oriental Studies. In both cases the

importance of state patronage is noticeable. The significance of centres of

indology in the Netherlands had been sharply reduced following the overthrow of

Dutch colonial rule, while Cornell’s Indonesia Project and others of the kind

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burgeoned along with the political shift of US government focus to Indochina

(that is, research funding was relocated to studies of political life in Indochina)

and Southeast Asia.

The establishment of area studies centres was a growing phenomenon in

American universities in 1950s. The US army played a key role, at least in the

beginning. According to the US Army, the establishment of area studies centres

could accommodate its interests, so much so that with its Specialised Training

Programmes, it promoted the establishment of area studies programmes in

American universities to produce specialists on the languages and cultures of

different societies in the world. As Lambert (1989) observed, the military funded

area studies projects then seeded about 600 area studies and language centres in

American universities. Moreover, many of the specialists themselves were

recruited as intelligence officers by the Office of Strategic Service (which later

became known as the Central Intelligence Agency).

The establishment of Indonesia studies centres also lay within this political

framework.

When Sukarno and Hatta proclaimed the Independence of Indonesia in

1945, the US government actually had little experience and knowledge about

Indonesia or about other countries in South and South East Asia. Its knowledge

was particularly focused on Japan and its Pan-Asian movement, and de-

colonisation in Asia. The US government also had little interests in those

countries that were traditionally regarded as peripheral to American interest. The

government was rather preoccupied with the political and economic development

of its allies in Europe in the immediate post-World War II era as well as its own

domestic problems which demanded immediate attention. Moreover, policy

makers were in a dilemma about maintaining US relations with European

countries while encouraging the ideology of self-government. With respect to

Indonesia, according to Stanley Hornbeck (US ambassador to the Netherlands

during the early post-revolutionary years) in his article ‘The United States and the

Netherlands East Indies’ in Annals of the American Academy of Political and

14For an analysis of US foreign policy on and in the Third World in this period, see eg. Girling (1980).

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Social Sciences 255 January 1948:132-3, he observes that the US ‘attempted to

support neither side and yet favoured one and hoped not unduly to offend the

others’. (McMahon in Lacey, 1989:344).

However, the situation soon changed. Not only were there efforts to

understand this part of the world, but East, South and South East Asia were soon

transformed into critical Cold War battle grounds. China, Korea, India and the

major countries of South East Asia acquired great significance for US Foreign

Policy. When Truman left office in 1953, foreign policy had assumed great

political significance. Isolationism was dead and American interests were no less

at stake in foreign arenas than they were domestically. The world had been

fashioned into a bi-polar opposition of the free world against communism, and

Asia, including South East Asia, now became a major focus of American

interests.

It should be emphasised that this collaboration between American social

scientists and US armed forces originated during the War: the ‘nationalisation’ of

the social sciences. Later, there was opposition to such collaboration.

In the beginning many American scientists did not object to the

collaboration between their scholarly establishment and the army. This simply

continued and built upon patterns of collaboration established during the war.

During World War II, many American sociologists, anthropologists, political

sciences and other social scientists were recruited to work as researchers in the

War Department. Many of them were influential figures in their own disciplines.

And the scientists regarded this collaboration as an opportunity to formulate and

test their conceptual and methodological apparatuses, particularly with reference

to social engineering. Based on his research, Lambert (1989) found that the

development in attitude measurement, the role of values in behaviour, and small

group research was largely facilitated by the collaboration with the armed forces

during the war and afterwards.

In addition, on their return to the academic world after the war, many of

these same scholars held key positions and played leading roles within the

academic world. The Harvard Social Relations Department, for instance, was

established by Clyde Kluckhohn, Henry Murray, and Samuel Stouffer and others.

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These three worked for the military during the World War II. A similar

phenomenon is also evident in the involvement of the presidents of the American

Sociological Association in military research: by 1967, seven of them were active

in military research (Lambert, 1989).

Since the 1960s, however, the idea of collaborating with the military was

seriously criticised. There was a growing tendency to oppose such collaboration,

and many scholars also became more critical towards US foreign policy. This

partly resulted in the distancing of American area specialists from the Department

of Defence. Within this context, according to Lambert (1989:104), one major

reason for this opposition was their objection to the armed forces’ definition of

US national interests:

‘In general, area specialists, with their interest in a particular country or set of countries, tend to have a greater sympathy with the interests of the countries they study than do others in our society, including the military. This makes them difficult allies for the military, which sees its position as hardheaded realism viewed largely, if not entirely, from the perspective of American national interest’.

In addition, there was growing concern within the academic community

about the degree of dependence of university research on the armed forces in

general and the Department of Defence in particular. Specifically, they were less

concerned with the fact that a substantial number of students were veterans, and

more concerned about the effects of their dependency on the autonomy of

scientists and the use of their research findings for so-called ‘national interests’.

An example of this concern was manifested in Project Camelot. This project was

funded by the US Department of Defence concerned about instability in

underdeveloped countries (Latin America, Vietnam). Unfortunately, several social

researchers were paid to be involved in this project without having knowledge of

the source of their research funds, and the objectives of the project.

The influence of US politics on the social sciences also occurred with

reference to the content of the social sciences as developed by American scholars,

including social sciences, regarding other societies. In this context, such

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influences occurred in area studies research projects, such as in research topics,

findings and policy implications.

Amongst the most common themes in the studies by (American)

Indonesianists were democratisation, ‘Indonesia as a political entity’, nationalism,

pluralism and nation building, and communism. Even Geertz’s work on religion

and economic development in Indonesia dealt those issues. It appears to me that

such issues have undoubtedly been constituted as the main problems faced by

Indonesians — particularly by its nationalist leaders. However, interest in such

issues were also in accordance with US interest.

An interesting and pertinent example is Hindley’s The Communist Party of

Indonesia. This study was accomplished when Donald Hindley was at Brandeis

University (Massachusetts) in 1963. The book analysed the dynamics of the PKI

(Communist Part of Indonesia) in Indonesia in the period 1951-1963 based on

detailed data concerning the relations between the PKI and the Indonesian

government. Notwithstanding Hindley’s attention to the specifics of the

Indonesian case, his analysis barely deviated from popular conceptions in

America during that time, when the Russians and Chinese were en route to

expanding their spheres of influence in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Here,

Hindley shared the belief that communist parties emerged in underdeveloped

countries rather than in mature capitalist economies. The question to pursue in his

research was: how these relations were expressed within an Indonesian context?

To answer this, Hindley had the tendency to use a Javanese-centric approach,

which was commonly used by scholars of the time. Concentrating largely on Java

to the neglect of the rest of the country, thus following the Java-centric approach

that was common in the 1960s, Hindley (1966:16-7) discovered that

underdevelopment in Java was as follows:

‘In the absence of industrial expansion that equals the rate of urban growth, there is less work per head of urban population. This situation has not led to a massive army of unemployed, rather it has led to a pattern similar to that in the villages: greatly increased underemployment, more persons doing the same amount of work, but not the creation of a social disinherited, unemployed proletariat.’

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Accordingly, he found that communism in Indonesia emerged under these

conditions, which pointed to some potential differences between the Indonesian

case and the emergence of communism in other underdeveloped countries. He

claimed further that the PKI underwent a domestication process, becoming

reconciled to populist nationalism under Sukarno’s Guided democracy regime.15

It has not been too hard to find connections between Hindley’s study and

his concerns with ‘containing’ the threat of communism, and other studies by

American Indonesianists. President Truman and his successors in the White

House up to 1980s stressed similar themes. According to President Truman:

‘Much of Asia at this moment [1952] is under communist attack. The free nations are holding the line against aggression in Korea and Indochina and are battling communist-inspired disorders in Burma, Malaya and the Philippines. The loss of any of these countries would mean the loss of freedom for millions of people, the loss of vital raw materials, the loss of points of critical strategic importance to the free world.’16

Most of the studies of Indonesia during that time had a tendency to reflect

the central concerns of this foreign policy. Their studies either focused on factors

inhibiting (or promoting) democratisation, or, in broader terms, the challenge of

understanding social processes in Indonesia. For all their pure scholarship, those

studies had consequences because they provided the US government with

particular types of knowledge, a situation-analysis type of knowledge that

informed American policy-making.

It should be emphasised that the relation between American scholars and

the US government was not a simple one in which researchers simply followed

American government directions. Although these scholars appeared to be serving

the US government, it is also true that area studies specialists influenced US

foreign policy for the better by promoting more accurate understandings of social

conditions in Indonesia. They provided some sort of pressure on the government

to provide constructive help to Asia, Africa and Latin America on their way to

15See also Legge (1972:322). 16President Truman, announcing the Military Security Programme, 1 March 1952 (Documents on American Foreign Policy, 1952. New York: Harper, 1953:33) as quoted by Girling (1980:132).

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modernisation. Moreover, over time they built up networks that mediated between

the US government and local political leaders (or political leaders to be) in Asia,

Africa and Latin America. This networking, as I will discuss later, has been

positive in promoting development in the newly independent countries —

although, in their mediating roles, the scholars themselves did not have the ability

to reliably direct the behaviour of either the US or indigenous political elites.

Suffice to claim here that scholarly works, including the works of Indonesianists

are value-laden: they have value basis and have value implications. None the less,

the modernists themselves maintained the claim that their works were (relatively)

value free due to the nature of their methodological and theoretical frameworks, to

their internalisation of scientific integrity. Accordingly, the modernists had

confidence in the truth of their findings.

The public and scientific community tended to share this belief. It has

taken some decades for us to recognise clearly that the modernists had their share

of misinterpretations of social reality. The dichotomy of traditional-modern which

was used by the modernists and which was regarded by them as universal, made

them under-emphasise the complicated character of the newly independent

societies. As Shin (1989:16) argues:

[the modernists] 'were too narrowly focused on the problem of political power and rule, neglected the socio-economic environments effecting political conflicts, and did not look seriously into the dynamic changes under way beneath the surface of authoritarian political stability and statis.'

In ending this section, it is worth mentioning that although the American

interventions in the politics of development in countries like Indonesia was

primarily carried out by the US government, American non-government

organisations also played a significant role. Amongst those organisations was the

Ford Foundation, which was founded in 1936. The foundation — originally a

local philanthropic organisation in Michigan — grew into a national and

international foundation since 1950. The Foundation itself has been in Indonesia

since 1953, except for a brief period in the closing years of the Sukarno era, when

its Jakarta office was forced to closed due to Sukarno’s anti-Western campaigns.

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Beginning with its local and domestic philanthropic concerns, it has

broadened its main objectives and maintained them up to day. According to its

charter, the objectives are:

1. to strengthen democratic values,

2. to reduce poverty and injustice,

3. to promote international cooperation, and

4. to advance human achievement.

During the Sukarno era, the Foundation helped the establishment of social

sciences, particularly through the provision of grants for lecturers at leading

universities (eg. the University of Indonesia and Gadjah Mada University) to

study economics at a postgraduate level in American universities. Later, these

intellectuals participated in dissident intellectual groups which contributed to the

overthrow of President Sukarno. Several key economists, who became known

with a degree of approbation as the “Berkeley mafia”, directed the process of

economic recovery after the fall of Sukarno.

D. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN INDONESIA

We have discussed in the preceding section how American social sciences made

their mark on the production of the social sciences of Indonesia in the early

decades of independence. We have also seen their differences and similarities to

the fabrication from Dutch perspective. Within this context, the

internationalisation of the social sciences in the hands of American scholars had

yet another very important effect — the creation of social science communities in

Indonesia. The latter were a product of both US foreign policy, the growing

international reputation of American higher education, and in relation to this, the

products of American Indonesianists.

This section provides a general background regarding the first Indonesians

who specialised in sociology in the post World War II era. While those

Indonesians were part of the backbone of the institutionalisation of sociology in

Indonesia on a massive scale (that is, during the Pancasila Democracy era under

Sukarno’s successor, Suharto), their roles during the Sukarno era had been limited

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to adopting American sociology (particularly the Parsonian perspective) and

building up international networks between Indonesian scholars and American

Indonesianists.

D.1. The First Indonesian sociologists in the Post World War II era

The end of World War II opened up greater opportunity for Indonesians to study

sociology and other scientific disciplines. This occurred through the pursuit of

formal qualifications in sociology or other sociology-related subjects (such as,

pedagogy) at postgraduate level abroad. Here, while Sosrodihardjo studied in

England (the London School of Economics and Political Sciences) and

Tjondronegro in the Netherlands (University of Amsterdam), most Indonesian

sociologists who were commonly regarded as the first generation of Indonesian

sociologists after World War II pursued their training in American universities.

Soemardjan obtained his Ph.D from Cornell University; Bachtiar from Cornell

University (MA) and Harvard University (Ph.D); Tan from Cornell University

(MA) and the University of California at Berkeley (Ph.D); and Sumardi from

Cornell University (MA). This was primarily due to a greater American

contribution in providing scholarships for higher degrees (Selo Soemardjan in

Makagiansar ed., 1965:343).

On returning to Indonesia those sociologists replaced both the roles of

Dutch scholars and Indonesian scholars with Dutch education in Indonesia. For

example, they replaced the roles of Sunario Kolopaking. Sunario, a lawyer, was

the first to deliver a lecture on sociology in the Indonesian language (1948). He

taught sociology at the Institute of Politics (Yogyakarta), which was later

integrated into the State University of Gadjah Mada (Soemardjan in Makagiansar

ed., 1965:341). These Dutch-educated pioneers also helped shape the dynamics of

sociology in Indonesia.

The first generation of Us trained Indonesian sociologists had different

formal qualifications before studying in America and committing themselves to

developing sociology in Indonesia. Soemardjan had graduated from Mosvia (that

is, a high school for bureaucrats in colonial Indonesia) before pursuing his

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doctorate programme; Tan graduated in Sinology for her dra. degree;17 Bachtiar

was familiar with politics and history; and Sumardi had a bachelors degree in

Law. This meant that their involvement in sociology was preceded by educational

and intellectual formation in disciplines that already gave them well-developed

perspectives on the relation between the individuals and society. It appears to me

that for them the significance of advanced studies in sociology in the US was

primarily an introduction to a different perspective in approaching social

phenomena.

Looking at their family background, the first generation of Indonesian

sociologists, as with other Indonesian intellectuals during the 1950s-1960s,

originated from a relatively better off families. Some of them even came from

aristocratic and/or (colonial) government official traditions. They were part of

what the PKI chairman Aidit called ‘the old-generation of intellectuals, who tend

to be neutral, especially during revolutionary times’. They also seem to fit Aidit’s

typification of the intellectual as having an inconsistent attitude towards

revolutions and the representation of the bourgeoisie. Within this context, their

education in sociology in the US, steeped in anti-communism, or at the best

opposing the basic assumptions of Marxism, intensified their political distance

from the PKI and communism in general.

An interesting phenomenon with respect to the involvement of Indonesian

scholars in sociology or related subjects (such as, pedagogy) up to the present, is

that — regardless of whether they study in the US, England, Germany, the

Netherlands, Japan, or even in Indonesia — their research has predominantly

focused on aspects of Indonesian society. Soemardjan’s thesis, for instance,

focused on social change in Yogyakarta; Bachtiar, on the formation of Indonesian

state; Sosrodihardjo, on the sectarian movement in rural Java; and Sumardi, on

regional politics and bureaucracy in West Java. In short, there has been a strong 17Dra (doktoranda) and drs (doktorandus) are formal education titles of Dutch origin given to university graduates in the social sciences. They are distinguished from SH (Sarjana Hukum), Ir (Insinyur), or dr (dokter). There has been a tendency since 1980s to replace the title with others such as SS (Sarjana Sastra), SE (Sarjana Ekonomi). At the international level, such degrees are parallel with various university first degrees. However, it should be emphasised that the requirement to obtain university first degrees in Indonesia is different. In Indonesia, it is common

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tendency for Indonesians to study Indonesia even when overseas. As far as my

observation has permitted me, it has only been Tan and, later on, Budiman whose

research focus has been other than Indonesia. Tan has written on the life of the

Chinese in San Franscisco for her Ph.D thesis, and Budiman’s thesis looked at

Latin American politics. In short, there has been a strong tendency among

Indonesian sociologists to study their own society — Indonesia has produced its

own Indonesianists. Ignas Kleden also made a similar observation among

Indonesian students who studied social sciences abroad. During an interview with

him, he suggested to me that Indonesian scholars should focus their intellectual

interests on other societies during their study abroad, in a similar way that

Japanese scholars study Indonesia in the US.

Most of the first generation of Indonesian sociologists worked in the

academic world on returning to Indonesia, particularly at the University of

Indonesia or UI (Jakarta), Gadjah Mada University (Yogyakarta) and, to a certain

extent, at the University of Pajajaran (Bandung). Within a few years, they were

granted professorships by the government. Sosrodihardjo, for example, has been a

professor in sociology at University of Gadjah Mada since 1964, while Sayogyo

has held a professorship at the Agriculture Institute of Bogor since 1963. This was

due mainly to the government need for academics with a professorship, and their

scholarly achievements occurred to a large extent after the granting of this

position. With reference to scientific publications, they have enriched the realm of

sociological publications in the Indonesian language. This was pioneered by

Djody Gondokusumo (Sosiologi Indonesia), Bardosono, Hassan Shadily

(Sosiologi untuk Masyarakat Indonesia), and Mayor Polak (Sosiologi). The most

widely read books have been Setangkai Bunga Sosiologi (edited by Selo

Soemardjan and Sulaeman Sumardi, 1964) and Sosiologi Suatu Pengantar

(Soemardjan’s lecture notes compiled and edited by Soerjono Soekanto, 1969).

These two have been used as standard textbooks of sociology in Indonesia

(Sunarto, 1989).

practice for students to submit original research as part of the requirements of their course: they are required to conduct an independent study as well to comprehend theories.

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Those sociologists were the pioneers in institutionalising (American)

sociology within higher education. Along with the replacement of Soejono

Hadinoto by Soemardjan as lecturer of Introduction to Sociology at UI (then at the

faculty of Law and Social sciences), the teaching of sociology transformed from

having a strong European influence (eg. P.J. Bouman, A. Lysen, J. Bierens de

Hann, S.R. Steinmetz and R. van Dijk) to reflecting American-oriented

sociological thought (eg. C.H. Cooley, W.I. Thomas, F. Znaniecki and William F.

Ogburn). The teaching of European sociological thought has been restricted to

“the classics” such as Max Weber, Tonnies and Mosca (Sunarto, 1993:301). They

also took on crucial roles in institutionalising academic sociology on a massive

scale in Indonesia since the mid 1960s.

The ‘Americanisation’ of sociology and other social science disciplines

during the Sukarno era also occurred with reference to the curriculum of the social

sciences. Indonesian sociologists during the Sukarno era used the books housed

by public libraries in Jakarta, such as the library of Lembaga Indonesia America

and the library at LEKNAS-LIPI. They played a role in popularising American

sociology in Indonesia.18 Within this context, not only have those sociologists

familiarised themselves with Parsonian sociology in general and with the

modernisation perspective in particular, but also they used them to analyse

Indonesia. And subsequently, although the late Bachtiar was the only Indonesian

sociologist to use Parsonian sociology intensively, Indonesian sociologists have

been preoccupied with the idea of social integration, system analysis, value free

social sciences and social engineering.

What is the significance of the adoption of Parsonian sociology? For the

Indonesian scholars themselves, this provided them with a sociological

perspective with which to analyse Indonesia. Later, when the first generation of

Indonesian sociologists had taken part in institutionalising sociology in Indonesia,

basically they institutionalised a Parsonian perspective rather than any other

perspective. Although most of them appeared to be less supportive of developing

laissez-faire capitalism in Indonesia, their adoption of the Parsonian perspective

made them ready to serve the government. This service to the State has been

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constantly preoccupied with national integration and national development, rather

than serving the interests of the private sector.

However, there is further significance, that is, the fortification of the basic

assumptions of the Parsonian perspective and American sociology in general.

They have inadvertently contributed to universalising functionalism and

popularising the universal sense of functionalism. Their analysis of social conflict

has been emphasised regarding its dysfunctional impacts on social integration,

although in most cases there was a tendency to focus on analysing what they

regarded as elements of Indonesia which are functional to social integration.

D.2. Building-up International Networking

The internationalisation of the social sciences in America, the emergence of

American Indonesianists after Indonesian Independence had another effect, that

is, the strengthening of international networks between Indonesians and

Americans — scholars and government officials from both the US and the

Republic of Indonesia. Later, non-American Indonesianists also joined this

network. In preparing The Decline of Constitutional Democracy, not only has

Feith been in contact with Indonesianists such as Harry J. Benda, Clifford Geertz,

Bruce Glassburner, Justus M. van der Kroef, Donald Hindley, and J.A.C. Mackie,

but he also was in contact with many Indonesian scholars such as Hilman Adil,

Harsja W. Bachtiar, T.O. Ihromi, Mochtar Naim, Deliar Noer, Selo Soemardjan,

Soelaeman Sumardi, and Mely G. Tan. Moreover, he developed relationships with

high ranking government officials and politicians in Indonesia such as Roeslan

Abdulgani.

The significance of this networking assumed even greater significance

later on, following the coming of Suharto to power after 1966. None the less, the

foundation of the networking had already been laid from the 1950s. IN this crucial

early period, the three Indonesian studies centres in the US played very important

roles.

This facilitation of networks via the Centres had a significant role in

providing Indonesians with an opportunity to study social science. Here, the

18See eg. Sunarto (1993).

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Americanisation of Indonesian scholars of the social sciences (sociologists,

historians, and others alike) has taken place, such as, by introducing them to the

world of functionalism, by training them in empirical methodology, and by

socialising them on the importance of a problem solving orientation. Indonesian

scholars themselves adopted these traits which have been institutionalised in

Indonesia up to the present day. The familiarity of Indonesian scholars in

employing sociology for social engineering is an example of this intellectual

diffusion. The discourse of social sciences — including sociology — in Indonesia

has been centred around accepting or refuting social engineering, around the

limits of sociological engineering, or around other issues related to the pragmatic

value of the social sciences. In short, the aforementioned networks created

Indonesian scholars who speak a similar language of the social sciences with

American social scientists in general and American Indonesianists in particular.

Unfortunately, it appears to me that Indonesian sociologists have a rather

blurred common vision in producing scientific knowledge for social engineering

purposes. They are also less concerned about formulating their own vision about

the development of Indonesia. At the individual level, each of them might have

such vision. None the less, other sociologists have difficulty in accessing this

vision. This has situated them in the position of allowing the government to

dominate the formulation of the sociological vision in Indonesia and the vision of

Indonesia itself, while their part has consisted of responding to the government

formulation. I will discuss this issue in the next two chapters.

The networking has also been reinforced within Indonesia, namely, during

field research by American Indonesianists. In conducting research in Indonesia,

American scholars have been in contact with high-ranking government officials

and Indonesian scholars. This is particularly significant in the studies which have

taken into account information provided by Indonesian political elites.

E. INTELLECTUALS UNDER THE GUIDED DEMOCRACY FORMAT

(1959-1965)

This section discusses some key points about the relationship between civil

society and the state during the Sukarno era. They are products of colonial

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scholarship and rule, and their development occurred in such a way that

Indonesian sociologists and other intellectuals alike were relatively detached from

the political turmoil in Indonesia under Sukarno’s Old Order. This provided them

with reasons to defend the emergence of Suharto’s New Order in 1966.

Accordingly, as in the preceding sections, I do not treat Indonesian

sociologists as the main subject of this section.

E.1. The Formation of a Strong State

The Sukarno era, which covered the entire first 20 years of Indonesia’s

independence from Dutch colonialism, can itself be broadly divided into two

periods, namely, a period of Parliamentary democracy followed by the period of

Guided Democracy. The first period was roughly from 1950 to 1959, the second

from 1959 to 1965/6. The first four years after the proclamation of Independence

can be regarded as transitional years from a colonial government to a republican

one in which society was rent by the armed conflict between republican guerilla

armies at the Dutch military campaigns.

The transitional period itself was chaotic. Here, intense pressures on the

infant government within an unstable society saw pressure from various directions

at the same time as it attempted to maintain its claim over Indonesia. Within this

period destabilisation targeted the newly established republican government, not

only from domestic political configurations, but also from the international world.

In the first place, the Dutch attempted to regain their authority over Indonesia by

military and diplomatic means, before finally acknowledged the sovereignty of

Indonesia in 1949. The republicans themselves disagreed about the basic issues in

dealing with the Dutch. On the one hand, the armed forces fraction of the

republicans favoured military action against the Dutch. On the other hand, their

civilian counterparts concentrated on the importance of handling the issue through

diplomatic negotiations. As Crouch observed (1986:170):

‘[...] the authority of the republican government was regularly challenged as rival nationalists groups -- many of them organised in paramilitary units and with sympathisers in the armed forces itself -- vied with each other in demanding a more aggressive policy.’

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In addition to that, there was also pressure from another direction, that is,

from the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). Under its leader in the 1940s,

Musso, the PKI proclaimed the constitution of a ‘National Front’ government to

challenge the authority of the republican government at Madiun in 1948. This

ignited rebellion, which absorbed the republican government’s resources in

dealing with the PKI by military force, leaving them dangerously exposed to the

Dutch.

It was only since the early 1950s that Indonesians had the opportunity to

establish a stable political institutional structure. In spite of the proclamation of

laws and the attempt to implement constitutional government, the development of

open political practices proved to be a trial and error process. The parliamentary

democracy format was formally applied without both clear legal-institutional

formulation and a strong consensual basis. Furthermore, this took place in an

economically chaotic society, badly disrupted by the successive disasters of the

1930s depression, Japanese occupation (World War II) and the Independence

struggle. At the same time, as the political leaders greatly emphasised the

necessity for Indonesians to have a stable political format, the social

preoccupation was with political contestation rather than other issues. Research

and other scientific activities were amongst those matters regarded as being less

important. It was only after the authoritarian restraints of the Guided Democracy

period were established that a clear division of labour between scientists and non-

scientists has occurred.

There were basic differences between parliamentary democracy and the

Guided Democracy formats. While the first was regarded by the republicans as an

attempt to adopt the so-called ‘universal democratic format’, the second was

conceptualised by Sukarno and others as some sort antithesis to it. According to

its proponents, the Guided Democracy format was an adoption of the principles of

democracy within so-called ‘Eastern culture’. Accordingly, the formal

assumptions which underlaid those two political formats differed from each other:

while the first acknowledged the distance between the state and civil society, the

second predominantly rested on the contention that both the state and civil society

should be united under a national leadership. Here, the dynamics of the

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government during the parliamentary democracy era also differed from the

dynamic of the government under Guided Democracy. Guided Democracy, for

example, saw a return to the 1945 Constitution which greatly enhanced the power

of the President.

However, the similarities between the two political formats were greater

and more significant. Both attempted to re-cast the foundation for relations

between the state and civil society in the post-Dutch era in response to a traumatic

colonial experience. The economic basis of society throughout the first 20 years

of the Republic of Indonesia was extremely fragile, and the obsession with

politics in a society mobilised to confront predatory external enemies meant that

serious attention to economic issues was lacking, while unresolved economic

crises only further intensified political conflict. The wide gap between poor,

densely populated Java and resource-rich outer islands encouraged smuggling and

eventually regional rebellions. The country was predominantly rural but much of

its infrastructure had been ruined, and the poverty of the peasantry was worsened

by runaway inflation. The masses were mobilised in contests between political

parties in the Parliamentary Period, and in huge campaigns (crush Malaysia, free

Irian Jaya) under Guided Democracy. But in both cases the gap between the elites

and the ‘little people’ was wide. Sukarno, the Armed Forces and the Party elites

occupied the centre. The masses responded to the initiatives of remote elites.

There were no middle classes of any significance. In accordance with this, it was

important to emphasise that the two formats were designed by the political elites,

in whose hands power was concentrated, and were imposed on a fragile civil

society. Both were strongly elitist in many respects. In the first place, the two

formats were formulated by the elites who regarded themselves (and were indeed

widely regarded) as superior to the majority of Indonesians to such an extent that

they have felt at home not only in claiming knowledge of the needs of all

Indonesians, but also in claiming authority over determining the appropriate

integrative mechanisms of Indonesia. They positioned themselves as the ones with

vision and those whom the Armed Forces supported. It was easy for the PNI

(Nationalist Party) leaders and the leaders of other political parties to attach

‘nationalism’, ‘on behalf of national interest’ or other similar terms to their

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discourse. And yet, the more they utilised such terms, the more visible the

difficulties and disputes in defining nationalist objectives and nationalist identity

became.

How was parliamentary democracy practised in Indonesia?

The introduction of the system of parliamentary democracy provided

political activists and leader with legal grounds for establishing mass parties.

Despite some important precursors in the colonial era, this was a new experience

for leaders and citizens alike. Numerous parties with different ideologies (eg.

socialist, nationalist, Islam) existed, with the Indonesian Nationalist Party (PNI),

Masyumi (a Muslim political party), the Nahdatul Ulama (NU, another Muslim

organisation), and the PKI being the biggest parties. The first general election was

conducted as early as 1955.

However, the main problem before and after these elections was that

governments were formed by multi-party coalitions which lacked internal unity

and had a very limited ability to manage rising conflicting demands and public

expectations. As Crouch (1979:174) noted when comparing the Indonesian

situation with the Indian one, ‘the failure of the many strands of the nationalist

movement to merge in a Congress-like party on the Indian model led to a situation

where post-independence governments consisted of multi-party coalitions which

rarely held together long enough to implement consistent policies.’ This resulted

in a succession of unstable governments. Elected governments held office for

periods ranging from a few months to at most a few years. Each government did

not have enough time to formulate and implement policies. In addition, there were

problems with social movements whose ultimate goal was to establish an Islamic

state (ie. in West Java, Aceh and South Sulawesi).

The choice of the parliamentary democracy format itself was unavoidable

during the early years of the republican era. It was (almost) the only option for

gaining US and international support and, at the same time, for avoiding

domination of certain political interests over Indonesia at large. Allow me to

elaborate on this point.

The preferences for establishing a parliamentary democratic regime in

Indonesia were voiced particularly by the leaders of the nationalist movement.

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Their elite financial background gave them the means to have access to a Western

education. The number of Indonesians who were able to do this constituted a tiny

proportion of the population. As Crouch (in Aveling ed., 1979:173) claims, ‘they

were deeply influenced by western political values, including the idea of

democracy, and indeed one of the goals of the struggle for independence had been

to achieve for Indonesians the rights enjoyed in their own land by the Dutch.’ This

had positive effects in winning over Western governments — particularly the

United States and the United Kingdom — and generating support from the United

Nations for acknowledging the existence of the new country in 1949.

With respect to internal politics, the intention of establishing a

parliamentary democracy format also had positive effects in gaining popular

support, upon which the strength of the government supposedly rested. Politicians

during that time shared a belief that the parliamentary democracy format was

suitable for promoting nation building in a culturally plural society. The history of

modern Indonesia has provided us with plenty evidence that so dominant was the

discourse of plural society that the social economic conditions of establishing

democracy were largely left in the air. As Crouch has observed (1979:173):

‘Although many of the political elite were ideologically inclined to democracy, the system was widely accepted less for its own sake than through a lack of realistic alternatives. In a nation made up of numerous ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious communities, the give-and-take of democracy seemed preferable to an authoritarian system in which one group sought to dominate the rest.’

Unfortunately, instead of facilitating solutions to economic and political

problems, the way parliamentary democracy evolved in the 1950s only intensified

these social divisions. The high expectations of the nationalist movement which

blamed the Dutch for so many social ills were also bound to fail. And certainly,

the legacy of Dutch colonialism was too embedded within the fragile basis of

Indonesia leaving many deeply entrenched problems even though the Dutch

themselves had gone. And also in this context, dissatisfaction with social and

economic conditions was directed by some political leaders against the

parliamentary system itself. This increased from the mid 1950s. The efforts to

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promote nationalism and, accordingly, to maintain the existing political format

through hosting the first Afro-Asian Conference at Bandung in 1955 and agitating

against the Dutch on the issue of West Irian (Irian Jaya) had no significant effects.

It only temporarily diverted social focus from the real economic and political

problems. Among large sections of the political elite, the Parliamentary

democracy format was widely accepted to be a failure thus preparing the ground

for its replacement by the Guided Democracy format. Sukarno himself maintained

his leadership in Indonesia. Indeed, the Presidency was greatly strengthened by

the return to the 1945 Constitution, and the central role he took in Guided

Democracy.

During the parliamentary democracy era, as we have seen, the multi-party

system in the infant Republic promoted not only the articulation of communal-

based interests (particularly of religious variants); it actively contributed to the

sharpening communal-based differences. Sukarno realised this, as did other

political leaders when they implemented the Guided Democracy format. None the

less, there was no way for them to disregard the plurality of Indonesia.

Under such conditions, Sukarno was in the forefront in reducing the

number of political parties and placing society under strict government control. At

the same time, the society, government and state apparatus in general were

positioned under his leadership.

The drop in the number of political parties to ten under the Guided

Democracy format, however, had little effect on either minimising potential

conflicts among political parties (particularly between the PKI and other parties)

or among groupings within civil society. Each political party established its own

network of affiliated social organisation in civil society. The PKI, for instance,

provided an umbrella for various kinds of voluntary associations: SOBSI (Sentral

Organisasi Buruh Seluruh Indonesia, All Indonesian Organisation of Trade

Unions), BTI (Barisan Tani Indonesia, Indonesian Peasants’ Organisation),

LEKRA (Lembaga Kebudayaan Rakyat, Institute of People’s Culture), CGMI

(Cencentrasi Gerakan Mahasiswa Indonesia, Concentration of Indonesian

Student Movements), IPPI (Ikatan Pemuda Pelajar Indonesia, League of

Indonesian High School Youth), Pemuda Rakyat (The People’s Youth) and

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GERWANI (Gerakan Wanita Indonesia, Indonesian Women’s Movement). Other

parties and the government also founded similar associations.19 Thus society was

structured according to vertical coalitions or ideological streams both for financial

and/or other reasons. SOBSI, for instance, received financial support from the

PKI as its mother organisation, which was both from membership and the

business community (Samuel, 1990:57). These clusters of communal

organisations around political parties (including their capacity to distribute

patronage) and cultural/ideological symbolic complexes that cut across class lines

became known as ‘aliran’ (Indonesian for ‘stream’). Intra-communal contestation

between aliran only intensified identification with the, and the strength of their

rivalry. In this context, Sukarno’s need for popular support on his policy was

channelled through such huge organisations.

Broadly speaking, the continuation of the Guided Democracy format was

dependent on collaboration between the President, the PKI (which was able to

overpower the PNI and NU — the Masyumi having been banned for its

associating with the PRRI rebellion in Sumatra), and the armed forces. Sukarno

regarded the PKI as the articulation of major societal interests, which had to be

balanced with the interests of the armed forces. On the other hand, both the armed

forces and the PKI needed the President and his popularity to rule the nation.

This triangle-like power structure, however, was a fragile collaboration

with considerable latent tensions. Each of the power centres felt threatened by the

other two. Learning from past experience, the PKI could not enjoy the trust of the

armed forces. Not only had the PKI been sporadically involved in rebellion since

colonial times, but the armed forces also believed that the PKI had an agenda to

attempt to establish a communist state in Indonesia. Here, the relationship

between the PKI and the People’s Republic of China was carefully watched by the

armed forces as part of the international communist movement. They also

scrupulously observed the extent to which the President appeared to move under

the influence of the PKI, or to distance himself from them. On the other hand, the

PKI itself realised the potential threat of the armed forces to its existence.

19This phenomenon has been investigated, amongst others, by Geertz (1976) and Wertheim (1969).

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Accordingly, it made efforts to gain the President’s support — by maintaining

close relations with the President and supporting his policies. On top of that, the

absence of general elections under Guided Democracy, made it possible for the

President not only to prevent the PKI from gaining the support of the majority of

people by electoral means (Crouch, 1979), but also allowed him to secure his

position through appointed representatives rather than elected ones. Within this

context, although Anderson (1992) appeared to underestimate the access of

various societal interests to policy formulation, there is some truth in his claim

that the Guided Democracy format facilitated the return of a (colonial) strong

state. The articulation of interests predominantly lay in the hands of the President

and the state bureaucracy. At the same time, they stood over civil society in

defining the situation.

Although national integration, nation-building, nationalism and other

related issues were at the top of the agenda, under the Guided Democracy format,

the authoritarian character in administering state force to obtain those goals was

obvious. The scope of political activity was curtailed and placed under the control

of state apparatus. Political parties had to declare their support for the government

and its style of governance under the slogan of a ‘National Front’. Masyumi, one

of the largest parties, which did not fall into line with the government, was

banned.

The practice of an authoritarian regime during 1959-1965 was also

manifested in other respects. Martial law, which was declared by the President

with the support of the armed forces since 1957 following the regional rebellions

in Sumatra and Sulawesi, was maintained throughout the Guided Democracy era.

There was strict restriction on the freedom of expression, including in the field of

art, which was now viewed as existing primarily to support the government.

Sukarno himself was declared President for life.

There is no doubt that Sukarno was able to reconstruct a political

mechanism to integrate society under the state rather than distancing state

apparatuses from civil society. This preserved the link between state apparatuses

and societal groupings through interpersonal (or expanded interpersonal) bases.

This also reinforced corruption and other types of bending a variety of rules.

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Within this context, Sukarno was also successful in keeping the issues of national

integration alive, to such an extent that national integration has been considered as

one of the biggest problems in Indonesia. The problem itself was plausible from

the standpoint of Indonesian scholars, particularly those who had internalised

American scholarship. None the less, it was only with the replacement of the

Guided Democracy format with Suharto’s Pancasila Democracy format after 1966

that they had greater opportunity for manipulating national integration. I will

come back to this point.

Instead of generating unity of state force, and promoting the social

development of Indonesia at large, the inherent instability of the triangular power

structure led to the overthrow of Guided Democracy itself in 1965, and the end of

Sukarno’s presidency. Due to the President’s emphasises on national integration,

economic development was left behind during the Old Order (the Sukarno

period). Resources and energy had been harnessed to fight capitalism,

colonialism, imperialism and other Western products in, what was regarded by

Sukarno as, the Third World. Specifically, this was directed towards recovering

West Irian, to dissolve Malaysia and the expulsion of the World Bank and

International Monetary Fund from Indonesia. Subsequently, economic conditions

deteriorated, while foreign aid and credit became difficult to obtain. Corruption

was widespread at all levels of state bureaucracy, the manufacturing industry had

deep problems, and the economic conditions of the poor worsened.

As Henderson et al (1970:410) observed, there were failures in promoting

industry as the backbone of economic development:

‘[...] manufacturing industries were operating at a small fraction of capacity. Many firms were bankrupt, and plants were closed for lack of fund or raw materials. It was estimated only 40% of pharmaceutical plants were in production, and those were operating at no more than 10 or 20% of capacity. [...] 50% of textile plants were closed, and other industries were similarly affected.’

Accordingly, not only has society been dominated by a marginalised-

peasant economy (more than 70% of the total population), the potency of

domestic entrepreneurs was also curtailed both by the governments and other

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groups. Furthermore, the general economic situation deteriorated due to a high

inflation rate, which had seriously risen from 1954 on. ‘[In the 1950s] for ordinary

people, a high level of inflation meant high prices, especially for basic necessities

such as textiles, rice and public transportation.’ (Samuel, 1990:51). In the 1960s,

while general prices rose by about 500%, the price of rice rose by about 900%.20

The drastic devaluation of the Rupiah and the attempt to freeze large bank

deposits had only temporary effects — primarily to restore the daily earnings of

the people rather than to improve their economic situation. With respect to

industrial workers in the cigarette industry, Castles (1967:75) observed that ‘[...]

the wage level prevailing during the last pre-war decade was much higher than in

[1964], and possibly higher even than in 1950-1955.’ On the other hand, the

economic resources of civil society were absorbed by the government to finance

so-called ‘Monumental Projects (eg. hotels and monuments), and the

confrontation with Malaysia.21

This, moreover demonstrates that governments during Sukarno era made

no attempts to overcoming the problems of underdevelopment. There were

attempts to develop the manufacturing sector in Indonesia in the mid 1950s: while

large-scale factories were financed and operated by the state, the government

provided necessary services required by domestic private sector (eg. electric

power, communication and transportation). Between 1956-1961, 25% of the total

budget was allocated to the mining and manufacturing sectors.22 Various large

and medium scale projects were also constructed and/or under construction, such

as, a caustic soda plant in Surabaya, a fertiliser plant at Palembang, and others.

Here, as Feith (1962) has noted, the beginnings of operation of the cement plant at

Gresik (East Java) in June 1957, marked the first major economic achievement in

Indonesia. Moreover, in 1964, the Berdikari (abbreviation for Berdiri Diatas Kaki

Sendiri — standing on our own feet — self-sufficiency) programme was launched

to encourage the development of import substitution industry; and there were

20See eg. Ricklefs, 1981:268; Grant, 1972:119). 21See eg. Henderson et al. (1970), Feith (1962) and Ricklefs (1981). 22In so far as it is concerned with the dynamics of industry in Indonesia since 1945, my discussion is heavily built upon my findings (see Samuel, 1990).

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attempts to encourage domestic entrepreneurs to shift focus from trade to

production activities.

It has to be emphasised that the Guided Democracy cannot be regarded as

the only factor in economic underdevelopment. I would rather consider its

practice as the inability of successive governments during that time to overcome

the legacy of Dutch colonialism, which was so deeply embedded that it was

difficult not only to differentiate cultural from structural bases of the

underdevelopment in civil society, but also to expect elements of civil society to

overcome their problems. Here, both the formats of parliamentary democracy and

the Guided Democracy were not conducive for solving underdevelopment.

Moreover, society during the first 20 years of the Republic of Indonesia was

complex, to such an extent that its economic dimensions were intertwined with its

political and cultural dimensions — and this originated in the colonial era.

In addition to the above problems, conflicts between the armed forces and

the PKI worsened, as the latter group seemed to become closer to the President

and had greater influence on policy formulation. The tensions between the PKI

and other political parties — particularly religious ones — surfaced. Tensions

among religious communities also mounted.

This created dissatisfaction with the government and its Guided

Democracy format as the regime was ineffective in satisfying the needs and

wishes of various groups, while the needs and wishes themselves in most cases

were in tension with each other. The integrative motor during that time produced

disintegration effects while having a preventative effect on the differentiation

process.

In comparison with other groupings, the armed forces were better prepared

to break the dead-lock of social development in Indonesia, by collaborating with

various groups within civil society to satisfy each other’s interests.23 The success

of the armed forces in breaking this deadlock was also due to the development of

23The interests of civil society were formulated under the Tritura, a short for Tri Tuntutan Rakyat (the People’s three demands), that is reducing prices, purging of leftists from the cabinet and banning the PKI. For an account of the fall of Sukarno see eg. May (1978).

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international politics (particularly the politics in the USA and its allies).24 The

latter watched closely the growing influence of communism in Indonesia with

great concern. When Suharto came to power, they provided the government with

financial aid, technical assistance and support in international fora. American

politicians, technocrats and social observers worked together with their

Indonesian counterparts (eg. 'the Berkeley Mafia') to increase both structural

differentiation and political integration of contemporary Indonesia.

E.2. The Re-Traditionalisation of Indonesia

Throughout the whole Sukarno era, we found both the ideas of universalism and

of particularism within the political discourse of Indonesia. When the official

discourse was centred on universalism, the political discourse of particularism

tended to accompany it. This was so during the parliamentary democracy era. This

also occurred during the Guided Democracy era. However, that time, it was the

other way around. While official discourse was focused on emphasising the

particularism of Indonesia, the political discourse of universalism remained its

companion.

This section discusses how the Guided Democracy format was maintained

by means of military repression as well as an ideological discourse of

particularising Indonesia, in such a way that Indonesia was re-traditionalised in

the official discourse. As a consequence public discourse celebrated traditional

Indonesia thereby revitalising some of the cherished cultural constructions of the

colonial era. This is in accordance with Chatterjee’s claim (1986) that what the

Indian nationalists believed to be the tradition of India actually was produced by

British colonial discourse of India.

The issue of national identity was, once again, a public discussion since

Sukarno proposed the necessity of returning to the national identity in his

Independence Day speech of 1959. This lay in accordance with the emphasis on

Panca Sila (the Five Principles) as a national ideology which was formally

claimed as expressing the true spirit and life style of Indonesian people — in

contrast with western capitalist people. Various other doctrines were also 24For detailed analysis of the role of the military in the development of Indonesia see eg. King

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produced. Manifesto Politik-Undang-undang Dasar 1945, Sosialisme ala

Indonesia, Demokrasi terpimpin, Ekonomi terpimpin, Kepribadian Indonesia

(The 1945 Constitution, Socialism a la Indonesia, Guided Democracy, Guided

Economy, and Indonesian Personality) were formulated by Sukarno. He used

these doctrines to justify the reorganisation of regime.25 As early as the 1920s,

when the Nationalist Party was being formed Sukarno produced a famous tract,

Nasionalisme, Agama, Komunisme (nationalism, religion, communism).

According to Sukarno, these three were fused in a typical Indonesian syncretism,

underlining the necessity for collaboration among nationalist, religious and

communist groups — each with their own characteristics, but united behind the

common anti-colonial struggle — for nation building.

None the less, there was another aspect of this discourse of the Guided

Democracy period. These formulations justified the domination of the state over

civil society — thus advocating the return of a strong state in Indonesia — by

contrasting Indonesia (and the so-called ‘Eastern societies’) on the one hand with

Western societies on the other. At the same time, this also reinforced the

charismatic character of Sukarno as the so-called ‘Great Leader of the Revolution’

and ‘Mouthpiece of the Indonesian People’.

Within this context, Selo Soemardjan provided partial justification from a

sociological point of view a few years later. In an article written in 1961, he

conceived the idea of rediscovering the Indonesian identity as a correction to the

practice of colonialism and the parliamentary era, which created a cultural gap

between a handful of intelligentsia (who supported Western culture and adopted a

Western identity) and the majority of uneducated people in rural areas. Moreover,

although the concept of Indonesian identity was ill-defined in this nativistic

cultural movement, Soemardjan emphasised its functionality for national

integration. He (Feith and Castles eds. 1970:299) claimed:

(1982), Crouch (1988). 25For some scholars of Indonesian politics, the concepts of independent Indonesia itself had, particularly in the later Sukarno era, a strong resemblance to traditional Javanese forms of government. For example, Crouch (in Aveling ed., 1979:185) noted that, ‘With its emphasis on ritual, grand ceremonies and the construction of magnificent monuments in the capital where the court gathered around a ruler who acted as if in possession of supernatural qualities, Guided

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‘the principles [of Indonesian identity] are idealistic in nature, while the outlines given by the President and First Minister have not taken away very much of their vagueness. Nevertheless, in less than three years, they have proved to be useful guiding principles and broad directives which have had a unifying effect upon Indonesian society, disorganised in large measure as the result of colonial rule and of more than a decade of unplanned political and social revolution.’

This rationale provided by one of the founding fathers of Indonesian

sociology accorded with what was expected of him and other leading intellectuals

by the regime. It is an example of the close connections between scholarly

interpretation of Indonesian society and identity, and service tot he State by

intellectuals.

In another article, Soemardjan also satisfied the requirements of the

government by defending the Guided Democracy format for its manifest

functional consequences. In his Guided Democracy and Our Cultural Traditions

(originally written in 1961, Soemardjan (in Feith and Castles eds. 1970:127-30)

claimed that the Guided Democracy format had desirable consequences for the

development of Indonesia. This political structure eliminated the disruptive

effects of political parties and allowed the state bureaucracy to function more

effectively without disruption from fractious, self-seeking party leaders.

Moreover, at the village level, this was conducive for the administration regaining

‘its stable position and official prestige in dealing with a more or less politically

homogeneous society.’ (Soemardjan in Feith and Castles eds. 1970:128).

According to Feith and Castles (1970:99) Soemardjan’s Guided Democracy and

Our Cultural Traditions ‘expressed support for important features of the [then]

current political order on the grounds which were very distinct from the official

ones.’

However, there was also criticism from sociologists, which was received

negatively by the government. For example, Slamet — who studied sociology at

the University of Leiden in the early and mid 1950s — disagreed with the efforts

to systematise the discourse of national identity. He feared that political efforts to

Democracy resembled the empires that preceded Dutch rule in Java. At the centre of the system was Sukarno who often behaved more like a traditional sultan than a modern president.’

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promote so-called Indonesian identity would be accompanied by aggressive and

hostile attitudes towards the outside world, particularly towards the West and

discrimination against foreign culture in Indonesia. In his view, this would be

destructive for Indonesia as a whole. Instead he proposed systematic efforts to

improve national development, and promote Indonesian identity through

programs that attacked the root causes of social tensions. Slamet argued (Feith

and Castles eds. 1970:306):

‘It is better for us in this period to stress the broad lines of our national development, to seek out and do battle with what lies at the roots of social tensions rather than with their symptoms. This means endeavouring to reduce the gap between the rising expectations of the people and the real possibilities of meeting them. It means strengthening the integration of our culture by restoring our national unity without harm to other nations. And it means working consciously for the gradual realisation of the ideals expressed in our Pantja Sila, for up till now this state ideology has not been realised in any concrete way and, indeed, has often been given mere lip service and used to blind the people to reality.’

Despite such criticism, President Sukarno was able to focus societal

attention on the re-traditionalisation of Indonesia. And he was successful in

maintaining some basic consensus. The consistent policy of establishing Bahasa

Indonesia as the national language had significant effect in promoting a

universally accepted means of communication among the different ethno-

linguistic groups of Indonesia. There were no ethnic and race-based political

parties during the Guided Democracy era. And yet, as we have seen earlier, this

political-cultural attempt to re-invent the uniqueness of Indonesian tradition did

not provide adequate answers to solve economic, political and cultural problems

in Indonesia. In addition, the re-traditionalisation attempts themselves, as

promoted by political leaders under the discourse of nationalism were not

successful in debunking Orientalism. I share the view expressed by Breckenridge

and van der Veer (Breckenridge and van der Veer, eds. 1993:12) that nationalism

was the avatar of Orientalism in the later colonial and postcolonial periods.

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As I have mentioned, the heart of the discourse of particularism itself was

a set of assertions contrasting the Eastern and the Western parts of the world.

Sukarno was not the first to do so. The debate on West-East differences was

popular in the 1930s. What Sukarno (and his successor, Suharto) did was to

popularise it once again. However, in this attempt, there was an unclear

formulation of Indonesia as an emergent social reality in Indonesia, to such an

extent there existed different interpretations of Indonesia in general and of Guided

Democracy in particular. Moreover, there was no such thing in all of this identity

formulation as value free scientific interpretation. Selo Soemardjan, for example,

interpreted the Guided Democracy format by combining a Javanese aristocratic

perspective with a functionalist approach. He compared Indonesia with a Javanese

village and the President (as a national leader) with a village headman. With

regard to the village headman, he (Feith and Castles eds. 1970:130) argued:

‘Election is for life, and it is a general phenomenon in each village community that the election of a village headman is guided not by determining the skills or formal education of the candidates, but by their honesty, helpfulness, reliability, and wisdom. Once elected, the village headman is expected to act as a father to the whole community, rewarding its good members and punishing deviations from the traditional social norms, but always acting as a sesepuh, a wise elder, who is constantly trying to promote the happiness and prosperity of his community and harmony between his village and the unseen spiritual forces that live in and around it.’

Unfortunately Soemardjan’s conception appeared to be ahistorical. He

ignored the fact that the lurah was a position created by the colonial

administration and that this same headman was an instrument of the colonial

government to exploit the people — particularly in the areas of direct rule — and

in many ways also abused the authority endowed on him by the colonial state for

personal benefit. Following Renan’s observations on nationalism the traditionalist

mythology of the nationalist leader could only take root through selective

processes of ‘forgetting’ the past (Anderson 1983).

E.3. Scholars Under the Era of Political Development

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There were extremely few scientific activities during the Revolutionary Struggle

from 1945 to 1949. Research activities were only evident in the Dutch territory

and these concentrated mainly on medicine. The Dutch founded the Organisatie

voor Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Organisation for Natural Science

Research) to integrate and facilitate research activities. None the less, this

organisation did very little (Makagiansar in Makagiansar ed., 1965:12).

The finalisation of the transfer of sovereignty to the republican

government in 1950 did not greatly change things. The government was

preoccupied with nation building, and this positioned politicians and state

functionaries as leading players. Later, in the 1960s during Guided Democracy,

leading sociologists even held secure positions, particularly those who had been

supportive to regime maintenance. Scientists were urged not only to support the

government, but also to promote what was regarded by the government as

National Interests — to elevate the People’s welfare. However, their capacity to

have much impact was slight due to the small number of competent researchers

and research institutes, and particularly, the lack of financial resources.

Within this context, amongst the first actions taken by the government was

the organisation of scientific activities under its supervision. Based on Undang-

undang [Law] no. 6/1956, Majelis Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia (MIPI — the

Indonesian Scientific Council) was set up; and this marked the beginning of a new

history for the Indonesian community of scientists (Makagiansar in Makagiansar

ed., 1965:13). On the one hand, this law legalised the abolition of all scientific

organisations which were established during colonial times. On the other hand,

the MIPI was assigned the work of embracing scientific activities in the broadest

sense for the interest of the nation and of humanity. This included improving and

supervising the development of the sciences in Indonesia. And it only took two

years for the MIPI to be involved in The First National Congress of Science.

When the Rancangan Dasar Undang-undang Pembangunan Nasional

Semesta Berencana 8 Tahun (Basic Plan for National Development Laws) was

launched in 1960, the involvement of the government in politically arranging the

development of sciences was formalised. There were three types of research to be

conducted in Indonesia, that is, basic research, applied research and development

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research. This plan led to the bureaucratising of research activities. In 1962, the

Ministry of Research was established, and the MIPI was arranged as a division of

that ministry. However, funding problems were still not resolved. Moreover, the

governments of the Sukarno era tended to favour the development of the natural

sciences rather than the social sciences. When there was an opportunity for

Indonesians to study in Eastern Europe, the concentration was on natural sciences

such as engineering and physics, while social science students remained a

minority (Tjondronegoro in Nordholt and Visser eds. 1995:67).

The governments themselves were less supportive of social scientists,

especially those who tended to criticise policy. Sukarno himself regarded those

intellectuals who did not share his ideas about the Indonesian Revolution, and his

desire to establish a non-Western Indonesia as ‘textbook thinking’, as indulging in

‘hyper-intellectualism’, as ‘non political individuals’ or even being trapped in

‘Dutch thinking’. The communists called those intellectuals ‘intellectual

prostitutes’. This was particularly the case under Guided Democracy. Feith (Feith

and Castles eds. 1970) regarded those scientists who resisted these pressures from

the state as ‘more or less detached intellectuals’. According to him, their numbers

in the early 1950s were small. They were mainly based in Jakarta. Most of them

were at the fringe of national politics, working as writers, journalists, editors,

publishers, lecturers or students. The latter were particularly those at University of

Indonesia. So small were their numbers that most of them knew each other’s line

of thought.

Although those people were nationalist who had previously taken part in

the struggle for Indonesia’s independence, they felt disappointed with the

government. As early as the mid 1950s, there were many who had lost patience

with government actions. As noted by Feith (Feith and Castles eds. 1970:4): many

of the intellectuals ‘insisted defiantly that they had given up trying to follow what

“the government people and all those politicians” were up to.’ Accordingly, they

tended to see themselves as critics of government actions rather than direct

contributors to government policies (Feith in Feith and Castles eds. 1970:4).

Here, they only had a very limited influence over political life. To exercise

influence on the government, the detached intellectuals used personal connections

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within the government and/or the political elites of the country. This was partially

possible due to the fact that they had worked together with the politicians in

establishing and defending Indonesia’s independence. Moreover, all of them

shared similar family, educational and social backgrounds. As Feith (in Feith and

Castles eds. 1970:6) observed:

‘[...] both government leaders and high civil servants, were often keen to talk to them [the detached intellectuals], for reassurance and political ammunition if not for advice and often, too, for the sketching out and clarification of alternatives and longer-term goals.’

The concerns with economic development and regime change that

emerged from the mid-1960s received little attention from any intellectuals for

most of the Old Order.

On the other hand, political parties showed eagerness for embracing

intellectuals including the detached intellectuals. They sought out influential

thinkers as part of their effort to gain as wide a support as possible from sections

of civil society. The PKI, for example, under the leadership of Dipa Nusantara

Aidit, attempted to attract the intellectuals. In his social analysis, recorded in

Konstitusi PKI 1951, he viewed them as a driving force of the Indonesian

revolution. In Indonesian Society and the Indonesian Revolution (1957), they

were included within the category of revolutionary petty bourgeoisie. However,

the PKI failed to gain the support of the intellectuals. The reasons for the failure

itself were partially due to the family background of intellectuals and students in

Indonesia. I have stated that since the colonial era, it was always the better off

section of society who could afford to send their children for higher education.

This created for the most part largely a-political intellectuals. And among those

who did have strong political aspirations, the PNI, Masjumi or the Socialist Party

were more attractive because these parties provided them with opportunity to

mingle with people from a similar family background. In addition, the

unattractiveness of the PKI for intellectuals was also due to the ideology of the

PKI itself and its position within society. As Hindley (1966:198) noted:

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‘[To a large extent] the Indonesian middle class and aristocracy have been remarkably free from the occasional reformist or radicalism devoted to the welfare of the ‘lower orders’ and willing to risk their own future welfare and status for that cause.’

Within such political and economic conditions, there were mounting

tensions between policy makers and intellectuals. The tensions were mostly latent.

Intellectuals — particularly foreign-trained intellectuals — were in favour of

promoting social and economic development in Indonesia through cooperation

with advanced-capitalist countries. This was particularly so when Guided

Democracy failed to show any sign of promoting development. The advanced

countries were regarded as the source for obtaining the capital and technical

assistance needed by Indonesia. According to Tjondronegoro (in Nordholt and

Visser eds., 1995:66):

‘[...] most of the young western-educated intellectuals at the time tended to be more pragmatic and to some extent conservative (in terms of Soekarno’s ideals). They definitely agreed about the ideals, but pragmatism and idealism (at least as long as there was no further specification) were in apparent contradiction. I began to understand why the young intellectuals with a western education were sentenced to play only a minor role. Political ideals were placed up front, but the clash with sloganism -- not acceptable to intellectuals -- led to different opinions among factions of the educated elite’.

On the other hand, the ‘nationalists’ had dominated policymaking.

According to Higgins (in Geertz 1963:88), the ‘nationalist’ group ‘was a mixture

of communists and of a larger number of PNI nationalist and isolationists. The

leaders, among them Sukarno, attached great importance to eliminating the

control over Indonesian national life exerted by foreigners through economic

activity. While favouring economic and social development, they also sought

retention of the national culture, language, and religion and the abolishment of the

remnants of foreign influence’. This accorded with associating advanced capitalist

countries with the discourse of imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism,

free-fight competition, individualism, exploitation and other features which have

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been basically incompatible with the so-called ‘kepribadian Indonesia’

(Indonesian personality) or ‘kepribadian Timur’ (Eastern character).

The Anti-American campaign by the government itself was evident in

1964, and was particularly encouraged by Sukarno in his speech on the

Independence Day. In his speech, Sukarno openly attacked the US and the UK. So

great was the impact of this anti-American sentiment that America, American

products and everything with any American connotation were marginalised in

Indonesia. This was expressed by, amongst other things, attacks on American

libraries, the closure of the Ford Foundation office in Jakarta, and the

promulgation of Sukarno’s message of ‘Go to hell with your aid’ to the US26.

There was a token book-burning in Jakarta. Books of Dutch, German, and English

publication were destroyed in symbolic repudiation of ‘imperialism and

colonialism’ (Beers, 1971:23).

The young marginalised intellectuals with western ideas were

‘refrigerated’ by the government within the MIPI (after 1967 known as LEKNAS,

LIPI). However, it was also the MIPI which played important roles in

communicating ideas. ‘People such as Widjojo Nitisastro and Emil Salim were

later, from the moment of the New Order’s birth, to play important roles. After

this turn of the political tide the new military elite, once in power, has

collaborated with those intellectuals, who have constituted the technocratic

backbone of the new regime’ (Tjondronegoro in Nordholt and Visser, eds.

1995:66).

F. CONCLUDING REMARKS

By the time Sukarno’s Presidency ended in the turmoil, economic chaos

and massive loss of life in 1965-66, many superficial linkages with the colonial

past in social organisation, institutional practice and the valorisation of certain

conceptions of scientific learning were deeply embedded, and not so readily

extirpated. Interestingly, the more the republican State re-established stronger

control over society, the more the democratic experiment foundered and new

26See eg. Hughes (1968) for a description of anti-American sentiments in the closing years of Sukarno.

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rationales for a specifically Indonesian (nationalist, populist, anti-Western,

particularistic) political and social order were articulated, the more authoritarian

the state became, and the more it came to resemble, in important respects, the

colonial state it had overthrown (Anderson 1983).

The overt breaks with Dutch scholarship, however, owed less to

nationalism than to the pervasive hegemony of American scholarship. This

dominance was evident at many levels, including the influence on both policy and

scholarship of the major American area studies Centres. These achieved a pre-

eminent place in scholarship on Indonesia in the 1950s and 1960s. These Centres

attracted the foremost scholars emerging from within Indonesia itself, and deeply

influenced the intellectual formation of the leading researchers who would found

the emerging Indonesian social science disciplines and the most prestigious

university Faculties.

I have shown that Parsonian functionalism permeated the discourse of

these Centres, and became axiomatic among the Indonesian shaped in this

environment. This influence goes well beyond sociology, and is most evident in

the dominant paradigm of modernisation theory which was beyond challenge for

most of this period. The construction of ‘Indonesia’ in the discourse of these

scholars (foreign and local alike) did break with the overt Orientalism of the

colonial era, and was less obviously linked to State objectives, be they American

or Indonesian. There are good grounds for claiming that American-influenced

scholarly production had a greater degree of autonomy from the State than was

true of Dutch scholarship.

The difference, however, was only one of degree. Not only were Parsonian

and modernisation frameworks deeply imbued with the preoccupations of their

founding thinkers — broadly hostile to Marxism, and to conflict theories more

generally — they could not escape the obsessions of the Cold War, or the

influence of American policy at that time. Nevertheless, American social science

practice became increasingly less comfortable in conforming to this role,

particularly in the 1960s. And, on the Indonesian side, although he dominant

sociologists were influenced by American thought, their roles in society and

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policy formation were, as yet, minimal. The development of the State in the

parliamentary period, and during Guided Democracy, did not provide much scope

for them to play an influential role.

This was to change under Suharto’s New Order regime, and the pattern of

State formation — called by some ‘Bureaucratic Authoritarianism’ — that

emerged after 1966, and endured until the late 1990s. Having examined the nature

of this state in the next chapter (V), I return in the following chapter (VI) to the

making of the contemporary sociological community in these historical

circumstances, and to the nature and consequences of the close bonds that

developed between sociological practice and the state.

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CHAPTER V FROM POPULIST TO BUREAUCRATIC AUTHORITARIAN REGIME

Introductory remarks The emergence of a bureaucratic authoritarian regime

The value of a ‘bureaucratic authoritarian regime’ Concluding remarks


This chapter discusses the developments in Indonesia from the mid-1960s to the

late 1980s. There has been a thorough and extensive process of institutionalisation

of sociology in Indonesia during this era. This has gone hand in hand with the

opportunity for Indonesian sociologists to fabricate ‘Indonesia’. They have

actively been involved in appropriating knowledge about Indonesia and

attempting to influence its development. However, sociologists have not “stood

outside” their own society while they contributed to the making of policy for

social and economic developments, and actively contributed to the shaping of

ideas about what ‘Indonesia’ is. Their embeddedness in that same society also

shaped their social and scientific practice in significant ways.

Although there have been numerous attempts to understand the

development of Indonesia during this era, scholars of Indonesia seemed to have

been in agreement that social and especially economic development has been

inseparable from the practice of authoritarianism by the New Order state. Scholars

have shared a broad consensus that the main feature of Pancasila Democracy has

been the domination by state bureaucracy of the broad spectrum of social

transformation in Indonesia. The significance of authoritarian developmentalism

is not disputed. Where scholars differ is in their ideas and evaluation of the social

consequences of authoritarianism.

The discussion of this chapter is organised into 2 major sections. In the

first section, I would like to provide illustrations of the practice of bureaucratic

authoritarianism under President Suharto. The second section examines some

influential ideas on the nature and dynamics of bureaucratic authoritarian regimes.

The discussion of the nature of the New Order state in this chapter is necessary

before looking at the way the discipline of sociology has developed within a

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context where most sociologists are obliged to serve the state. I take the

development of sociological practice up in chapters VI and VII.

B. THE EMERGENCE OF BUREAUCRATIC AUTHORITARIANISM

Although there was a major shift in social focus between the Sukarno and Suharto

eras from political to economic development, the basic political organisation of

Indonesia under Suharto has been a continuation of Sukarno’s conception of the

role of the state in many respects. Indeed, one could go further and observe that

the methods of administering the state bureaucracy and directing the activities of

political elites that one finds under Pancasila Democracy reflect a political

practice acquired from the former colonial regime. The concept of ‘the state’ itself

was adopted from the colonial creation of ‘Indonesia’, rather than constituting any

genuinely novel break-through. We discussed this issue in chapter three. Many

scholars of Indonesia have shared a belief that the emergence of Pancasila

Democracy is a crystallisation and the culmination of the overdevelopment of the

state in Independent Indonesia.1 The state has been so strong and relatively

organised that the development of society has been largely dependent on the state,

and that situation is a legacy not only of Post-Independence nationalist radicalism,

but of the colonial state that preceded it.

Within this context, the political and scholarly proponents of the Suharto

regime understood the pursuit of economic improvement via a combination of

accelerated economic growth and state-imposed political stability under the

ideological framework of Pancasila Democracy as the most crucial operational

goals of the Suharto regime. Their background assumptions emphasised the

functionality of reinforcing a greater monopoly on the means of violence and

ideological production by the state in order to obtain a ‘better’ Indonesia within

international capitalism. Accordingly, centralisation has been envisaged as a

mechanism to deliver Indonesia from the influences of communism to some sort

of capitalist model of social development. But, allowing for several important

differences, this was a strategy pursued in various part of Asia with a degree of

1The phenomenon of the overdeveloped state has been analysed, amongst others, by Anderson (1983, 1992) and Shin (1989).

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success. Singapore, China, and various other states have produced development

models that emphasised (authoritarian) order for capitalist development.

The realisation of such a belief has been the division of labour of state

bureaucracy into two segments, namely, those whose tasks are to solve the

problems of economic development and those whose tasks are to secure the so-

called national stability and unity. Within this context, the first grouping ⎯ the

technocrats ⎯ have predominantly been graduates in economics and related

policy-oriented disciplines from the First World. They have been assigned the

work of bringing in financial grants, loans and investment capital from advanced

industrialised countries (Feith, 1980),2 and to provide Indonesia with a

developmentalist means of orientation. For the first time in the history of the

Republic Indonesia scholars were recruited by the state bureaucracy to be

involved in policy formulation. And this has been so since the first Suharto

cabinet: 15 out of the 24 members of the first Suharto cabinet were technocrats

(Soemardjan, 1991). Each state ministry has also utilised the services of

technocrats. Moreover, those technocrats employed the services of academics —

both at the national and regional levels.

According to Soemardjan’s observation (1991:13):

‘Universities and other research institutions were widely utilised to do surveys and research to supply reliable data and systematic analysis thereof. Each ministry is now equipped with a department of research and development, run by intellectuals with appropriate training. Wherever local expertise falls short, foreign experts are calling in to help, but decisions are made by Indonesians themselves.’3

On the other hand, the armed forces took on as their central task the

maintenance of national stability and unity, which they regarded as a necessity for

successful economic transformation. Their reasoning was embedded in the

utilisation of security rather than welfare approach. Technocrats regardless of

their scientific disciplines commonly shared the latter perspective.

2The latter has mainly been founded through joint ventures with multi-national corporations. 3For an analysis of the involvement of technocrats in policy making since 1966/67, see Soemardjan (1991).

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At the pinnacle of this massive centralised-organisation was President

Suharto in his constitutionally-based dual positions as the head of the state and the

head of government. His survival was largely dependent on the maintenance of

unity between the two complementary segments of state bureaucracy. The

complementarity was concerned with accessing the service of the technocrats

(whose skills and international connections were crucial for the development of

Indonesia, while having less potential to generate mass-political support) as well

as that of the armed forces which represented the most powerful social and

political force in Indonesia.4 And in so doing, his style of governance employed

tools such as office interdependence, personal connections and “old boy

networks” as well as the scholarly-political manipulation of nationalism.

Moreover, the President skilfully managed the tensions between the armed forces

and the Muslims ⎯ and likewise others factions of society ⎯ to avoid

disturbances to ‘Order and Progress’. This way, the President was able to

maintain the balance among various vested interest groups (Crouch, 1979). Thus,

the growth of alternative centres of power (both within the state and civil society)

to challenge the regime was largely prevented. But the same power structure held

back the development of civil society, and retarded the role of the middle classes

even as their numbers and economic role grew as a result of decades of rapid

annual growth in GNP.

Within this context, policies were formulated not only to re-invite the

World Bank, and other international financial organisations into Indonesia, but

also to grant foreign investors special facilities, tax holidays and various other

incentives such as cheap labour and political stability. This was accompanied by

attempts to strengthen the concept of the Dual-function of the Armed Forces

(Dwifungsi ABRI), which provided them with legitimacy to be a political and

4Since the era of Guided Democracy, Indonesia utilised the 1945 Constitution. This Constitution has a strong emphasis on the authoritarian character of the state and the dominant roles of the executive while understating human rights. There are no restrictions on the President being in office for life, as long as he or she is elected by the Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat (The People’s Consultative Assembly). Moreover, changes to the constitution have been judicially and practically made difficult and yet at the same time, open to power-based interpretation. For a recent analysis of the position of the 1945 Constitution, its origins in Hegelian thought, and its importance for the conceptualisation of the role of the state in Indonesia, see eg., Bourchier (1996), Philpott (1997) and Ramage (1995).

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social force as well as a military one. Attempts were also made to fabricate the

Pancasila ideology and the 1945 Constitution as the backbones of ‘Indonesia’ by

scholarly and political means. In the 1980s, Suharto had laws passed that decreed

that Pancasila would be the sole basis (azas tunggal) of all social organisations.

The combination of developmentalist-technocratic policies and

nationalistic and militaristic approaches has great significance (Feith, 1980). In

the first place, this provided opportunities for the Development Cabinets5 (from

the first to the fifth Development Cabinet) to manage national problems within

internationally fluctuating situations, carefully selecting which centres to

associate with, and convincing the international world that post-Sukarno

Indonesia was a moral success story. On the other hand, this combination made it

possible for the state to shape and maintain the subordination of civil society in

such a way that societal interests could be absorbed and accommodated within the

state-controlled corporatist (or quasi-corporatist) mechanism of interest

representation, or suppressed when necessary. Here, the promise of promoting

economic conditions went hand in hand with restraining political participation ⎯

‘developmentalism’. As Robison (in Hewison et al., eds. 1993:45) argued:

‘Both the language and institutions of the New Order are corporatist in their insistence on the existence of a common national good and the purported organisation of political activity into functional units rather than competing interests.’

In managing civil society, KOPKAMTIB (Operational Command for the

Restoration of Order and Security) was created soon after Suharto came to power

in order to eliminate the influence of the PKI, left-nationalists and others who

were regarded as affiliates of Sukarno.6 According to Southwood and Flanagan

5 The New Order instituted a series of five-year plans with the commencement of each new (five-year) Presidential and parliamentary terms. Highly-managed elections held at 5 year intervals punctuated the formation of cabinets. In keeping with the centrality of developmentalism (pembangunan), each cabinet was known as a “development” cabinet. In the 1980s parliament formally declared Suharto to be Bapak Pembangunan — the “father of development”. 6KOPKAMTIB was dissolved and replaced by BAKORSTRANAS (Co-ordinating Agency for the Reinforcement of National Stability) in 1988. The agency is responsible directly to the President. Judicially speaking, the main tasks of the KOPKAMTIB were to uphold security and order after the failed coup attempt of the PKI, “extreme” activities, and other subversive actions; moreover, to maintain the authority of government, by any means, at various societal levels, within the

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(1983:95), KOPKAMTIB constituted the most significant security intelligence

organisation in Indonesian politics with its wide-reaching capacity to arrest and

detain, to issue decrees, to influence policy making, to control the Press and any

political activities outside the official format. In short, it had carte blanche to be

involved in (almost) any activities which could be considered as a threat to

national security. The roles of OPSUS (Special Operations Office), particularly in

the early 1970s, also focused on the rearrangement of political parties, including

the elimination of the so-called old parties with strong affiliations to the previous

regime and contextualising their activities under strict government control. The

number of political parties was reduced from ten to three since 1973. The three

“authorised” parties were PPP — Partai Persatuan Indonesia (United

Development Party), Golkar — Golongan Karya (“Functional Group”), the

government “party”, and PDI (Indonesian Democratic Party). They (particularly

the PPP and the PDI) were also subjected to interventions to the extent that not

only have any coalition between them been detected at the earliest stage, but their

possibilities to be true oppositional parties were minimised. Furthermore, each of

these two parties had to constantly promote internal unity merely to survive. The

PPP, for instance, had consisted of various former Islamic-based political parties,

promoting different interpretations of Islam and the roles of Indonesian Muslims.

With respect to the PDI, its situation was more fragile, as the Protestant, Catholic

and nationalist parties ⎯ each with their own distinctive identities ⎯ had to fuse

into a single party. Moreover, the potential for establishing new political parties

had been eliminated. The government intervened in significant matters such as the

choice of party leaders and candidates.

In order to prevent effective relations between political parties and societal

groups, the so-called ‘Floating Mass’ doctrine was implemented, while parliament

and general elections were heavily political engineered. This doctrine proscribed

political organisation and campaigning by parties at or below the district level,

except for a three-month period before the state bureaucracy was able to maintain

an influential presence at the grass roots at all times. Moreover, KORPRI

framework of safe-guarding the implementation of the national ideology of Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution. And in conducting its tasks, it has access to the armed forces.

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(Indonesian State Employee Corps) was set up and supervised in such a way that

it became one of the most important means both for supporting GOLKAR and

preventing any significant collaboration within civil society.

The state also created Instruments for direct political-military intervention

in civil society, particularly focusing on the labour movement, the media,

students, the Indonesian Chinese and Indonesian Muslims. With regard to trade

unions, for instance, the state bureaucracy maintained its involvement in various

ways and to such a great extent that the sole legal trade union (SPSI) was really

little more than an extension of the interests of the state. Its central mission was

the acceleration of economic growth rather than a defence of the interests of the

workers. This was achieved both by persuasive and repressive means, such as

maintaining the existence of a single union organisation, taking part in the

formulation of Pancasila Industrial Relations, and in suppressing demonstrations

and protests. The media was also under strict government supervision and an

ever-present threat of being closed down by the government.

At a discursive level, such terms as ‘musyawarah untuk mufakat’

(‘consultation to obtain consensus’), ‘the balance between obligation and rights’,

‘subversive’, ‘the genuine and consistent implementation of the 1945 Constitution

and Pancasila’, ‘Pancasila democracy’, ‘national discipline’, ‘Azas Tunggal’

(‘sole foundation’),7 and ‘extreme rightists and extreme leftists’ have often been

fabricated by the state bureaucracy to supplement institutionalised political

socialisation in schools, the media and public ceremonies. The most thorough

program to inculcate the values and discourse of the regime is probably the P4

program, an “educational” program delivered compulsorily in local communities.

P4 stands for Pedoman Penghayatan dan Pengamalan Pancasila meaning the

Guide to the Full Comprehension and Practice of Pancasila. It has sought to

indoctrinate ordinary Indonesians in informal, non-formal and formal education

spheres since 1978. The discourse of P4 was of course founded on the

interpretation of Pancasila made by the bureaucracy. In addition, as Ramage

(1995:26) observed, ‘There is no independent body, such as the Supreme Court,

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that is charged with determining whether something is or is not consistent with

Pancasila and the [1945] Constitution.’ To sum up, the Pancasila ideology has

been a power-constructed ideology — the state monopolises the right to interpret

its meaning.

What are the impacts of practising a trade-off between economic

development and restricted political participation on the development of

Indonesia?

The popular expectation of Suharto that he would implement a democratic

regime diminished only a few years after his instalment as President in 1967.8 His

determination to develop Indonesia’s economy, it must be noted, received

widespread support. Criticism has mainly been directed at the implications of the

accelerated economic growth policy rather than the ‘promise’ of economic

development itself.

One major implication of the promise to deliver Indonesia from

backwardness was a sharp increase in economic inequality. On the one hand, the

capitalists ⎯ mainly investors from Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, and

Indonesian Chinese9 ⎯ have benefited the most from Suharto’s economic policy.

Added to this list were collaborating politicians and high ranking state

bureaucrats, professionals in large-scale companies and Suharto’s family,

relatives and business colleagues (eg. Probo Soetedjo, Sudwikatmono and the

Bakri Brothers). On other hand, the majority of people had less opportunity to

take advantage of economic growth, such as, shop floor workers,10 those in the

informal sector,11 indigenous businessmen, and the unemployed. Accordingly

‘sharing the cake’, ‘the poor as victims of economic development’ or

‘impoverishment of the poor’ attracted public opinion, which was soon

7The judicial status of Azas Tunggal was Act no. 8/1985, which positioned the adoption of Pancasila as the sole and exclusive basis of social organisations. According to the government this was intended to prevent the return of extreme ideological conflicts. 8See also Ramage (1995). 9Taking advantage of tax holidays and other economic policies, part of domestic capital has been manipulated in such a way to enjoy the facility. This has been possible, amongst others, due to the international networking of Indonesian Chinese. 10See eg., Samuel (1990). 11See eg. Samuel (1985), Jellinek (1977, 1991), and McGee (1982, 1991).

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accompanied by focus on deeper issues such as injustice, monopolies, collusion,

nepotism and corruption.

As the technocrats behind the economic growth policy held a firm belief

that the inequality was transitional, it was largely left to the security forces to deal

with dissatisfaction. Nevertheless, the approach of promoting the use of security

forces has its limitations and the problems of inequality swelled into waves of

protests, demonstrations and urban riots. The biggest was the Malapetaka 15

Januari 1974 (“the January, 15th Disaster”) in Jakarta and some other urban

areas.12 The excessive use of the security forces was successful in pushing

dissatisfaction beneath the surface rather than actually solving it.

The consistency of implementing the dual approaches of welfare and

security for about a quarter of century had significant (and intended)

consequences for Indonesia at large. Not only was there moderate income

disparity but the basis for further economic development had been strengthened

by the late 1980s. The proportion of the population below the poverty line

decreased from around 60% (in 1965/66) to 17% by the 1990s. This constituted

an economic success story for the Suharto regime, which has gained wide

acknowledgment. Schlosstein (1991) claimed that Indonesia, along with Malaysia

and Thailand, was on its way to catching up with the Four Little Dragons of East

Asia (Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong). There was a growing belief

that the world was on the way to seeing the shift of economic growth poles from

the West to Asia and the Pacific. Non-economic scholars in the social sciences

were also positive about the so-called ‘Asian values’, which in most cases were

founded on the functionality of authoritarianism.

The marriage between the welfare and security approaches and its effects

of economic improvement had inevitable non-economic consequences. In so far

as cultural fragmentation is concerned, there were some shifts in the dynamics of

communal loyalty. Although Indonesians preserved their various ethnic identities,

the significance of inter-ethnic tension in generating collective violence decreased

to a large extent. In urban areas of Java, its expression was evident on the

individual and interpersonal levels; while in other areas, attempts to maintain

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peaceful co-existence among different ethnic groupings has been paramount. In

Medan in North Sumatra, for example, although ethnic identity still existed at

societal level, open conflict among the Bataks, and between the Bataks and other

ethnic groupings has become rare: tensions were superficially suppressed.

However, the social distance between indigenous Malay peoples (the majority

known collectively as pribumi) and Chinese-Indonesians (the minority) returned

its salience to an important extent. Here the Chinese have politically and militarily

been fabricated as a ‘common enemy’ from time to time. Stereotypes of

Indonesian Chinese are still used to generate collective violence against them.

The situation regarding religious identity has been different, particularly in

so far as Islam is concerned. Islamic symbols have remained effective in

generating collective identity amongst the poor and in transporting economic

dissatisfaction into religious sphere. This transpired, for instance, in the riot at

Tanjung Priok and other areas in North Jakarta in the mid 1980s. Many of the

more “orthodox” Indonesian Muslim leaders themselves have an inclination to

maintain social distance between Indonesian Muslims and other Indonesians.

Along with the shifts in communal based-loyalty, the significance of

socio- economic differentiation has become noticeable. This occurs, for example,

within urban areas, between Java and the rest of Indonesia, as well as between

western and eastern parts of Indonesia. In urban areas, for example, luxurious

residential areas have been surrounded by urban slums. And the sense of a socio-

economic division has also been reinforced in shopping centres, in the streets, and

in other places where symbols of the ‘new rich in Asia’ have been too obvious to

ignore.

The trade-off has yet another impact, that is, a political impact. At the

ideological level, the consistency of the Suharto regime in imposing the principles

of Pancasila for about three decades was conducive for the creation of a shared

consensus and common ‘language’ between the state and civil society (and among

various groupings within civil society). This prevented the re-emergence of a

solely Islamic or other ideologically based interest groups being articulated within

civil society. This also encouraged a deeper necessity for Indonesians to advance 12The urban riots were triggered by protests by the Students’ Committee Against Corruption.

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toleration and self-restraint by means of diverse communal loyalty groupings.13 At

the organisational level, while the state intensified its monopoly over the use of

repression, it was accompanied by a growing tendency to balance the use of naked

repression with the activation state corporatist strategies to regulate interest

groups. The state developed mechanisms to put interest groups, particularly large-

scale ones under close supervision. They were hierarchically structured, enjoyed a

monopoly, membership was often compulsory, and they were also discouraged

from using conflictive tactics.14 And, of course, every one of them had to take

Pancasila as its sole ideological foundation (azas tunggal).

Based on the above description, we are on secure ground when viewing

the Pancasila Democracy era as a period where the practice of a bureaucratic

authoritarian style of governance stimulated the elevation of social conditions in

Indonesia. On the other hand, the latter ⎯ together with international political

changes ⎯ acted as structural constraints on the practice of bureaucratic

authoritarianism. This has been particularly evident since the late 1980s where

regime maintenance was challenged by effort at regime change.

The pressures for regime change itself originated not only from society,

but also from the state bureaucracy itself, particularly from the armed forces.

Amongst the most telling incidents was the objection made by Brigadier General

Ibrahim of the armed faction of the People’s Consultative Assembly to the

appointment of Sudharmono (suspected as being Suharto’s preferred nominee) as

Vice President in the 1988 Assembly meeting. The chief of Social and Political

Affairs of the Armed Forces (Lieutenant General Harsudiono Hartas) nominated

the chief of the Armed Forces (General Try Sutrisno) as a candidate for vice

presidency (1993-1998) before President Suharto gave his preferences. The armed

forces also attempted to accommodate the aspiration of civilians. Leading

generals such as Major General Yunus Yosfiah, invited Megawati Sukarnoputri

and some prominent (civilian) scholars to give speeches. On the other hand,

Suharto supported the reduction of the number of members of the armed forces

13For an analysis of the material effects of the Pancasila ideology in the 1980s, see Ramage (1995). 14For studies on the use of state corporatism by the business community in order to influence policy process in the late 1980s, see MacIntyre (1989, 1991, 1994).

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faction15 of the People’s Consultative Assembly (DPR) from 100 to 75. I will

discuss these issues and their relation to the sociological construction of Indonesia

in the next chapter.

The above description invites the following question: what academic

values associated with the concept of a bureaucratic authoritarian regime are

needed to understand post-Sukarno Indonesia?

However, before I deal with this issue, allow me to note briefly that far

from being accidental, the emergence of a bureaucratic authoritarian regime in

Indonesia in the 1970s was an outcome of the marriage between political and

scholarly discourses rooted in the use of the modernisation perspective on

Indonesia and other societies in Asia, Africa and Latin America in the 1950s and

1960s. The very concept of a bureaucratic authoritarian regime itself originated

from the Third World political situation in Latin America in the 1960s-1970s (eg.

by Guillermo O'Donnell), along with the rise of military regimes replacing the

democratic ones. And Feith (1980), King (1982) and Kaisiepo (1986) were

amongst the prominent of scholars to use this conceptual framework within the

context of Indonesian studies.16

I have discussed in the preceding two chapters how foreign Indonesianists

and American-trained Indonesian scholars shifted the focus of fabricating

Indonesia, from a society in need of (Western) civilisation to one in need of

(Western) economic development. In short, the emergence of that style of

governance was a material effect of the modernisation perspective. Specifically,

the modernisation perspective provided an apology and a scientific justification

within the international world for Suharto to reinforce a bureaucratic authoritarian

style of governance.17 This has further consequences: the modernisation

perspective has unintentionally provided an opportunity for the retention of much

of the colonial legacy of strengthening the already-overdeveloped state in an 15 A block of seats in the parliament (DPR) are reserved for the Armed Forces. These are nominated, ultimately by Suharto, and are unallocated MPs with full voting rights. 16There are other terms used with similar meanings to 'bureaucratic authoritarianism'. For example, Herbert Feith (1980) used the term 'Repressive-Developmentalist Regime'. 17Ruling parties in Asia have an inclination to favour authoritarianism. They regarded it as a manifestation of so-called ‘Asian values’ in an attempt to legitimise the subordination of civil

188

underdeveloped society. Nevertheless, the practice of bureaucratic

authoritarianism over 30 years or so has had deleterious effects on the social

development in Indonesia.

C. THE VALUE OF A ‘BUREAUCRATIC AUTHORITARIAN REGIME’

Conceptualising the regime of President Suharto as a bureaucratic authoritarian

regime represents a major attempt in understanding Indonesia since the mid

1960s.18 However, scholars of Indonesia have different views about what aspects

of a bureaucratic authoritarian regime they should emphasise. Subsequently, this

has inevitably called for a discussion on the academic usefulness of that concept.

Fortunately, there have been efforts to critically examine those concepts, for

example by Shin (1989) and MacIntyre (1991), whose works have provided me

with invaluable information in determining the limits of the concept of a

bureaucratic authoritarian regime.

There have been numerous efforts made to produce strategic conceptions

of the nature of Indonesia during the making and consolidation of Pancasila

Democracy, leading to higher-level taxonomies of these concepts. Robison (1988)

has found four main types: theories of the technocratic state, the bureaucratic

polity, the comprador state, and the state-qua-state. Shin (1989) has categorised

the theories into developmentalist and historical-structuralist theories. MacIntyre

(1991) has classified them into the ‘state-qua-state’, the ‘bureaucratic polity and

patrimonial’ cluster, ‘bureaucratic pluralism’, ‘bureaucratic authoritarianism’,

various structuralist approaches to the state, and ‘restricted pluralism’. Other

leading scholars (e.g. Crouch) have suggested further classifications: a structural

society to the state. This political discourse was based on the dichotomy of Oriental versus Occidental values. 18Robison (in Hewison et al., eds. 1993:41-74) used ‘authoritarian corporatism’ to denote the style of governance which was developed since 1966/67 until the late 1980s. This style of governance has been narrower and more centralised than the populist form of authoritarianism in the previous era. He claimed (Robison in Hewison et al., eds. 1993:46): ‘Political authority within the New Order resides in the hands of a dominant stratum of bureaucrats who not only have a political identity but a coherent set of values and interests. The regime, which might be termed authoritarian corporatism, provides it with a set of institutional structures and constitutional relationships within which it operates as solely the vehicle of a bureaucratic elite; it is integral to the broader system of state power and the social relations embedded within it.’ Within this context, my preferences have been rather on using ‘bureaucratic authoritarian regime’ than Robison’s ‘authoritarian corporatism’.

189

approach allowing for both class structure and ethnic/regional variants, a politics-

centric approach, a cultural-centric approach and an international approach

(Crouch, 1992). According to Crouch (1992), this plethora of theories can be

divided according to their author’s underlying theoretical orientation, thus

grouping them into two main groups, Marxists and neo-Marxists on the one hand

and modernisation approaches on the other hand. While Robison's and Shin's

works belong to the first group, the state-qua-state theory, technocratic theory,

and bureaucratic theories are some which represent the latter category.

Within this context, it is worth noting that the significance of a

bureaucratic authoritarian regime has been addressed with significant variations

by those theories, that is: (1) Bureaucratic authoritarian regime as a style of

governance to service the needs of international capital; (2) Bureaucratic

authoritarian regime as an attempt to maintain the autonomy of the state with

relation to society; (3) Bureaucratic authoritarian regime as a less than modern

phenomenon; and (4) Bureaucratic authoritarian regime as an attempt to facilitate

the emergence of capitalism.

C.1. Bureaucratic Authoritarianism and the Needs of International Capital

Although the relation between authoritarianism and international capital in the

post-Guided Democracy era has been common knowledge, it has been

predominantly analysed by the proponents of the comprador state thesis. Their

studies have provided us with insight into the practice of a bureaucratic

authoritarian style of governance within the dynamics of international capitalism.

As has been suggested by its title, the comprador state thesis is an

application of the dependency and imperialist approaches ⎯ which were popular

in the 1960s and 1970s ⎯ to the relation between the state and society. The

proponents of the application have been, amongst others, Ransome (1970),

Mortimer (1973), and Short (1979).

According to the proponents of the dependency and imperialist approaches

the world can be divided into two based on the development history and dynamics

of capitalism ⎯ into Metropolis (centre) and satellite (periphery) states. The

relation between the two poles have been characterised by economic exploitation

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and political domination, imbalanced international exchange which has taken the

form of international trade, military occupation, and/or the restricted transfer of

technology through (mainly) the operation of Multi-National Corporations within

the Third World. Through these means satellite states have been integrated into

the international capitalism and occupy a structurally subordinate position. And

within this international configuration, underdevelopment in the satellite areas has

been inevitable. Their development has only been pseudo or dependent

development, and there is little they can do to escape their subordination.

In accordance with this assumption, the proponents of the comprador state

thesis claimed that the declaration of National Independence may have led to the

end of formal colonisation, but it did not end Indonesia’s position as a satellite

country. In fact, Suharto’s policy facilitated the entry of international capital and

channelled First World capitalist penetration which benefited the Metropolis more

than Indonesia itself. In terms of economic development, this had destructive

effects on domestic Indonesian capitalists: their position either deteriorated or lay

under the control of international capital as compradors who facilitate the

operation of their international partners. Furthermore, these increased political

and economic imbalances between foreign and domestically owned manufactur-

ing sectors produce an outcome which the concentration of capital lies

predominantly in the hands of foreign investors.19

Within this context, the process of democratisation has not been

adequately encouraged, and, at worst, may have been prevented as a democratic

state might obstruct the metropolis’ efforts (eg. Japan, the US, and Great Britain)

in exploiting Indonesia's economic resources. Furthermore, the government itself

was pressured by the metropolis to maintain political stability, which in turn

promoted the use of a bureaucratic authoritarian style of governance. According

to Crouch (1992:13), within the dependency framework, the strength of the state

bureaucracy has been promoted by metropolis states:

19Rather than strengthening Indonesia’s economic basis, the nature of the transfer of technology from the nexus of imperialism has maintained the dependency of Indonesia on capitalist countries.

191

‘Far from pushing Soeharto in the direction of political reform, they provided the military and economic aid that he needed to consolidate his regime'.

Within this context, the appointment of graduates from advanced

industrialised countries to deal with economic problems has been regarded as

perpetuating the compradorisation process of Indonesia. Their policy in managing

the domestic economy through the facilitation of the import of international

capital was amongst the most significant factors in the maintenance of

international inequality and underdevelopment of Indonesia.

Small-scale domestic capitalists themselves demanded that the state

bureaucracy fulfil its functions to promote their situation. This was one of the

contradictory roles that the state has to play. As Short (1979:153) claimed:

‘While, by facilitating private foreign capital, it functions to promote the capitalist modes of production as the dominant modes, it has to satisfy the demand of the pribumi for economic development. The latter is a process that is severely restricted by the former.’

Nonetheless, the interests of foreign capitalists have often overpowered

both the interests of the pengusaha pribumi (indigenous capitalists) and the state.

What seems to be the problem with the comprador state thesis in

understanding authoritarianism?

Although it has been a fact that financial assistance and foreign investment

constituted a significant component of its development, the state has skilfully used

them to strengthen Indonesia's economic structure, within which both capitalism

and the domestic capitalist class are in formation. The state has done this, amongst

other things, by allocating only certain economic sectors to foreign investors. The

New Order state had the good fortune to be a member of OPEC, and the cartel

delivered windfall revenues to the State after 1973. The major oil assets of

Indonesia had been taken over under Sukarno in his attacks on Dutch and British

corporate holdings in Indonesia. Oil revenues now provided, in the 1970s, and the

1980s, his conservative successors with a vast pool of funds to develop (mostly

unprofitable) state-owned enterprises such as the Krakatau steel works.

As Robison argued (1986:115):

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'[...] various elements of national capital seek selectively to integrate with foreign capital in cases where international capital and corporate resources are required (oil, gas, minerals and more complex industrial processes), or to exclude foreign capital where these resources are no longer so essential (increasingly in light industry).'

In sum, the economic policy of the Suharto regime was far from simply

reflecting the requirements of advanced industrialised countries. State

bureaucracy — with the armed forces and the technocrats as its main components

— adopted a type of nationalism which made it possible for Indonesia to pursue a

relatively autonomous program of improving its economic conditions.

The development was also possible due to the fact that states in the

metropole are not as integrated and homogeneous as dependency theorists

suggest. As Frankel (1983:18) argues, '[...] detailed historical analysis shows that

no two capitalist societies possess or have possessed a common 'political order' or

set of state institutions.'

Furthermore, the international world itself has been far from stable as

crises sporadically occurred, such as economic stagnation, recession and the

pluralisation of international state system. Not only have the metropolis countries

become more pluralistic (e.g. the rise of Japan's economic predominance, the

establishment of the European Economic Community and other economic regio-

nalisms, and the rise of 'the four little dragons' in Asia), but international alliances

have also been unstable.20 Again the Indonesian state’s capacity to benefit

spectacularly from the major oil price rises engineered by OPEC is a clear

example of Indonesia’s international bargaining power.

Another problem with the comprador state thesis has been the way in

which the state has been perceived by its proponents. It seems too artificial to

assume the existence of the state in Indonesia as engineered and established

purely on class distinctions. The dynamics of the state are too complicated to be

regarded as a by-product of class actions, an instrument of the capitalist to exploit

and dominate society or an instrument to reproduce capitalist hegemony.

Accordingly, we would loose invaluable insight if we view the dynamics of a

20See eg. Bergesen (1983) for details.

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bureaucratic authoritarian regime as merely satisfying the needs of international

capital in a neo-colonial fashion.

C.2. Bureaucratic Authoritarianism and the Preservation of a Strong State

The dynamics of authoritarianism for the maintenance of the immunity of the state

in relation to society can be comprehended from the state-qua-state thesis, which

belongs to an extreme statist perspective.

This thesis assumes that the state in Indonesia is a cohesive social and

political institution in its own right with its own interests rather than a sum of

people administering society and manipulating bureaucracy. Such a powerful

institution has emerged out of a continuation of the relation between the state and

society since the colonial era to the extent it would be inappropriate to focus an

analysis of the regime of President Suharto as an emergent regime. Here, as Shin

(1989:22) argued, Anderson’s thesis distinguishes him from other theses of

Indonesian politics since the mid 1960s:

[Anderson's view] 'radically distinguishes him from his contemporary Indonesianists, who characterise the New Order merely as an emergence of an authoritarian regime, that is, as a change in the rules of the political game and in the governing faction within the vaguely defined elite.'

According to the state-qua-state thesis the solidity of the state was

promoted by its bureaucracy. There has been a firm belief that the nation-state can

only be maintained as long as the armed forces and civilian bureaucracy are in

power to manipulate societal groupings judicially and coercively. In short, the

state harbours self-preserving and self-aggrandising impulses. Those state actors

themselves, according to Anderson (1983) have no clear class identification or

whatsoever.21 Furthermore, relations between the state in Indonesia and other

states, particularly with those in the West, have promoted rather than obstructed

the strength of the Indonesian state.

21The non-existence of class identification has been one of the most significant indicators of Anderson's non-Marxian approach in conceptualising Indonesia under Suharto’s governance. As MacIntyre (1991:7) claimed, Anderson's theory has been a response to hardliner Marxian view of the state (namely, the state as merely a tool of the capitalist class).

194

With regard to the international dimension of the state in Indonesia, there

is some truth to Anderson’s claim. It is a fact that the reliance of the state on

international capital (mainly soft loans and financial grants from the IGGI22,

ADB, IMF, and the World Bank) and the export of oil and gas, rather than on

private-domestic tax, was unavoidable in order to advance Indonesia's economic

conditions from the mid-1960s. Although this action retained the practices of

corruption and collusion due to the strategic roles of state bureaucracy in

administering economic development, international support and oil proceeds also

strengthened the economic basis of the state by providing the state with a

significant revenue basis.

This impacted upon the relation between the state and society in

Indonesia, namely, by promoting the state's ability to maintain its detachment

from society. Societal pressures and the potential power of the middle classes

have been judicially, economically and/or coercively co-opted or depoliticised.

The state was also able to exercise its control over Muslim organisations. It

successfully reorganised political parties to secure their support. Most Indonesian

Chinese have been confined to their traditional roles of entrepreneurs being

excluded from politics (Anderson, 1983:488-93). The persistence of ethnic

hostility to the Chinese sits well with the state’s strategy of maintaining its

independence. The state, Suharto in particular, has aided Chinese tycoons achieve

control of around 70% of Indonesia’s private wealth. Yet this group poses no

political threat while it depends so strongly on state protection. To sum up, I share

Shin’s analysis of the state-qua-state thesis (1989:38) when he notes:

'the state is an institution with its own interests, which uses its legal, political, economic, and coercive capabilities to exploit society, feed the state functionaries, and, above all, sustain the supremacy of the military within the state'

22Indonesia dissolved IGGI (IGGI: Inter-Government Group on Indonesia, a club of aid donors from the industrialised world, formed to assist the pro-business New Order recover from the economic disaster of the Sukarno era) in 1992 and it was replaced by CGI (the Consultative Groups on Indonesia). With the exception of the Netherlands, other members of IGGI became members of CGI.

195

In Anderson’s view, the immunity of the state from societal pressure

groups has remained basically unchallenged since colonial times. Not only can we

claim the existence of continuities in the state-society relationship since colonial

times, but also the New Order has been 'the most powerful state in Indonesia since

Dutch colonial times' (Shin, 1989:22).

Although it appears to me that Shin has been sympathetic towards

Anderson's State-qua-state argument, he is not completely convinced of the

notion that fiscal independence and political coercion are adequate explanatory

factors. There have been conditions which influence both the fiscal health and

political coercion of the state in Indonesia. He argued (1989:24) that:

'Changes in ecology and demography, social class structure, political configuration, and international political and economic environments, however vague they may be, combine to serve as underlying factors affecting the degree of political repression and fiscal self-sufficiency.'

The main problem with Anderson's thesis, however, is the (almost)

unfettered power he attaches to ‘the state’. I doubt this absoluteness could be

possible in reality, as any state is basically constrained: that is, there are particular

historical and social forces which act upon and encourage the development of the

state. Specifically, the state in Indonesia has societal obligations to fulfil (no

matter how minimal these obligations are). In short, to the extent that one adopts

Anderson’s views, it would be more accurate to claim that the bureaucratic

authoritarian regime has affected the development of Indonesia at large.

Another problem is that Anderson seems to overlook the significance of

fractions, tensions and conflicts between and among the state bureaucracy.

Inherent tensions among state offices are a relatively common occurrence among

high and middle-ranking state officials. The tension has become more apparent

particularly since the mid 1980s. For example, tensions between the peak

economic planning agency BAPPENAS and other state departments regarding

budgeting. Not only has the founding of ICMI (the Association of Indonesia

Muslim Intellectuals, under the patronage of B.J. Habibie) in 1990 indicated the

distance between the armed forces and civilian bureaucracy, between Muslim and

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non-Muslim members of the state bureaucracy, and between the general populace

of Indonesian Muslims and non-Muslims, but it has also provided a vehicle for

deepening these patterns of estrangement.

C.3. The Bureaucratic Authoritarian Regime as a Less Modern Phenomenon

The concept of a bureaucratic authoritarian regime as a residue of traditional

values within a modernising society has mainly been evident in bureaucratic

polity, patrimonial state and restricted pluralism theses. Those theses differ from

each other. The latter, for example, focuses on the limits of authoritarianism,

while the two former establish the relation between authoritarianism and tradition.

However, they do share a tendency to arrange societies on the poles of modernity.

While on the one hand there are societies featuring more "traditional" elements,

on the other hand, others are more "modern". The latter has supposedly been

exemplified by the dynamics of the American political system. In accordance with

this, the dynamics of the style of governance and other aspects of the state are

mainly regarded as a less rational practice of politicking, as corrupt, and/or as a

less universal political practice.

According to Jackson (1978:3), who draws on one of the most influential

models of Thai politics, Indonesian politics can be regarded as a “bureaucratic

polity”23 — a political system in which power and participation in national deci-

sions are limited almost entirely to the employees of the state, particularly the

officer corps and the highest levels of the bureaucracy, including especially the

highly trained specialists known as the technocrats. The non-pluralistic

democratic polity of Indonesia has specifically been manifested in the domination

of the elite regarding policy formulation, whose existence is highly unconstrained

by local entrepreneurs, other societal groups, and non-elite cliques. Accordingly,

policy formulation in Indonesia reflected two things, that is, the exclusion of

society from political participation and a power balance among elite cliques.

Moreover, policy formulation and the dynamics of these elite cliques have

enriched individual members of the ruling elite and have maintained the status-

quo. Largesse has been distributed among members of the governing elite

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particularly among senior members of the state bureaucracy and retired high-

ranking generals and technocrats. Here, personal connections and patron-client

relations have been important.

According to Jackson, this bureaucratic polity emerged in Indonesia

around 1957,24 along with the development of the state as the most powerful

political machine. Here, the opportunity for non-governing elites and societal

groups to participate in national policy have since been mainly in the process of

adjusting national policy to local conditions for purposes of policy

implementation. The 'man in the street' has predominantly been mobilised on an

irregular basis to support a policy or the oppressed.

The absence of opportunity for popular participation in politics has been

conditioned by the character of both the society and state bureaucracy. First of all,

the so-called society has been for the most part, an almost amorphous and

undifferentiated mass which can be easily be intimidated. Secondly, the state

bureaucracy has been reluctant to promote political participation. Pressure groups

or organised communal interest groups have been co-opted or depoliticised by

ideological and coercive means. The bureaucracy has a strong tendency to regard

them, particularly political parties and religious groups, as external influences that

must be expelled from the bureaucracy.

Within this context, Jackson firmly believed that the Indonesian situation

was particularly interesting in the sense that the traditional character of Indonesia,

to a large extent impinged upon the supposedly modern bureaucracy. This was

incompatible with the political system in the so-called pluralist-democratic polity

of the West, which was based on principles of universalism.

With regard to the latter point, Jackson's biases in conceptualising the

Indonesian political system have been too obvious to overlook;25 as Indonesia was

evaluated on Western pluralist-democratic principles, it can easily be categorised

as a non-democratic state. Accordingly, analysis on the influences of societal

23 The term is associated with the classic study of Fred W. Riggs (1966) Thailand: The Modernization of a Bureaucratic Polity. Honolulu: East West Center Press. 24With regard to the beginning of bureaucratic polity in Indonesia, Hiorth (1983), for example, argued that Indonesia has been a bureaucratic polity since 1950. 25For a detailed critique of Jackson's work, see e.g. Robison (1981).

198

groups on the state has been overlooked in this mainstream approach.26 For

instance, MacIntyre (1991:8) noted that the thesis features little discussion about

the position of business and its relation to state bureaucracy. This has additional

implications, that is, it emphasises the exclusion of societal interests from policy

processes which can be regarded as an incomplete picture of the Indonesian state

— as if there has been no effort by the state bureaucracy to promote the living

conditions of the Indonesian people. Amongst others, Robison (1986:113)

questioned Jackson's analysis in terms of:

'How can this approach explain, for example, the time, the resources and the energy state officials in Indonesia put into the planning and implementation of policies such as rehabilitation of the irrigation system, the development of complex tariff schedules or even the running or railway systems, which would appear to have little to offer patron-client networks chasing lucrative sources of spoils'.

Further major problems with Jackson's thesis have been his tendency to

over-emphasise the significance of cliques and patron-client relations as well as

the view that the state has basically been an arena within which governing elites

compete amongst themselves for positions and largesse. This was a

personification of the Indonesian state.27

The emphasis on state bureaucracy and political patronage was also

evident in the patrimonial polity thesis, another mainstream approach to the

Indonesian political system.28 The proponent of the latter also admitted the

exclusion of society from policy formulation. However, differing from the

bureaucratic polity thesis, the proponents of this thesis were particularly interested

in discussing the relation between politics and tradition in Indonesia. Within this

26This thesis and the patrimonial state thesis have generally been considered as mainstream approaches to Indonesian politics. MacIntyre (1991:8), for instance, claimed that they can be treated as 'the conventional wisdom' of social scientists — among both foreign observers and leading Indonesian social scientists, such as Soedjatmoko (1983), Muhaimin (1980), Mackie (1986) and Ali (1986) — conceptualising Indonesian politics. 27I do not agree with Hiorth (1983) on regarding the bureaucracy as an instrument of what is called 'a small number of power elite in Jakarta — circling around Suharto and his close associates' as if it has no autonomy at all. 28The patrimonial state framework itself was constructed by prominent observers of the Indonesian political system, such as Harold Crouch (1979, 1980, 1984, 1986, 1987), Soedjatmoko (1983), Yahya Muhaimin (1980) and Fachri Ali (1986).

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context, we can learn the cultural basis of authoritarianism from the patrimonial

thesis.

According to the proponents of patrimonial polity, the fundamental

instruments of the Indonesian state from the mid 1960 onwards are the head of the

state and state bureaucracy. The relations between these two, and among state

bureaucracy (civilians and the armed forces), are organised in the traditional

fashion of patron-client networks. To be specific, according to Harold Crouch,

one prominent supporter of this thesis, Javanese culture has influenced politics at

the national level:29

'The New Order regime is, to a great extent, an actualisation of the traditional patrimonial polity of Javanese antiquity'.

According to traditional Javanese culture, people are basically divided into

punggawa or abdi dalem (state officials, bureaucrats) and wong cilik (common

people), whose relations with the king are not based on rational-universal criteria,

but on particularistic criteria. Here, people have no right or whatsoever to control

the king and the ruler determines the distribution of the rewards of office.

Within this organisation, patrons and clients have their own

complementary roles to play in defending each other’s interests and in preserving

the existing political order. Based on his superiority within the structures of

authority, the head of the state is expected to take care of the individual interests

of the leading members of the state elite, high ranking state officials are to protect

the interests of their subordinates; and in return for their favours in allocating

material rewards and facilities, clients have the moral obligations to satisfy the

patrons' interests, to be voluntarily loyal to them. Crouch (1979:572) claimed:

'In a patrimonial state, the ruler's power is dependent on his capacity to win and retain the loyalty of key sections of the political elite.'

29Suharto himself admitted the influence of the Javanese culture. In a recent 'face to face meeting' (Pertemuan tatap muka dengan kelompok-kelompok masyarakat), he admitted the strong influence of Javanese tradition on his personality and the way he has perceived social reality. He especially adored Semar's philosophy — a character in the Javanese puppet show (wayang). See also Emmerson (1976) and Emmerson (in Jackson and Pye, 1978).

200

According to Crouch, within this polity tensions exist over material

rewards and spoils of office rather than over substantive policy issues.

As Robison (1986:112) summarised, such polity has certain consequences:

'(1) the appropriation of public office and the powers attached to such office by political incumbents, and the fusing of political power and bureaucratic authority; (2) the organisation of political activity within patron-client structures, which are mechanisms not for securing the adoption and implementation of particular policies but for gaining access to the distribution of benefices.'

It should be emphasised that according to the patrimonial state thesis,

networks of patron-client links compete amongst themselves for patronage and

largesse from higher state officials — competition within strata of patron-client

networks. Accordingly, the head of state is able to maintain his or her authority in

so far as he or she is able to preserve the balance of power among the competing

cliques (Crouch, 1979).

Within this context, society has been excluded from state bureaucracy.

Various societal groupings have been depoliticised and kept as part of the masses

in poverty, among the economically underprivileged and politically passive. As

MacIntyre (1991:7-8) stated:

'The state, then, is not responsive to outside interests or pressures.'

An exception is made only to those who have connections with influential

state officials through patron-client links. They are mainly big businessmen. Not

only are their interests satisfied by the state, but the state officials themselves also

acquire personal advantages through this practice of collusion.

The proponents of the patrimonial state thesis firmly believe that the

existence of such polity is undermined by the economic improvement of

Indonesians: improvement in economic conditions brings with it pressures for

increasing rationality in public life. This has significant consequences in the

democratisation of Indonesia as expressed in the democratic states of the Western

world. Crouch has argued that 'economic development degrades the significance

of patrimonial polity and is gradually replaced with rationalisation and

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regularisation of the political system, of which substantive-policy issues become

increasingly notable' (Crouch, 1979:579-83). In another work, Crouch (1992:14)

claimed that 'From the cultural perspective, the predominant elite political culture

is antagonistic to democracy although the new culture of the educated middle

class is more favourable'.

Some major problems regarding the relation between economic

improvement and democratisation are that there are no clear set of indicators to

determine the extent to which levels of economic improvement effect the rise of

democratic polity, and what social forces are particularly concerned with

democratisation. The political position of domestic businessmen, predominantly

Indonesian Chinese, has still not improved after economic development has

progressed for more than a quarter of century with an annual GNP growth rate

well above 6% through much of this period.30

Some other basic problems with the patrimonial polity thesis concern the

way the state and patron-client linkages are treated, the issue of radical change,

and the reliability of its main arguments.

In urban anthropology literature, particularly regarding Latin America

societies, patron-client linkages have been divided into categories (e.g. persuasive

or coercive based linkages, and instrumental or life-time bonds between patron

and clients). It has not too clear which category of patron-client relationships

Indonesia features. Moreover, the existence of patron-client networks among the

lower strata of society31 (and their relation to the networks and their condition of

occurrence at the state level) have not been sufficiently analysed. It is difficult to

establish to what extent the utilisation of a patron-client framework is significant

in understanding the strategies used by the state bureaucracy to maintain the

Indonesian state. Within this context, it is worth noting Lev's comments on the

reliability of patrimonial polity research findings. While acknowledging the

existence of Suharto's patrimonial style and clientilism in Indonesia, he (1990:30)

claimed that 'political, economic, and social organisation beyond the villages has

30Shin, MacIntyre, Robison and other observers on post Sukarno’s Indonesia have come to similar conclusions. 31I have found (Samuel, 1984) that patron-client relations represented a major characteristic amongst migrant workers in urban areas in Indonesia.

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become too complex for patrimonial matrices -- even perhaps within the army

itself. Among other things, the expansion of “proto-bourgeois” interests has

injected heavier utilitarian considerations into relationships of loyalty.'

On a deeper level of discourse, the state in this thesis has been conceived

of either as merely a political system or a means to secure the status quo and to

promote the state officials' privileges. Consequently, the state in Indonesia seems

to be regarded as a by-product of the behaviour of the political elite rather than as

an institutional arrangement.

Within this context, Donald K. Emmerson (1983) acknowledged that

although the regime of President Suharto monopolised policy processes, this does

not necessarily mean that policy should be treated primarily as a means to which

state officials obtain personal advantages. Emmerson claimed (1983:1223) that

'the New Order is both more complex and more legitimate, and thus more likely to

become institutionalised than many of its [pluralist] observers have

acknowledged.' By introducing the concept 'bureaucratic pluralism', he

emphasised that policy processes reflect the tensions over substantive issues, upon

which different societal interests are anticipated and accommodated. This has

been possible for, unlike Ben Anderson's 'state-qua-state' approach, internal state

bureaucracy has been emphasised: state bureaucracy in Indonesia has been

relatively pluralistic in policy orientation, organised on relative rationality and

national regulation. Accordingly, this view made it possible to accommodate an

analysis of representation among various state groups bound together on criteria

of rationality. This view also admitted that the strength of the state (based on its

political and economic resources) has helped it to take 'one step ahead' compared

to society.32

There is, however, another problem with the patrimonial framework, that

is, its basic assumptions in attaching the state to culture in Indonesia.

Basically the theory of patrimonial polity is strongly attached to the idea

of modernisation as formulated by, amongst others, Eisenstadt, and Huntington.

32With regard to the continuity of patrimonial polity, Emmerson (1983:1239) argued that 'the more complex the economy has grown [as is evident in the 1980s], the harder it has become to manage Indonesian society under the militaristic or clientilistic strategies so frequently attributed to the regime.'

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Those scholars have been under the influence of Max Weber on the rise of

rationality and Talcott Parsons' Pattern Variables. As Robison (1986:111) argued:

‘Being similar to the previous approach, this one is originated mainly in the US political science, structural functional social theory and the political order theories of Samuel Huntington’.

In Parsons’ framework, as we discussed in the preceding chapter, social

life is divided into a dichotomy of traditional and modern in terms of its dominant

modes of orientation. He specifically proposed the dichotomy according to some

basic dimensions of social life: normative expectation (ascriptive-performance),

the range of demands in relationships (diffuseness-specificity), actors' expectation

of emotional gratification in relationships (affectivity-neutrality), the basis of

reaction toward each other (particularistic-universalistic), and the gratification of

collective obligations (collectivity-self interest). The corollary of this assumption

was that, while the US and Western European nation-states in particular were

mapped nearer to the pole of modernity, Indonesia was mentally and intellectually

constructed as a modernising state-society. That is, a kind of a teleological 'US-to-

be state-society': a state which in its struggle to modernise was not able to replace

its traditional features with the rational-modern ones.33

The implication of leaning towards a modernisation perspective has been a

tendency to regard the so-called ‘Javanese tradition of the style of governance’ as

corrupt. It appeared to me that this tends to justify the exploitation and domination

of the state to such an extent that the state, and particularly the head of the state,

has no obligations to promote societal interests or to be influenced by societal

demands. In short, the patrimonial polity thesis seems to fabricate the ‘bad’ sides

of traditional style of governance. Furthermore, the way ‘tradition’ has been

treated in this thesis has provided little space for an analysis of radical structural

changes: the potential for radical structural changes has been undermined.

How does the restricted pluralism thesis understand the bureaucratic

authoritarian regime in Indonesia?

While acknowledging the predominance of the state bureaucracy, the main

argument in this thesis focuses on the idea that the state is not completely under

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the influence of its high-ranking officials. There are societal pressures which the

state takes into account in policy process to a limited extent. With respect to the

authoritarian regime, this thesis invites us to consider some limitations to

clientilism (with its Javanese cultural bias) and authoritarianism in the

development of Indonesian politics in the 1980s. In short this thesis provided

some answers to the question ‘what are the limits of authoritarianism?’

In developing Emmerson’s thesis, William Liddle (1985, 1987), a

proponent of the restricted pluralism thesis, claimed that Emmerson's analysis was

more reliable than those proposed by mainstream observers of Indonesian politics.

However, more than Emmerson, Liddle emphasises that societal interests are not

merely satisfied through the skilfulness of the state bureaucracy in

accommodating societal aspirations and interests. There have been extra-state

groups with ability to pressure the bureaucracy either in direct and/or indirect

ways, so that their voices cannot be completely ignored in the face of bureaucratic

attempts to avoid urban riots, rural unrest and/or other destructive occurrences.

Those pressures have been channelled outside the patron-client networks.

However, they remained dependent on individuals and groups inside the state

bureaucracy, which represented a political machine of great magnitude in

Indonesia (Liddle, 1987). This lies at the heart of Liddle's 'restricted pluralism'.

According to Liddle, these extra-state groups with greater or lesser

degrees of influence over state bureaucracy have been limited to the press,

intellectuals, individual Members of Parliament, producer and consumer interest

associations, as well as officials at local bureaucracy level. They played important

roles in institutionalising the political format in Indonesia although the President

himself remained the most dominant player. In this process, naked repression was

gradually replaced by quasi-corporatist or corporatist strategy in accommodating

the interests of pressure groups. In particular, the principles of rationality and state

ideology based regulation were promoted and utilised by state apparatuses to

determine whether pressure groups should be taken into account, when and how.

Here, rather than conceiving of the state ideology as 'false consciousness', it has

33It should be emphasised that the bureaucratic polity thesis also shared the notion of modernity.

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been regarded as a cultural process which has the power to promote mutual trust

and a legal basis to control the state bureaucracy.

With regard to the role of the President, Liddle argued (1985) that

Suharto's skilful political management has been one of the most important

variables in the Indonesian politics. However, he admitted that Indonesia has been

in the process of making political changes from personal rule to political

institutions. This process was in its infancy in the 1980s and was manifested in the

pattern of power distribution in Indonesia. He regarded this pattern as a 'steeply-

ascending pyramid', with the presidency at the top dominating the state with the

assistance of state bureaucracy. As Liddle (1985:71) noted:

'The political structure of the New Order can be described as a steeply-ascending pyramid in which the heights are thoroughly dominated by a single office, the presidency. The president commands the military which is primus inter pares within the bureaucracy, which in turn holds sway over the society.'

This has been the backbone of restricted pluralism thesis.

Within this context, MacIntyre observed (1991:17) that, 'although still

maintaining a state-centred approach, Liddle is the writer who seems most

concerned to delineate the possible significance of at least some societal actors on

the shaping of policy.'

This thesis reminds us that authoritarianism can change substantially over

time, provided it continues to hold the commanding heights of power, and

exercises it in ways that exclude popular participation. One of the main problems

with this thesis, however, is the way rationality has been handled. It appears to

me that the thesis provides little space for a situation where society is more

rational than the state. Moreover there is minimal room for any discussion of the

fact that society might have different criteria of rationality than the criteria used

by the state bureaucracy. At a deeper level, the material basis of rationality has

been left open in this thesis: to what extent can so-called ‘rationality’ be used to

keep economically underprivileged societal groupings ‘in order’? Furthermore, it

is not clear which segments of society have been more rational than others. Can

we imply that the middle classes, highly educated people and conglomerates are

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more rational than the rest of society? With respect to a more complicated issue,

can we infer that the criteria of rationality has been derived from the majority

rather than the minority? In short, it is relevant to discuss the power basis of

rationality.

Another major problem with the thesis has been the international context

of Indonesian state and society. As the focus of this thesis has been mainly on

domestic politics, it has appeared to me that its international context needs more

discussion. To what extent has the international world been neutral (or

alternatively, involved) in the development of authoritarianism in Indonesia? Has

the international world been the same in perceiving the relation between economic

development and authoritarianism since the mid 1960s?

The third issue that needs to be considered in the thesis is the discursive

basis of the so-called gradual changes. This has also been favoured by the state

and yet there is no clear indication as to how gradual is gradual? With relation to

the balance between the state and society in Indonesia, answers are needed

regarding to what extent has there been discrepancy between the official

definition of gradual changes and those of societal groupings?

C.4. Bureaucratic Authoritarianism and the Making of Late Capitalism

Differing from the above, both historical-structuralist and post colonial state

approaches followed different routes in seeking to understand Indonesian politics

⎯ an emphasis on the dynamics of society in Indonesia from a political economy

perspective. This is also evident in Macintyre’s corporatist state thesis. However,

in so far as the conception of authoritarianism is concerned, it would be more

appropriate to distinguish the latter from the first two conceptions. The shared

notion of visualising the bureaucratic authoritarian regime as part of the

historical-structuralist and post-colonial state theses grew out of the fact that the

formulation of the post colonial thesis was part of intensive discussion with the

historical-structuralist, the latter having significant influence over the choice of

analytical ‘variables’. In other words, it appears to me that while criticising some

aspects of the historical-structuralist thesis, the post-colonial thesis has

strengthened other arguments of the historical-structural thesis. Before discussing

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this point any further, I will pinpoint basic arguments regarding how those two

theses conceptualise bureaucratic authoritarianism as a style of governance to

facilitate the pursuit of capitalism under the Pancasila Democracy era.

I share Shin’s view (1989:24) that Robison's historical-structuralist

approach (1978, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1986, 1986b, 1986c, 1988) has been 'fresh and

certainly represents the most serious Marxist analysis, though not the first such

application'. He has used this analytical tool to understand the extent to which the

so-called ‘pribumi capitalists’ have emerged in post-Sukarno Indonesia, and the

relation between these pribumi capitalists and state bureaucracy. Here Robison

holds a firm assumption about the state and society ⎯ a basic assumption which

was created in advanced capitalist societies of the West. He claimed that states in

capitalist societies exist within the system of class relations and they are relatively

autonomous in relation to class forces (Robison, 1986:118):

'While we must stress that state power in capitalist society is not immediately reducible to class power and that the state is a system of political domination relatively autonomous of class forces, the fact that state exists in the context of a particular system of class relationships does limit and shape the form and exercise of state power.'

Accordingly, his discussion on Indonesia was basically compared with the

development of capitalism in the West, namely, the extent to which the

Indonesian case has been different (or else similar) with the Western case.

Based on the belief that Indonesia since the mid-1960s has been an

emergent capitalist state, Robison argued that the level of the state's autonomy has

been so high that it has been relatively immune to the demands of societal groups

(including the demands of the business community). The formulation of public

policy has predominantly been determined by state elites, who have a substantial

degree of freedom in choice of policies. He claimed (Robison, 1986:118):

'Major societal interests -- including the business community, whose members are predominantly politically-vulnerable-Chinese -- are not having any direct influence over, or participate in, policy formation'.

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This high level of state autonomy has been conditioned by various factors.

In the first place, the state has been the party with the greatest capability to

mediate conflicting interests in the context of Indonesian capitalism, namely,

between the Japanese and the US investors, local and international economies, the

Indonesian Chinese and the pribumi investors, and among the indigenous

investors themselves. This has mainly been achieved by means of 'thrashing it out'

at a political level and by virtue to the low level of capitalist integration. With

regard to the latter, unlike in advanced capitalist societies, the emerging capitalists

do not effectively, systematically and consistently influence public policy outside

patrimonial links and/or corporatist schemes. Accordingly, when conflicting

interests mount and are considered to endanger the system at large, the capitalists

and other societal parties require the state to intervene and resolve crises. And this

has been mainly done by overriding the immediate interests of the capitalist class:

that is, the execution of politics autonomously vis-a-vis social forces. Secondly,

the fact that the state has received strong financial backing from international

funding agencies has made it less dependent on tax for revenue (Robison,

1986:121-4). This promoted the strength of the state not only regarding relative

freedom from economic pressures, but also relative freedom to influence those

who own capital and land. Thirdly, the relative autonomy of the state has also

been maintained in the handling of politico-bureaucrats. Not only has such a

strategy promoted their individual welfare (that is, by being compradors), but it

has also secured the existence of the state. This has been conducive for playing a

dual role: when the state itself is under threat, the customary pursuit of individual

interest gives way to a shared concern to uphold the state’s position. Fourthly, far

from being parasitic, the state has fulfilled its minimum obligations and

imperatives to satisfy societal needs. This has provided ‘legal, political and fiscal

conditions essential to the process of economic growth and capital accumulation'

(Robison, 1986:126).

Indigenous capitalists have taken advantage of this condition to emerge in

collaboration with high ranking state officials, Indonesian Chinese capitalists and

foreign investors. Here, Robison maintained the view that the state has been the

dominant player in the development of capitalism in Indonesia ⎯ within a frame

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of ‘sustainable economic growth’. Within this context, MacIntyre (1991) claimed

that Robison’s historical-structuralist thesis was more a state-centred approach

than a society-centred approach to Indonesia.

In his latter work (Hewison et al. eds., 1993:41-74), however, Robison

slightly shifted from his early theoretical position and began acknowledging the

issue of democratisation. He claimed that economic achievement in Indonesia in

the 1990s influenced regime change, from bureaucratic authoritarianism to a

potentially democratic parliamentary.

Another problem with Robison’s thesis is a rather unclear formulation of

his basic concepts. Shin (1989:30) noted that:

'[...] his reasoning of societal dominance remains vague and evasive; what does he specifically mean by 'the existing social, economic and class structures'?'

The theoretical and methodological bases upon which Robison classifies

the managers of state companies into the capitalist class has also not been clearly

formulated. Moreover, as Shin has claimed, Robison's explanation of the

conditions that guarantee the dominant power of the capitalists over the state

during the making of the Pancasila Democracy has been loosely formulated. In

sum (Shin, 1989:30):

'Robison leaves these terms and problems abstract and obscure; [...] and by doing so, he fails to advance beyond the teleological and functionalist perspective of the neo-Marxist'.

In addition, Robison appears to have overlooked the distinction between

(national) Indonesian society and the diverse constituent societies of Indonesia.

And with respect to the roles of the non-economic technocrats, he has tended to

neglect internal tensions within the state bureaucracy and the roles of state

bureaucracy in the development of Indonesia. To what extent has there been any

plurality of orientation in the creation of capitalism among technocrats with

different intellectual backgrounds, and between the technocratic and non-

technocratic variants of state bureaucracy? Although Robison admitted the

existence of internal tensions within the state bureaucracy in his later works, such

tensions have actually been present since the early years of the Suharto era.

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Moreover, Robison’s analysis of the emergence of capitalism has provided little

space for discussion of the roles of state bureaucracy in those fields with no direct

relation to economic development and sustainable economic growth; namely, in

the development of the Pancasila Democracy format, which then has an effect on

the creation of social control over the state bureaucracy.

The 'last but not least' note about Robison is his emphasis on the pribumi34

capitalists35. This emphasis has a great impact. Firstly, there has commonly been a

pairing of the non pribumi capitalists and foreign capitalists. Secondly, there have

been no clear criteria for differentiating between the pribumi and non pribumi.

Thirdly, the distinction between the pribumi and non pribumi capitalists has been

mutually supportive of the fabrication of false concepts such as the notion that

non pribumi capitalists and non-capitalists (bureaucrats) dominate the economy.

This fabrication has mainly been favoured by Muslim pribumi capitalists and high

ranking state officials, such as Probo Soetedjo and Ginanjar Kartasasmita, in order

to promote and protect their interests. Such a distinction has also obscured the fact

that racism does exist at judicial, legal and everyday life levels in Indonesia.

Within this context, Robison has not dealt sufficiently with the issue so that the

significance and relevance of using the distinction between the pribumi and non

pribumi capitalists is not clear.

Another way of intellectually tackling the issue of the predominant role of

Indonesian Chinese capitalists was undertaken by Shin with his post-colonial state

thesis. While employing the neo-colonialist perspective formulated by Saul and

Alavi as his theoretical framework on contemporary Indonesian political

economy, Shin's (1989) empirical data was inspired, amongst others, by the

works of Farchan Bulkin (1984, 1984b) on the Indonesian state as peripheral

capitalist state.36 According to Shin (1989:31), ‘[Bulkin] demonstrates, more

34 Pribumi — a collective noun (not unlike the Malay “bumiputera” or “son of the soil”) which loosely identifies the indigenous Malay peoples of Indonesia (Javanese, Sundanese, Minangkabau, Balinese etc.), but which lacks precision and is largely used to mark off those who are deemed to be “other”, notably the Chinese (non-pribumi). 35 Pribumi capitalists: Another sensitive category, largely because the Chinese have dominated the private economy. Why have the pribumi not done as well? 36By ‘the neo-colonialist perspective’ I mean a theoretical approach which ‘views the economy and the state of a postcolonial country as serving the economic interests of the imperialist power’ (Shin, 1989:28). In this sense the approach is comparable with the dependency approach.

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effectively than do Harry Benda and Ruth McVey, how the colonial tradition of a

beamtenstaat is reincarnated in post colonial Indonesia’.37

According to Bulkin, the Indonesian state has been autonomous in relation

to Indonesian society, whose development has mainly been alongside the

construction of the modern state in Indonesia. Under such conditions, state

bureaucracy has dominated policy process, while political participation was

denied. Policy formulation itself was intended to promote the interests of the state

and fractions within the state rather than to promote societal interests. The state

also penetrated almost every aspect of society to such an extent that society had

less ability to control the state. The constraints on the state's autonomy have been

predominantly the interests of international capital and the Indonesian Chinese

capitalists. In fact, as the Indonesian state has been dependent almost entirely on

the logic of peripheral capitalism, and there has been no other way but to promote

its interests by being comprador.38 Rather than preventing the compradorisation of

the state, nationalism has mainly been used as an ideological justification of this

process. The origin of this (almost) autonomous character of the state vis-a-vis

society in Indonesia can be traced back to the installation of the colonial state in

Indonesia, following the bankruptcy of the VOC in the late eighteenth century.

The Ethical Policy, international economic crises and recessions during colonial

times have significantly influenced the state to obtain an higher degree of

autonomy. This has cumulatively continued throughout the Sukarno era, both

during the Parliamentary Democracy and Guided Democracy periods. Its However, there are basic distinctions between the two approaches. While the dependency theory focuses on international relations as the origin of the backwardness and underdevelopment of satellites states, the unit of analysis of the neo-colonialist approach is the satellite states themselves. Moreover, while the dependency opens no possibility for satellite states to develop, it is the main focus of the latter ⎯ as indicated by the title of Shin's work ‘the capitalist-in-the-making’ ⎯ that the so-called satellite states are basically in a position to manipulate their international relations for the advantages of their development. 37While the concept ‘beamtenstaat’ was brought into common usage by Harry Benda (1968), Ruth McVey (1982) and Heather Sutherland (1979) were amongst the major contributors to this line of analysis. The central roles of the state bureaucracy in state-society relations has been propagated since Dutch colonial times, to maintain the predominance of the colonial state over indigenous kingdoms and tribes; and, at the same time, to control societies in the archipelago under a ‘security and order’ approach. Here, in order to fill the vacant positions in lower and middle ranks of the bureaucracy, some pribumis are provided with basic (Western) education to be recruited into state bureaucracy (e.g. the priyayis among the Javanese).

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culmination was the formulation of the Dwifungsi ABRI (the armed forces’ Dual

functions) in 1965, which legitimised the claim that the armed forces are both a

military and social-political force employed to protect the interests of the state

against any threat and to guarantee the integration of society under the state.

Shin composed his theoretical framework on those conceptions, which can

be summarised as follows (Shin, 1989:40-2): Firstly, 'the Indonesian state is a

self-interested agent above class conflicts that might exist.' This has been so as the

state has its own resources ⎯ financial, political and military resources. Various

strategies have also been used to maximise the interests of the state and its

officials. Secondly, the state’s autonomy has been constrained by the social

structure within which the New Order is placed rather than by society. This struc-

tural constraint has functioned as a powerful mechanism 'to check overly

exploitative power and excessive roles the state might exercise'; and has taken the

form of certain obligations which must be fulfilled by the state to achieve 'fiscal

viability and to promote an environment that guarantees the sustainability of

economic activity (that is, to resolve economic crises which undermine the

survival of the state). Thirdly, 'the pursuit of maximal interest by the New Order

state does not keep the capitalists [mainly of Indonesian Chinese and Javanese

political businessmen] from emerging and forming into a powerful capitalist class'

⎯ in so far as they are of use to the state and do not threaten the existence of the

state. 'While still in an embryonic stage, they can best be termed capitalists-in-the-

making'. 'Since the prolonged economic recession and the state's financial crisis in

the 1980s have demanded wider participation than ever by the private sector,

these capitalists-in-formation have good prospects to mature into a capitalist class

for itself'. Fourthly, 'the process by which capital accumulation has occurred in the

New Order demonstrates more political than economic factors in action'. It has

been the state which has mainly determined the allocation of resources and how

they should be allocated.

In accordance with this, both Shin and Robison alike shared the idea that

the bureaucratic authoritarian style of governance has been conducive for the

38This term is comparable in meaning with the dualistic conception of Cardoso's ‘dependent capitalism’ or Boeke's ‘colonial capitalism’ (Bulkin, 1984).

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emergence of capitalism in Indonesia. That prospect, the emergence of a domestic

capitalist class has interacted with international influences to shape the dynamics

of this regime.

Although I share Shin’s claim that the stability of the state in Indonesia

has been greatly dependent on the ability of the state bureaucracy to deal with

contradictions, to manage conflicts, and to generate political and financial

resources, this emphasis of the state’s economic role still leaves out too much.

Beyond the dynamics of emerging capitalism, the Indonesian state faces

challenges which expose its limitations in completely controlling societal

dynamics in Indonesia. For instance, the issue of ethnicity in Indonesian political

economy. Shin (1989:40) assumed that the Chinese racial characteristics have

been 'relatively insignificant to the common interest and characteristics the

emerging new capitalists share'. In accordance with this, how can this thesis

explain the manipulation of so-called ‘primordial’ issues by societal groupings,

particularly by using Islamic symbols? It appears to me that while Robison has a

tendency to overemphasise the importance of Indonesian Chinese capitalists, Shin

has tended to under-emphasise it, and this is much more than simply an issue of

political economy.

Another major problem with Shin's work is his inadequate discussion of

the international contribution to Indonesia. It seems to me that the contribution

has been more than a financial contribution. His thesis fails to take adequate

account of the extent to which the 'Western' sciences have influenced the

dynamics of the state as a relatively autonomous institutional arrangement.

My third and final observation focuses on Shin's findings. He appears to

be preoccupied with explaining the relative autonomy of the state at the national

level in Indonesia. As a result, he gives very little attention to regional autonomy

(Otonomi Daerah) and its relation to the dynamics of the state. This deficiency

has also been evident in Robison’s thesis. The explosion of regional demands

across the archipelago (notably, Timor, Aceh, Irian, Riau and South Sulawesi)

following the fall of Suharto and the loosening of authoritarian central control

mechanisms exposes the economic, political and cultural significance of

Indonesia’s regions.

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D. CONCLUDING REMARKS

Based on the above examination, I have come to the conclusion that the practice

of bureaucratic authoritarianism has had significant impact on social development

in Indonesia. This material effect of the (predominantly) American version of the

modernisation approach has brought about not only economic improvement,

political and governance stability, but also the creation of mutual trust at a societal

level by the end of the 1980s. Here, while bureaucratic authoritarianism has been

constructed within a particular historical context of Indonesia, it has also provided

the foundation for further development in Indonesia, including the growing

demand for democratisation.

The development of Indonesia during Pancasila Democracy has been so

complex that scholars have been able to understand only some aspects of the

development. Different academic frameworks have only provided partial pictures

of Indonesia from specific points of view. Subsequently, while there has been

some truth in the dependency and imperialist thesis to emphasis the international

dimension of bureaucratic authoritarianism, its practice in Indonesia has been

more than merely satisfying the needs of international capital. While this variant

of authoritarianism has strengthened the state, it has also been conducive for the

development of civil society in Indonesia. Inadequacy is also evident regarding

conceptualising the bureaucratic authoritarian regime as the residue of traditional

style of governance and as the generator of capitalism.

Since our strongest interest here is the influence that the New Order state

had on the character and course of development of sociology, and on the type of

knowledge the discipline produced and, conversely, on the way scientific

understandings of society fed back into the process of state formation, it is not

necessary to fully resolve all the arguments about the nature of the New Order

state. Following Feith and others, I have described it as ‘bureaucratic

authoritarianism’. The most pertinent points, for present purposes, are broadly

consensual conclusions found within most of the theories and evidence reviewed.

They are that:

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• Both in rhetoric and practice, the foundation of the New Order regime

was performance legitimacy — ‘order for development’. The way this

apparently potent and stable edifice fell apart in the sudden economic

collapse in 1997-98 bears out the extent to which the political order rested

on economic performance.

•In delivering this developmentalist formula, the role of the Armed Forces

(ABRI, now TNI) was to secure stability and unity. The role of the

bureaucracy, on the other hand, was to secure economic development. It

was also to advance social development, a point to which I will return.

• In its pursuit of these objectives, and certainly in protecting its own role

and privileges, the state possessed an unusual degree of autonomy from

both international and domestic pressures. Its purportedly monolithic

qualities, and the true extent of its powers have rightly been questioned by

theorists who emphasise the role of other powerful institutions and elites,

and the contests of interests and factions within the various state

apparatuses. Having noted these complexities against over-simple theories

of state dominance (or subservience), the significant points that remain in

a comparative sense are those that observe the real autonomy the state

possessed, for a long period, to pursue its own objectives.

• Developing, by contrast with its predecessors, on a path of capitalist

development and integration into the international economy (present in

colonial times, but strongly tied to the colonial power then), Indonesia

underwent important social transformations. It became more industrialised

and urbanised. It developed a significant middle class and a core of

powerful domestic capitalists. However, the middle class, and civil society

more broadly had a relatively slight influence on policy formation. And

the entire role of the emerging Indonesian bourgeoisie was largely

neutralised, from the point of view of its capacity to influence the state, by

the vexed issue of Chinese and pribumi wealth.

Beyond these observations, we need to note how far, for all their other

differences, the whole range of theories of the New Order state have been

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absorbed in issues of economic development, unity based on repression, and the

success of Suharto and the different elements of his state in excluding other social

forces from power, and in thwarting their development as coherent social forces.

There is some discussion of culture, but mostly in the vein of trying to explain the

dynamics of the state in accordance with the logic of pre-modern (Javanese) uses

of courtly power. There is a tendency to neglect much else. From the perspective

of this study, these models neglect, or at least underplay, the state’s role in

important areas of policy and practice affecting social issues other than those

linked clearly to economic development. Social control, too, relied on more than

naked repression. National unity and social cohesion needed more than P4 classes

and homilies on Pancasila — it involved institution building, understanding and

responding to social problems, building a sense of nationhood, of identity, of a

common national culture. The New Order’s successes, and its failures, depended

on asking the right questions about social issues, about discovering real social

needs and discontents where public institutions and electoral processes could not

adequately communicate from the grass roots to the bureaucratic centre. Of course

the state failed to deal adequately with many of these social concerns, and the

reformasi movement is now faced with a vast backlog of neglected problems. But

the New Order state endured for more than thirty years, and an important aspect

of its longevity was the qualified success of social policy.

Therefore the state’s competence rested on more than economic

management and repression of dissent. The New Order state’s role in co-opting

economic technocrats is universally acknowledged. Its engagement with other

policy-oriented disciplines, notably sociology, has been largely neglected. The

following chapters return to the work of tracing the close connections between the

development of sociology as an autonomous discipline in Indonesia, and the ways

in which its formation as a reflexive practice of understanding society while

recognising its practices as part of society. In the Indonesian case disciplinary

development was deeply influenced by the expectation that it would serve the

state by serving the national goals of development. No less significantly, the

state’s fabrication of ‘Indonesia’ has been influenced in important ways by the

disciplinary preoccupations of social scientists, especially sociologists.

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CHAPTER VI THE MAKING OF A SOCIOLOGICAL COMMUNITY AND THE CREATION OF PANCASILA DEMOCRACY

Introductory remarks Indonesian sociologists: to serve the state

Institutionalising academic sociology Political format and fragile professional identity

Concluding remarks


Although the domination of the armed forces remained noticeable, the shift in the

style of governance from populist to bureaucratic authoritarianism gave birth to

the use of scientific approaches to develop Indonesia in the Suharto era.

Specifically, sociology has been one of the approaches used by the state to deal

with the so-called ‘non-economic aspects of economic development’.

How do sociologists position themselves within the creation of the era of

Pancasila Democracy?

The present chapter discusses the struggle of Indonesian sociologists for

recognition within this political climate. It is my thesis that not only do

Indonesian sociologists use state patronage to reinforce regime stability — they

also use this connection to develop a sociological community. This figuration

creates Indonesian sociologists with fragile professional identities.

B. INDONESIAN SOCIOLOGISTS: TO SERVE THE STATE

Although defining the criteria for nationalism has been problematic, the Suharto

regime took advantage of the state’s pre-eminent claims over the discourse of

nationalism to engineer popular support for its policy. ‘Nationalism’ has often

been used by those in power to identify what is politically ‘proper’ and to

discourage politically ‘improper’ behaviour of people based outside their own

circle. Nationalism has been interpreted and used to justify the existing regime

against critique.

Within this context, Indonesian sociologists have a tendency to understand

nationalism as the ideological framework upon which they have provided

scholarly services to state bureaucracy. They have regarded such services as a

route to foster the development of Indonesia at large. This has been in accordance

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with popular political slogans of berbakti untuk nusa dan bangsa (a devotion to

the nation and the homeland), mengisi kemerdekaan (actualising national

independence), and the popular view of Indonesia as a developing country

fighting underdevelopment.

What kinds of services do Indonesian sociologists perform?

As sociologists they have a tendency to define their expertise with

reference to economics and to economic development, even though their focus

has mainly been on non-economic issues of economic development. They have

shared common interests with anthropologists and (to some extent) with

psychologists and scholars of political science to provide non-economic

considerations about policies.1 And in so doing, they were preoccupied with

attempts to solve short-term problems related to (economic) development based

on first hand data.

The problem is, they have been so dependent on empirical data that their

products have been relatively narrow in scope as well as a-historical. Here, their

roles as ‘pengrajin data’ (data craftsmen) in a case-study type of research have

been too obvious to overlook. Their research activities have been centred around

formulating instruments for data collection, going to the field, manipulating the

data, drawing conclusions and proposing policy recommendations either to central

or provincial governments (or both). Their satisfaction has mainly been based

upon practising their methodology to understand and/or to explain the

phenomenon under study. In the case of sociologist-technocrats, they have also

been gratified when their findings could in fact influence policy process.

Within this context, their belief in progressive social development has

been obscured by their avoidance of conceptualising the kind of development they

would professionally like to see, the relation between their conceptions of the

Pancasila ideology, liberalism and/or communism, and the extent to which the

government should accommodate societal interests. They have admitted that

social integration and societal conditions are amongst the most important of

sociological concerns. And yet they have rarely been openly involved in

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contemplating the relation between their tasks and social integration in Indonesia.

To sum up, sociologists preferred to be highly educated Indonesians whose

business is producing a-political information about aspects of the relation between

the individuals and society in Indonesia rather than about the basis of the relation

itself.

This a-political feature of sociology has also been manifested in self-

image. Sociologists have popularised the belief that their analyses have been

value-free, namely, that their work is factual rather than ideological or political.

They project a self-image of being scholars who religiously uncover the facts

about society through their scientific studies in the hope that what they say about

society can be accepted as a picture of societal condition in an elaborated fashion.

Examples of this are studies of educational attainment and of the impacts of rural-

urban migration. In so far as contracted projects are concerned, a significant effort

has been made to promote this self-image.

The fruit of their attempts has been, amongst others, a wider acceptance

among the state managers of the scope of services that sociologists can perform,

although these managers have often been dubious about the sociologists’

recommendations (namely, they are viewed as impractical in the context of

bureaucratic criteria). Here, a shared belief has been gradually built up between

those two fields. Sociologists’ analyses have commonly been regarded as

harmless to the bureaucracy. Sociologists have projected an image of being loyal

servants of the state bureaucracy — either as technocrats or aides to the

technocrats — who tend to avoid being critical of the background assumptions of

their master. This has a snowball effect of creating greater demands for their

services, from drafting the GBHNs (the Broad Outline of State Direction,

promulgated every five years along with the development plan —Repelita) to

monitoring and evaluating programmes. Sociologists have used their expertise

both for decision-making purposes and for the execution of such decisions.

Sociologists themselves have achieved advantages by the technocratic

utilisation of their scientific enterprises. In his article, Atal (AASSREC, 1983:3) 1 This has created a dilemma for Indonesian sociologists. Academically, they believed that economic development represented only an aspect of societal development, however, they

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pointed out that ‘recognition of the social sciences both by the government and

within academia is providing them with necessary strength and financial support.

Their involvement in policy and plan implementation brings them closer to reality

and forces them to engage in relevant research’.

However, not only has the involvement in policy-making of sociologists,

and scholars of the social sciences in general, unintentionally positioned them as

politicians without a political party, but they have also taken a part in replacing

the roles of politicians from being decision-makers mainly to being wielders of

the ‘rubber stamp’. This lies in accordance with Kleden’s observation that the

line of distinction between the tasks of politicians and those of social scientists

under the Suharto regime is blurred. He (Kleden in Nordholt and Visser eds.

1995:10), claimed that while solutions for problems of economic growth from a

technical perspective are the domain of scholars of economics, the social, political

and cultural affairs associated with economic growth have been the responsibility

of politicians, with non-economic scholars masterminding the project. The second

part of the task ‘cannot be treated merely as a technical one, since it concerns

social institutions, cultural orientations and even interpersonal relations.’ To be

more specific, this second aspect is concerned with social engineering, that is,

controlling social institutions and cultural orientations.

Within this context of a bureaucratic authoritarian regime where the state

monopolised the instruments of interpretation both in the public and private

spheres, the ideological use of sociology has been largely prevented.2 Abdullah is

one Indonesian scholar who acknowledged this phenomenon. He (Abdullah in

Nordholt and Visser eds. 1995:46) claimed:

‘In the consensual world of the New Order, where the State has managed to establish itself as the powerful master of meaning and the ideological definer of reality, the role of social science is to a large extent determined by its potential utility to the functioning of the State’.

positioned themselves in practice as a support to the economists rather than the other way around. 2 See for eg. Berger and Kellner (1981) for a description of the use of sociology for technocratic and ideological purposes in advanced capitalist societies.

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The sociologists themselves appear to accept the technocratisation of their

scientific enterprise. The majority of them have a strong tendency to measure the

success of social scientific research in terms of its effectiveness in solving

problems of a practical nature.

Such technocratisation has gone hand in hand with their attitude towards

state bureaucracy. Indonesian sociologists would rather take a tolerant attitude

towards state bureaucracy than oppose it. Furthermore, this has made them more

critical of a particular task that their master has given them than to be critical of

the authoritarian character of the master itself. State bureaucracy has accepted this

and responds accordingly by showering them with various projects on poverty

elimination. What the bureaucracy needs from sociologists is a supporting hand in

its attempts to advance those below the poverty line in Indonesia by way of

gradual changes rather than an aide who criticises the basis of its beliefs or who

appears to threaten its existence.

The kinds of services that sociologists and other scholars of social science

have performed for the past 25 years or so have more or less satisfied the

bureaucracy and they have been encouraged to shift focus from poverty

alleviation to the development of technology. According to the Sixth National

congress of sciences (12-16 September 1991), there have existed two challenges

for social scientists in 1990s, namely, to study social-cultural changes associated

with technological development, and to devise means to popularise science and

technology to create social values and attitudes conducive to the development of

an environmentally-conscious industrial society. Here, while the social sciences

have been expected to accommodate technological development, scholars of the

social sciences have been expected to hold a position as social engineers

supporting the state’s massive projects of technological development.

Thus, there is some truth to Kleden’s claim (Kleden in Nordholt and

Visser eds. 1995:30) that the dynamics of sociology and social science in general

‘tends to become the science of the State and of all affairs of interest to the State’.

The service itself has been manifested in various areas. Sunarto (1989:253-4)

observed that the involvement of sociologists has taken as diverse roles as being

part-time lecturers at various higher education institutions such as the College of

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Police Science, and the Institute of Government Science, as managers of

contracted research projects (mainly) for state-offices, as parliamentary members

at provincial levels, as permanent consultants to various state offices, as high-

ranking bureaucratic officials in state offices, and as staff at BAPPENAS (the

national planning authority).

It is worth noting that the technocratic use of the social sciences and also

the wider bureaucratic authoritarian regime in Indonesia and other developing

countries have received international support. In his speech at the 1983

symposium of the Association of Asian Social Science Research Councils, the

Secretary-General of AASSREC pointed out some relevant research themes in

Asia during the 1980s, namely, (1) Problems of national integration and nation

building (2) Alternative development paradigms; (3) Urbanisation linked with

integrated rural development - the problem of sandwich settlements; (4)

Population problems; (5) The interface between religion, polity and society; f).

The interface between society, science and technology; (7) Energy and

environment; and (8) The integration of women in development. Those themes

are accordance with the interests of governments in Asia. Gouldner (1972) has

also found a similar form of utilisation of the social sciences by the state in

America. He argued (1972:349) that:

‘[The state in America] does not only require a social science that can facilitate planned intervention to resolve certain social problems; it also requires social science to serve as a rhetoric, to persuade resistant or undecided segments of the society that such problems do, indeed, exist and are of dangerous proportions’.

C. INSTITUTIONALISING ACADEMIC SOCIOLOGY

The services that sociologists have performed for state bureaucracy represent an

aspect of the dynamics of sociologists in Indonesia. There is another aspect worth

consideration in the making of the sociological community, that is, the way in

which practices of Suharto’s bureaucratic authoritarian regime have promoted the

development of the sociological community itself. To be more specific, although

the collaboration between sociologists and the state bureaucracy has positioned

sociologists as instruments to strengthen this bureaucracy and an authoritarian

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style of governance, the collaboration has also been utilised by sociologists to

develop sociology as a scientific establishment. As a result, not only has there

been improvements in their income, but also by the end of the 1980s, the position

of the sociological community has also been improved in terms of (1) the

establishment of sociology programmes at a higher education level (both at

undergraduate and postgraduate levels), (2) the introduction of sociology at a high

school level and social research methods at a higher education level, (3) the

translation of basic social science books into Bahasa Indonesia and the

publication of books and articles by Indonesian scholars, and (4) the

establishment of a professional association.3

In chapter IV I made the point that there were only a handful of

Indonesian sociologists during the Sukarno era. The size of the sociological

community expanded in the 1970s. Mochtar Naim (University of Singapore),

Harjono Sujono (University of Chicago), Herman Suwardi (University of

Padjadjaran), Kamanto Sunarto (University of Chicago), and Arief Budiman

(Harvard University)4 are some of the Indonesians who graduated with doctorates

and who identify themselves (and have been recognised by their colleagues) as

sociologists. I have found that there were about 50 sociologists by 1996. The size

of the community would be greater if we also included those sociologists-by-

profession, that is, (1) Indonesian scholars whose formal qualification are not

doctorates in sociology but (2) have made their living by being direct producers of

sociological knowledge.

Another achievement is the establishment of a sociology programme in the

higher education system in Indonesia. The programme expanded beyond the

University of Indonesia, Gadjahmada University, and the Agricultural Institute of

Bogor by the end of 1980. While some universities accommodated the sociology

programme at departmental level, others provided a specific sociological

concentration in their programmes (eg. sociology of religion, sociology of law,

sociology of education, medical sociology, rural sociology, urban sociology, and

the sociology of development). Furthermore, a sociology programme has been

3 See also Sunarto (1996) and Kleden (1987, 1995). 4 See also Koentjaraningrat (1975).

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established in some universities at postgraduate level, such as at the IPB (in early

1970s) and at the UI, UGM and Padjadjaran University in early 1980s.5 Sociology

was also introduced to high schools in the 1980s within a social science

curriculum.

Another indicator of the development of the sociological community in

Indonesia is the availability of reading materials in sociology. As the Social

Science Research Training Programme Committee (1974:5-6) has noted, there

was a paucity of reading material in sociology in early 1970s:

‘The number of social science books in Bahasa Indonesia is distressingly few, four texts in anthropology, three in sociology, three in research methods, etc. There are even fewer research monographs which seek to describe, analyse, and explain a particular phenomenon of Indonesia social life’.

The situation improved by the 1990s. Hans-Dieter Evers (1982) and

Sunarto (1989) observed ‘the book explosion of 1982/83’ in Indonesia, that is, a

tremendous increase in sociology publications -- both those written by Indonesian

scholars and/or those edited/translated to Bahasa Indonesia. Not only has this

added to the diversity of sociological material in Indonesia, but it has also made

them accessible to Indonesian readers in general. The works of A.G. Frank,

J.Q.W. Schoorl, Jan Breman, J.J. Heeren, Chris Manning, Hans-Dieter Evers, and

Nico Schulte Nordholt are now available in Bahasa Indonesia. Arief Budiman

also published books and articles in that language.6 Generally speaking, the

publication of textbooks have been significant, such as, Budiman’s Teori-teori

Negara, Sunarto’s Pengantar Sosiologi, and Lawang’s Teori-teori Sosiologi.

5 See Sunarto (1996) for a description of the adoption of sociology in higher education since the 1980s. 6 It should be admitted that although there has been an increase in the number of publication, the quality of the publication has not always been improved. My data has indicated that euphemisms and/or incomplete translations into Bahasa Indonesia do occur. Ricklef’s Sejarah Indonesia Modern is available in Bahasa Indonesia. However, according to my informant, chapter 20 of the original version (in English) is considered as ‘unacceptable according to political and marketing criteria’. A detailed study of the relation between the authoritarian regime and malpractice in publishing houses is required (eg. the roles of the office of the Attorney General in the 1980s, the political manipulation of so-called ‘sensitive issues’, and attempts by the media and publishing house in dealing with political control).

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Another achievement is the establishment of a professional association

among sociologists. The Indonesian Sociological Association (ISI) was set up in

the late 1980s to facilitate communication among Indonesian sociologists at the

national level. Its materialisation is the National Congress and Seminar of

Indonesian sociologists, which was conducted in Bandung (December 1992) and

Ujung Pandang (November 1995).

What is the significance of the above?

Geertz noted the problems faced by Indonesian scholars, including

sociologists, in promoting their scientific enterprise in early 1970s. He claimed

(1971:1):

‘Indonesian intellectual life is centralised, over-organised, spasmodic, practical, and strongly influenced by economists. The centralisation is part of the headlong expansion of the role of Djakarta in national life, an expansion which has now begun not merely to outstrip but, drawing into itself most of the creative powers of the country, actively to undercut the development of other urban centers. The over-organisation represents an attempt by the country’s still very small group of well-trained (and largely Djakarta based) scholars and scientists to maximise their impact on vast, invertebrate colleges and university systems spread irregularly throughout the archipelago. The spasmodic quality -- a kind of chronic distraction -- arises from the scattering of energies imposed by an irrational salary structure for academics which forces them into multiple occupations, and by the excess of essential tasks over people qualified to perform them.’

Within this context, in so far as the dynamics of sociologists is concerned,

we can claim that there has been progress in the past 25 years. However, this

achievement has represented a small part within the long-term development of

sociology as a scientific community in Indonesia.

In the first place, most sociologists are academics whose first task is to

disseminate sociology (eg. teaching sociology). Although according to the Higher

Learning Ordinance, universities have the triple functions of teaching, research

and social service, the latter two have largely been left behind. Consequently,

most of the sociologists in contemporary Indonesia tend to act, at the very least,

unintentionally, as some sort of ‘salesmen’ for American, British, Australian

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and/or Indonesian publishers. University-based and other sociologists can still be

regarded as instructors rather than intellectuals.

The State bureaucracy has however made some attempts to promote

research activities, particularly in the 1990s. This was done through the provision

of research grants, such as the Young Lecturer, Competitive Grants, and

University Research Graduate Education schemes. This expanded the

opportunities for sociologists to conduct research (Sunarto, 1996:40). However, it

appears that we still have to wait before seeing the effectiveness of such schemes

in transforming university sociologists from being instructors to intellectuals.

Generally speaking, sociology programmes (both at the undergraduate and

postgraduate levels) are still far from being the arena for the development of

sociology as a scientific establishment.7 Secondly, sociology programmes are still

located within state universities. Attempts to establish sociology departments in

private universities have either failed to materialise or remain highly temporary.

In addition, the programmes are still dominated by sociologists at the University

of Indonesia, Gadjahmada University and, to some extent, at the Agricultural

Institute of Bogor.

How do Indonesian sociologists manipulate state patronage under the

bureaucratic authoritarian style of governance to develop their community in

Indonesia?

Unlike his predecessor, Suharto conceived of First World countries as

advanced industrialised centres whose wealth and progress are essential for the

development of Indonesia and other Third World countries. This was the basis

upon which Suharto rearranged relations between Indonesia and the First World

countries. He invited the transfer of technology to Indonesia, particularly

regarding capital and expertise. We saw earlier that his attempts received support

from both the armed forces and the technocrats, who welcomed the strengthening

of state bureaucracy over civil society.

7 Taking into account Kuhn’s and Elias’ conceptions, ‘sociology as scientific establishment’ refers to a professional establishment formed by sociologists, from local up to international levels, which is characterised, amongst other aspects, by the development of shared beliefs and by the existence of certain scientific-epistemological-rules on how to gain and advance a more adequate sociological knowledge (eg. methodology, research methods and systematic thinking).

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This is the context within which Indonesian sociologists have enacted their

manoeuvres to institutionalise academic sociology in Indonesia. To a large extent,

this context has also set the limits to their attempts.

Amongst the first attempts to develop a sociological community in

Indonesia was an initiative to take advantage of the re-opening of the Ford

Foundation in Indonesia. Clifford Geertz, a famous American Indonesianist

among Indonesian scholars, was hired as a consultant to propose the basic

guidelines for the development of social sciences in Indonesia in the early 1970s.

And based on his policy recommendations, the Social Science Research Training

Programme Committee was set up with the primary objectives of establishing a

field research training station, to support thesis studies in Indonesia, to provide

postgraduate training for Indonesians abroad, and to facilitate publications and

research awards. The Ford Foundation also provided the Committee with financial

assistance, which materialised in the provision of Ford Foundation awards for

Indonesians to pursue postgraduate training in social sciences in American

universities8 as well as the opening of centres for research training in Indonesia.

The committee itself was chaired by Selo Soemardjan, professor of

sociology at University of Indonesia and Secretary to the Vice-President of the

Republic of Indonesia. Its members were Indonesian scholars who work for state

bureaucracy, that is:

1. Koentjaraningrat (Professor of anthropology at the University of Indonesia and Deputy Chairman of the National Institute of Science.

2. Madjid Ibrahim (Professor of economics at Syiah Kuala University and deputy Chairman of the National Development Planning Agency)

3. Harsya Bachtiar (Dean of the Faculty of Letters at the University of Indonesia and the Head of the Consortium for the Social Sciences, Ministry of Education and Culture)

4. Amran Halim (Head of the Language Centre at Sriwijaya University and Director of the National Language Institute)

8 According to the Committee’s Report (1974:13-4), the first recipients of the awards were two state university lecturers (ie. Parsudi Suparlan and Kamanto Sunarto) and two other scholars (ie. Andre Hardjana from Catholic University of Atmajaya and Arief Budiman).

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5. Makaliwe (Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Economics Hasanuddin University and chairman of the University Development Board Hasanuddin University)

6. Soedjatmoko (Adviser to the Chairman of the National Development Planning Agency)

7. Radinal Mochtar (Director of the Directorate of Urban and Regional Planning, Ministry of Public Works).

To sum up, the Committee has various modes of access to the

bureaucracy, amongst which the most important ones are the office of the Vice

President of the Republic of Indonesia, the Ministry of Education and the

National Planning Agency (BAPPENAS). While the first and the third offices

have been crucial to development programmes in general during the practice of

the bureaucratic authoritarian regime, the importance of the second office is based

on its position as managers of education in Indonesia.

The attempts to take advantage of the practice of the bureaucratic

authoritarian regime under Suharto have also been manifested in other areas and

continued throughout the 1990s. The organisation of sociology programmes

within the higher education system is another example. Moreover, the

introduction of sociology-anthropology to high schools and primary schools is

another example of the manipulation of state patronage to institutionalise

sociology in Indonesia. The idea itself was formulated by Harsya W. Bachtiar, a

sociology professor at University of Indonesia, when he was the chairman of the

Division of Research and Development at the Ministry of Education and Cultural

Affairs. The idea materialised in the 1984 High School curriculum (Sunarto,

1989). The establishment of the Indonesian Sociological Association in 1989 was

also due to such manipulation. The chairman of the association was Harjono

Sujono, then the Head of the Population and Family Planning Affairs portfolio.

The majority of members of the board have been scholars who either worked for

the state or have strong affiliations with the state. This has extended well beyond

the early years of the association. During the period of 1995-1998, the patron of

the association was Moerdiono, the minister for the state secretary. The advisers

were Prof. Dr. Selo Soemardjan, Prof. Dr. Hasan Walinono, Prof. Dr. Sajogyo,

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Prof. Dr. Satjipto Rahardjo, Prof. Dr. Umar Kayam, Prof. Dr. Abdul Azis Saleh,

Prof. Dr. T.O. Ichromi, Prof. Soedjito Sosrodihardjo, SH, MA, Soelaiman

Soemardi, SH, MA, Dr. Mely G. Tan, and Dr. Manasse Mallo. Its chairman was

Prof. Dr. Haryono Suyono with Prof. Dr. Sediono M.P. Tjondronegoro as deputy

chairman. Its regional coordinators were Prof. Dr. Kusnaka Adimihardja, Dr.

Nasikun, Prof. Dr. Idrus Abustam, Prof. Usman Pelly, Prof. Sutandyo

Wignyosoebroto, MPA. Its executive secretary, Dr. Tamrin Amal Tomagola with

Dr. Rohadi Haryanto, Msc (first secretary) and Tien Handayani Nafi, SH, Msi

(second secretary). Its treasurers dra. Koeshardjanti Mardiono, drs. Edy Purwanto,

and dra. Francisca Iriani, MSi.

Sociologists established their community in Indonesia in the context of

such manipulation, and the state has gradually accepted the importance of

sociology and provided greater space for sociologists in policy process.

According to the 1983 GBHN, the national development of Indonesia included

economic development as well as the development of society at large and human

beings as a whole. This constituted the first recognition of the importance of the

social sciences by the state under the Suharto regime (Kleden, 1987). In 1990 the

Indonesian Academy of Sciences was established, and Indonesian sociologists

won another significant advance. The development of sociology has been

organised under the Commission for Social Sciences of the Academy. The

establishment of a national committee to further stimulate the development of the

social sciences in the 1990s followed. The Minister created the committee for

Science and Technology in 1993.

Although the routes for development of the social sciences in Indonesia

are undoubtedly different from those in America, there is evidence that the

development of the sociological community in the US was regarded as the model.

Gouldner (1972:20) noted that (academic) sociology was developed in the US by

university academicians who were oriented towards the established middle class,

with a strong reliance on seeking pragmatic reform rather than systematically

rebelling against the status quo’. In short, university-based intellectuals

constituted the backbones of the development of social sciences. Tjondronegoro

also observed the American influence on the development of the social sciences in

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Indonesia. In so far as the dynamics of the National Research Council is

concerned, he (Tjondronegoro in Nordholt and Visser eds. 1995:72) claimed that

the National Research Council was significantly moulded in the image of the

American National Research Council.

The difference between the two is mainly concerned with the space that

the state has provided for the development of the sociological community in the

outer ring of the state bureaucratic framework. To be more specific, the practice

of the authoritarian regime encouraged a tendency to neglect such development

even when it did not look upon it with suspicion. And this has bred the emergence

of extra-state scholars through a framework of Non-Government Organisations,

who have the tendency to maintain a greater distance from the state bureaucracy

in conducting sociology. For example, in the early 1980s, a group of young social

researchers, mainly students and NGO activists, organised under the Association

of Indonesian Researchers (API) made attempts to establish their activities outside

the bureaucratic framework. They established Participatory Action-Oriented

Research and commonly regarded themselves, and have been regarded by other

scholars, as an alternative to the mainstream development of the social sciences in

Indonesia.

D. POLITICAL FORMAT AND A FRAGILE PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY

As the majority of Indonesian sociologists are academics working full-time at

state universities, the state has unavoidably been their master. Not only do they

work at a state-funded university, but their regular source of earnings is also the

state. And the government shows no particular interest in allowing university staff

to distance themselves from the state — all staff in State Universities are

straightforwardly classified as civil servants. There are only a few who either

work in the private sector and/or who work at a state university on a part-time

basis, such as Ignas Kleden, and Mochtar Naim. This constitutes their

achievements up to the present. While institutionalising academic sociology, they

have created the material bases for the future development of sociology.

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I observed earlier that the state bureaucracy was predominant in Indonesia

during the Suharto regime. Not only has this bureaucracy dominated policy

process, but civil society has also been largely under its control and the aim of

bureaucratic authoritarianism is to maintain this pattern of dominance. This has

been effectively so until the end of 1980s, and so dominant was the bureaucracy

that it also attempted to control aspects of private life which have the potential to

interfere with its practice of developmentalism. And in so far as the sociological

community is concerned, the bureaucracy kept a constant eye on its dynamic;

thus, it would be erroneous to regard ‘extra-state’ sociologists as more immune to

state interference than those who actually work for the state. The bureaucracy

attempted to ensure that Indonesian sociologists (and in fact Indonesians in

general) were functional to the project of ‘national development’. The difference

lay mainly in the way that the bureaucracy implemented its control mechanism

and the way that sociologists dealt with those controls.

With reference to state university sociologists (that is, the majority of state

sociologists), the bureaucracy used numerous channels to exercise its control over

them. The channels mainly worked on persuasive bases. On the other hand,

sociologists responded in various ways to cope with their political situations,

while maintaining their regular material base on the state’s payroll. They have

been actively involved in manipulating the academic world in Indonesia (that is,

acting on their immediate circumstances).

On the surface, amongst the most significant modes of control that the

state could effectively exercise over sociologists was financial. The Suharto

regime financially overpowered other parties in Indonesia particularly until the

mid 1980s, and accordingly, it dominated the allocation of economic resources in

Indonesia. Within this context, while non-state university sociologists received no

regular funding, state universities were largely dependent on the state through the

university annual budgeting. The state bureaucracy itself had limitations on the

exercise of its financial control over state universities. It had judicial and

international obligations to fulfil the financial requirements for the running of

these state universities. The obligation itself was minimal and state universities

had to find other sources of revenue, including grants and selling their services.

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These other sources of revenue have become more systematically sought after in

the 1990s under the so-called ‘shift from a teaching to research-university’, and

has provided justification for involvement in contracted projects. In short, state

universities now have a degree of latitude to resist the financial-based control of

state bureaucracy.

An example of collaboration between a state university and a non-

university institution is the involvement of the teaching and research staff at the

social economic department of the Agricultural Institute at Bogor under the Agro-

Economic Survey of Indonesia. This research agency has been an advisory body

to several ministries (Tjondronegoro in Nordholt and Visser eds. 1995:59-78).

Another example is the Laboratorium Jurusan Sosiologi at the University of

Indonesia. The Laboratorium is an organ within the department of sociology (UI)

which has been actively involved in policy research for some ministries and for

the provincial government of Jakarta. And through such involvement, sociologists

at the University of Indonesia are able to create another source of income and

research experience.

It is worth mentioning that there have only been a few state universities

which could develop this research-university scheme up to now, namely, the

University of Indonesia, the Agricultural Institute of Bogor and some other major

state universities in Java. Within the context of imbalances in development

between the western and eastern parts of Indonesia, those aforementioned

universities have been relatively closer to central government and other economic

resources in Indonesia. Remote universities have few such opportunities.

Moreover, it is worth noting that although contracted projects do not

eliminate the state’s control over state universities, such projects have diluted this

control by being involved with different centres, and by selecting which centres to

collaborate with and what projects to do.

An example of this was a research project on social problems in East

Timor by an armed forces affiliated office, based on the idea that recent problems

in East Timor have shifted from an anti-integration focus to dissatisfaction with

the central government and existing social conditions. Although this project was

offered to a state university, the university did not take the project; amongst other

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reasons, due to the high budgeting that the research team proposed. The research

team itself appeared to be reluctant to conduct the project. Serious attempts were

never made to see this project materialise. The reasons for this, however, have

never been openly discussed among members of the team.

In dealing with contracted projects, university sociologists and other

scholars in general have developed dualistic views. On the one hand, they have

assigned negative connotations to such projects. The term ‘contracted projects’

has been interchangeably used with ‘made-to-order projects’. A related term is

project-based lecturer (‘dosen proyek’). The terms commonly imply a threat to the

sociological community: that is, predetermined research findings, and the

abandonment of teaching commitments. Moreover, it is rather an insult to a

sociologist to be regarded as dosen proyek.9 Nonetheless, contracted projects have

been common phenomena among Indonesian sociologists since their student

years. My data indicates that sociologists are familiar with (state) contracted

projects, and they have regarded involvement in such projects as worth

mentioning in their curriculum vitae. Sociologists who work at state universities

in regional areas (particularly in the regions outside Java) have commonly

complained about the lack of opportunity to engage in contracted projects. Some

of them (namely, the senior ones) have also often been involved in contracted

projects for the central government in different parts of Indonesia.

Another source of state control is the Corps of State Employees

(KORPRI), the sole representative organisation of state employees. This

organisation was established by the Suharto regime and is chaired at the national

level by the Interior Minister (that is, one of the most important portfolio

positions). It has been effective in generating support for regime maintenance by

emphasising the ideology of a sole loyalty to the state (mono loyalitas) among

civil servants. In the first place, not only has this prevented collaboration between

state employees and organised labour in the private sector, but also the KORPRI 9 As an informant of this study, Ignas Kleden pointed out the multiplicity of scholarly careers in Indonesia. According to Kleden, Indonesian social science scholars tend to pursue more than one career ⎯ academic (ie. undertaking research, teaching and publications), business (consultancies for industry) and a political career. There is no mutually exclusive single route for Indonesian scholars to pursue their careers and this has resulted in the growing phenomenon of Indonesian academics engaging in various non-scientific activities.

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has strongly opposed strikes, demonstrations, and other types of labour protest.10

Despite their low salaries, state employees have never been involved in protests.

In the second place, so strategic has the KORPRI been that the state founded party

(namely, GOLKAR) has used the KORPRI to campaign on its behalf in general

elections. Membership of KORPRI was compulsory. Members were also under

their strong and coordinated supervision from the national to working-unit

levels.11

Within this context, as most Indonesian sociologists have been state

employees, we could easily think that the state has been successful in controlling

the sociological community (particularly those whose regular earnings originate

from the state) through the KORPRI. However, the KORPRI has its limitations in

effectively controlling state university sociologists. Sociologists and other

scholars who work as academics have utilised various means to resist this

domination without alienating the KORPRI. Such attempts have mainly been on

an individual basis without openly confronting either GOLKAR or the KORPRI.

The individual’s membership in the organisations is largely nominal, particularly

among those who do not hold administrative positions. It has also been difficult to

control the votes of university staff during the elections. Both GOLKAR and the

KORPRI avoided openly coercing sociologists. However, the number of

sociologists is very small and they have (almost) no public influence in mounting

opposition to the KORPRI and GOLKAR on any great scale. To sum up, the

sociological community still has a space to maintain their identity within the

practice of the bureaucratic authoritarian regime.12 However, this resulted in the

flourishing of ‘talking one thing while doing other things’ within the practice of

10 See eg. Samuel (1990) for an analysis of KORPRI within the labour movement during the Suharto era. 11 For an analysis of the relation between KORPRI, GOLKAR and regime maintenance see eg. Boileau (1983). 12 In contrast to this, my data has pointed out that there are two sociologists who have been active outside the GOLKAR/KORPRI format. One of them is a retired state university sociologist who joined the PPP (the Muslim-oriented ‘United Development Party’, one of the two approved New Order ‘opposition’ parties. The other is a private university sociologist. Before he was unfairly dismissed from his university, he was an activist in overthrowing the Sukarno regime and in criticising the Suharto regime since its early days (eg. anti-corruption campaigns, and canvassing for the democratisation of Indonesia). His efforts at awareness raising have also promoted the GOLPUT (the White Group) to peacefully boycott the general elections.

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Suharto’s bureaucratic authoritarian regime. I discuss this issue with reference to

the content of sociology later in this chapter.

The third channel of control over the sociological community, and

particularly over university sociologists, is through the state Department of

Education and Cultural affairs. This branch of the bureaucracy plays a dominant

role in organising academic life in Indonesia. It engaged in a range of strategies to

shape both university staff (academic and administrative) and students alike

according to the needs of the Suharto regime. It played a dominant role in the

appointment of the Vice-Chancellors (or Rektor). And within the context of state

universities, it also was pivotal in the appointment of the Faculty Dean through a

centralised decision-making process.

The sociologists and Indonesian scholars alike have regarded this

phenomenon as an impingement on the autonomy of the scientific community.

They expressed this in such terms as ‘state imposed Vice-Chancellor and Faculty

Dean’ (‘rektor dan dekan drop-an’). Likewise, they also made attempts to resist

such appointments. However, the opposition has mainly taken a case-by-case

approach. The Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs appointed a sociologist

to be a faculty dean at a state university against the will of senior academic staff at

that faculty in 1982. However, only one senior staff member openly opposed the

appointment. He withdrew himself from any involvement in that faculty as

protest. Other staff members kept their disappointment to themselves. Moreover,

academic staff at other faculties and universities regarded the appointment as an

internal affair rather than as a general dilemma for academics in Indonesia. This

reinforced the Minister’s determination to impose his will on the faculty.

In so far as sociology and the social sciences in general are concerned,

amongst the most significant issues has been the unification and standardisation

of the practice of sociology. This strategy has been pursued since early 1970s

under the Subconsortium for Social Sciences. Members of the Subconsortium are

recruited from the University of Indonesia, Gadjahmada University, Hasanuddin

University and Padjadjaran University (Sunarto, 1989:213). The main target of

the Subconsortium has mainly been state universities, and this move has

facilitated the management of the sociological community by the bureaucracy

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under the Suharto regime.13 This is in accordance with attempts by the state

bureaucracy to normalise Indonesia.14

However, control through the Department of Education and Cultural

Affairs has never been absolute. Indonesian sociologists are still able to

manipulate their bureaucratic circumstances (that is, to resist the controls). An

example of this is involvement in the non-ruling party. According to regulations, a

lecturer is required to have his superior’s approval to join either the PPP or the

PDI (the ‘opposition’ parties). However, state university sociologists have taken

this to be non-problematic. First of all, they realised that state bureaucracy

exercises strong control over the independence of political parties and most of

them have never been particularly interested to join a political party anyway. And

yet, as I have discussed earlier, some have been politicians, while respecting the

scholars who openly criticise the Suharto regime and political parties. Another

example is the prohibition on setting up a business or holding a managerial

position in a private company. This, however, does not prevent sociologists

running a business-like company by holding a managing director-like position,

and treating students and junior colleagues as workers in a capitalist-like working

relationship. While the ‘workers’ are the actual direct producers, they have little

access both to financial budgeting and their share in the budgeting. The

commodity itself is contracted projects.

Within this context, the point is that the state bureaucracy has limitations

on completely controlling the sociological community or other scientific

communities. However, the limitations have been underestimated, which has

partly been due to our perception of the density and strength of state bureaucracy

13 Standardisation and unification have been common phenomena since the Guided Democracy era. Standardisation of (almost) everything strategic to the state has been viewed as normalisation. The problem is that diversification has been prone to underemphasis. Moreover, standardisation has inevitably encouraged some sort of nationalistic, (and often) nativistic view. 14 With respect to student life, the normalisation process has particularly been evident in the so-called the Normalisation of Campus Life concept. This policy was launched in 1982 and has de-politicised students in various respects. While this concept deconstructed student activities into scientific and non-scientific, the latter has commonly been associated to a large extent with political activities. University campuses themselves have been regarded as the arena of scientific activities. The implementation of this concept has eliminated the existence of student unionism, a response to student protests in the 1978 elections.

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in Indonesia from the Sukarno era onwards. Abdullah (Abdullah in Nordholt and

Visser eds. 1995) provides an example of a fragile aspect of state bureaucracy.

Based on their study, a research team from a state university concluded

that the Village Administration Law no. 5/1979 couldn't be implemented outside

Java. The Interior Minister asked another team under the leadership of a senior

sociologist to verify the report. The team is always accompanied by staff from the

Ministry and its findings supported the previous conclusion: the law has a

destructive effect on village life. This put the Minister in a difficult position.

There was no way for him to change the law. On the other hand, it was his duty to

implement the law. According to Abdullah (Abdullah in Nordholt and Visser eds.

1995:49):

‘The only option open to the minister was to give instructions to the provincial governors to be more creative in dealing with the law and to request the cooperation of other government agencies.’

In other words, the existence of the Law was accompanied by weak law

enforcement on the part of the ministry.

In short, the practice of a bureaucratic authoritarian format produced

sociologists who are related each other in an interpersonal way rather than as a

solid sociological community at societal level. This can also be seen with

reference to the dynamics of the professional association, which have mainly been

nominal up to now. I share Kleden’s claim that social and professional

organisations are fragile. They can easily become instruments of the state used to

control society. He added (Kleden in Nordholt and Visser eds. 1995:33):

‘If we look at the Indonesian Association for the Advancement of Social Science (HIPIIS), we can only say that the basic criteria for a scientific community are still lacking. To date the main activity of the Association is to have its members come together every two to three years to discuss a theme during the seminar, without much effort to follow-up on what has been discussed. The minimum precondition for a scientific community is that it becomes the meeting of persons as well as of minds’.

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It appears to me that although the content of ISI is different from the

HIPIIS in many respects, sociologists and other scholars of the social sciences

still need to make further attempts in actualising the format of professional

association, if not the change in the practice of style of governance itself.


Based on my discussion of the creation of a sociological community up to the

present, I have reached some conclusions.

My discussion so far suggests that within the practice of the bureaucratic

authoritarianism of the Suharto regime, not only did the state bureaucracy have

effective control over access to resources, but it also made attempts to shape the

sociological community according to its needs and image. The bureaucracy

encouraged the development of a sociological community in Indonesia, but at the

same time controlled that community so that it did not cause any disruption to

state agendas. It appears to me that the bureaucracy also applied its principle of

‘order and progress’ to the development of a sociological community during the

creation of the format of Pancasila Democracy.

On the other hand, Indonesian sociologists themselves are aware of their

conditions and their position within an imbalanced relationship of power with the

state bureaucracy. They have admitted the salience of state patronage in the

development of their community in Indonesia. In fact, as we have seen, they have

used the state’s resources to develop their community, including establishing the

Indonesian Sociological Association. However, as I have already described,

sociologists have made attempts to avoid being completely absorbed by the

bureaucracy and the authoritarian style of governance, and have sought to

maintain a critical stance vis-a-vis the bureaucracy. This, however, can largely be

regarded as individual resistance while the sociologists themselves have,

generally speaking, developed a dualistic approach towards the bureaucracy.

This dualistic approach towards the bureaucracy has consequences

including the construction of a fragile professional identity among Indonesian

sociologists, which has gone beyond the context of sociological production. I will

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discuss this fragility as has been manifested in the content of sociology in the next

chapter.

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CHAPTER VII

SOCIOLOGICAL SCHOLARSHIP AND THE MAKING OF PANCASILA DEMOCRACY

Introductory remarks Sociology and the Pancasila Democracy format

Indonesian sociologists and the modernisation approach Sociology and social development in Indonesia

Concluding remarks


This chapter discusses the content of the sociology of Indonesia in the hands of

Indonesian scholars. My focus is particularly on the struggle of Indonesian

scholars in producing and propagating sociological knowledge within the practice

of a bureaucratic authoritarian regime.

It is my contention that Indonesian sociologists take into account the

interests of the Suharto regime at large in fabricating ‘Indonesia’ only so far as the

interests are in accordance with the cultivation of the societal basis of democracy,

that is, promoting the evolutionary changes in the power ratio that favour the

poor. They take part in promoting the idea of distancing the state from society in a

very subtle fashion. However, as the existing regime itself has been far from being

a champion of democracy, their tendency to co-operate with civilian parties of the

Suharto regime is accompanied by the emergence of a fragile professional

identity.

B. SOCIOLOGY AND THE PANCASILA DEMOCRACY FORMAT

This section discusses the practice of sociology as a scientific process during the

creation of the era of Pancasila Democracy; that is, the process of knowledge

acquisition (ie. of a more adequate knowledge of society) about the relations

between individuals and society during a period when the state bureaucracy has

positioned itself as the dominant force. This process takes the primary form of

conducting research and teaching and involves not only the use of the funds of

sociological knowledge, but also certain skills, creativity and an awareness of

recognising what is feasible. To be included in the latter is the capability for the

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negotiation and manipulation of their circumstances (eg. fellow researchers, and

funding agencies) to achieve and/or adjust their projects accordingly.

The dominant position of the state over civil society in terms of promoting

economic development and the creation of the so-called ‘national ideology’ have

provided an opportunity for the production of sociological knowledge in

Indonesia. And Indonesian sociologists have utilised this opportunity to produce

knowledge from the standpoint of the modernisation approach.

B.1. Authoritarianism and the Mainstreaming of Policy-Oriented Sociology

Although far from being the only determinant, scholars in general appear to have

come to a conclusion that the political-bureaucratic characteristics of the

Indonesian state are crucial for our understanding of the production of knowledge

in Indonesia. Under the political slogan of securing regime maintenance — a

necessity for the continuation of development in Indonesia — the state

bureaucracy has made various attempts to shape the production of knowledge

according to its needs and image.

The attempts themselves have covered areas as diverse as the ideological,

the political and the technical. Amongst the most noticeable of these ideological

and political undertakings has been the distancing of the producers of knowledge

from any questioning of the political and ideological bases of the Suharto regime

— this includes scrutinising the 1945 Constitution, the Pancasila Democracy

format, and the legitimacy of Suharto regime. The roles of scholars and other

knowledge producers have been restricted to supporting their institutionalisation

process. And with respect to the production of the social sciences, the state

bureaucracy has been dominant in defining ‘social problems’ in contemporary

Indonesia. Not only has the bureaucracy created the criteria regarding social

problems, but it has also pointed out specifically what social problems are to be

dealt with by Indonesian scholars. And not surprisingly decision-makers have a

strong tendency to regard the state bureaucracy as the problem solver: it is

societal groups, rather than the state itself, that need normalisation. They have

also often been active in pinpointing research specifications (namely, research

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objects and methods) to such an extent that research findings are expected to be

supportive of policy formulation.

The expectation that sociological knowledge is largely manageable as

input for policy formulation has been indicated, amongst others, by the sceptical

view of the state bureaucracy towards the social sciences, particularly towards

non-economics based social sciences. The promotion of social-scientific

perspectives has at times been regarded a waste of money.

The idea behind this scepticism has commonly been rooted in the belief

that unlike economics, such perspectives have been unable to produce scientific

forecasting upon which policy makers can envisage alternative lines of policy to

anticipate the future. Here, they have been particularly interested in the product

rather than the process of constructing predictions. Informants of my research

from the bureaucracy circles, told me that social researchers have found it hard to

convince policy makers that qualitative methods are as valuable as quantitative

methods, and statistics does not necessarily the only tools to generate reliable

information. Moreover, this idea has gone hand in hand with the belief, as is

claimed by an informant, that scholars in non-economics based social sciences are

preoccupied with efforts to construct their own jargon for the phenomena that the

decision-makers believe they are already familiar with. Although scientific

analyses are important, they have to be crystallised in the form of policy

recommendations which are in line with their interests and pre-conceptions.

Tjondronegoro (Tjondronegoro in Nordholt and Visser eds. 1995:68), for

instance, observed this scepticism:

‘[...] there is [...] the impression that billions of rupiahs have been pursed into social research with little more outcome than a huge pile of reports, offering no solutions to the burning problems of Indonesian society’.

In short as Abdullah (Abdullah in Nordholt and Visser eds. 1995:52) has

claimed, the state determined the agenda of the social sciences to be carried out

by the state bureaucracy or its hired hands during the Suharto era.

Within this context, the scholars themselves have accepted their

subordination to the state bureaucracy. And generally speaking, they have been

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supportive of their dependence on the bureaucracy, particularly for funding.1

There has been the growing feeling among the scholars that an under-utilisation of

non-economics based social sciences in policy formulation has occurred. Not only

have the social sciences been regarded as complementary, but the bureaucracy has

applied strict selection criteria in determining the involvement of those scholars

— taking into account both the expertise and political orientation of the scholars.

According to the proponents of this view, non-economics based social sciences

have been left behind in the development of Indonesia by the relative non-

involvement of social scientists other than economists.

How did Indonesian sociologists produce adequate knowledge during this

reign of the bureaucratic authoritarian regime? There is no doubt that the practice

of the bureaucratic authoritarian regime inevitably limited the scope and

possibilities of sociological knowledge.

One of the areas that Indonesian sociologists have been very careful to

scrutinise is the analysis of the ideological and political bases of the Suharto

regime. They realised that consensus around a core of shared values and norms is

a necessity for social integration in Indonesia. However, while they regarded

discussing the content of the normative pattern as beyond their scientific scope,

they have also developed a tendency to avoid any critical analysis of the

imposition of the normative pattern upon societal groupings. The practice of

authoritarianism has been taken as the context for producing sociological

knowledge rather than as the problem to be analysed sociologically.

Subsequently, there have been few sociological attempts to question the practice

of the 1945 Constitution, namely, its over-emphasis on the authoritarian character

of the Indonesian state and the predominance of the executive branch of the state,

and its under-emphasis of human rights. There have also been few attempts to

scrutinise the domination of the state bureaucracy over the discourse of

nationalism.

1 Based on my collection of 50 Indonesian sociologists’ curriculum vitae, I can conclusively claim that Indonesian sociologists practically have utilised the state for funding – one way or another -- during their career as sociologists. Most use it with reference to policy research.

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Related to the above, Indonesian sociologists have also avoided critical

analysis of ‘political harmony’, an important element of Suharto’s propagation of

the Pancasila Democracy format.

For the Suharto regime, harmony was one of the main themes upon which

sociologists and other social sciences (particularly those with functionalist

preferences) developed a common shared concern, linking the scholarly

community with the bureaucracy. However, it is a fact that the bureaucracy has

dominated the public discourse of harmony, while scholars of the social sciences

tended to avoid any open discussion of ‘harmony’. Subsequently, the reality of

harmony in Indonesia was predominantly left as an abstract concept in the

classroom teaching of sociological theories. There has never been a clear

differentiation between harmony as a fact of life and as something to achieve. The

questions ‘can we put harmony in communal life into the same category with the

harmony at societal level at large?’ and ‘what are the material effects of the

ideology of harmony?’ have been partially answered.2 The answers themselves

have often emerged in conversation among colleagues rather than in treatises. In

general while regarding such a format per se as a political issue (which in

principle, lies outside their scientific domain), they firmly believed that the

domain of scientists basically differed from the domain of the ideologues.

Within this context, rather than analysing the predominance of the state

bureaucracy, Indonesian sociologists have thrown their support behind the

bureaucracy. Amongst the most noticeable scholarly attempts was by Harsya W.

Bachtiar, a student of Talcott Parsons. In his doctoral thesis and early works, he

focused on the functionality of the bureaucracy particularly as an integrative force

in Indonesia. According to Bachtiar, as the state bureaucracy is the most well

established organisation in Indonesia and stands above the plurality of Indonesian

society, thus playing a crucial role in transforming Indonesia into a (modern)

nation. Here, as with other Parsonian works in general, this focus was marked by

2 Kleden (Kleden in Nordholt and Visser eds. 1995:20-2) has differentiated four discursive levels of harmony. Firstly, harmony in the sense of the practice of mutual help in rural areas. Secondly, harmony as an ideology propagated by the elites in rural areas to conceal conflicts. Thirdly, harmony as a proposition which is created by scholars of the social sciences to designate the nature of communal life in rural areas. Fourthly, harmony as an overgeneralised conception which is used by the state to restrict political differentiation and opposition.

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inadequate analysis of the disfunctionality of the state bureaucracy. It appears to

me that such questions as ‘does Indonesia needs a strong state?’ have been put

aside since a positive answer to this question simply becomes ones of his basic

assumptions and points of departure. In analysing the dynamics of the legal

system in Indonesia, Bachtiar pointed out the importance for Indonesia to have a

relatively autonomous legal system in numerous writings.3 However, this

unintentionally provided the state bureaucracy with the justification to develop a

legal system which suits its interests and one whose functions can only be

reviewed and modified by the bureaucracy. Bachtiar appeared to take the

imbalance of power between the state and society in Indonesia — that is, the

context within which the legal system evolves — for granted. The a priori

assumptions about the state’s predominant role leave no room for a genuinely

independent judiciary, or any commitment to the separation of powers in the state.

Moreover, he overlooked the differences between various styles of governance.

There is no doubt that the predominance of the Armed Forces in civilian

life has been one of the most significant factors responsible for the practice of

self-censorship by Indonesian sociologists. So committed are the armed forces to

their dictum of maintaining political stability and security for the sake of

economic growth, that they have indirectly imposed limits on Indonesian

sociologists in producing knowledge. Furthermore, the Armed Forces have

encountered few difficulties in defining public affairs as a threat to political

stability and security and have acted accordingly at will — with the support of

Suharto. The practice of state terror has not been uncommon during the Suharto

era. On the other hand, Indonesian sociologists themselves have developed a

commitment that strengthens the state bureaucracy and facilitates the development

of society in Indonesia — a consciousness which is inevitably linked with the fact

that demand for their services has mainly come from the state bureaucracy. In

short, Indonesian sociologists have been situated to maintain relations with the

bureaucracy to produce knowledge, constrained constantly by the need to obtain

financial support from the bureaucracy and to avoid upsetting (particularly) the

Armed Forces and Suharto. 3 See for example, Bachtiar (1974).

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How can Indonesian sociologists produce adequate knowledge — both as

a means of communication and a means of orientation — under such

circumstances?

Amongst the most common interests that Indonesian sociologists have

developed since the mid 1960s is a focus on issues of poverty. So popular is the

issue of poverty that Indonesian sociologists have predominantly focused on it in

their teaching, research and publication. While acknowledging the great

challenges of implementing an economic growth policy, they have conceived

poverty as a major social problem in Indonesia. This interest has made them

capable of using sociological knowledge and developing a shared interest with the

bureaucracy and the international funding agencies, particularly in so far as their

works concern poverty alleviation. This interest has also positioned them as

complementary to the economists: while the economists deal with promoting

accelerated economic growth, sociologists’ concern is with those segments in

society who pay the cost of accelerated economic growth and enjoy a lesser share

of the cake of development.

Furthermore, Indonesian sociologists have implemented a non-radical

approach in analysing poverty and, in the case of policy research, proposing

policy recommendations. With respect to the causes of poverty, they have

regarded economic growth policy and the behaviour of decision-makers as only

part of the problem rather than the main cause. With respect to formulating policy

recommendations, sociologists have a strong tendency to anchor their ideas on the

assumption that the state bureaucracy is the most responsible agency for poverty

alleviation. Accordingly, they have attempted to formulate recommendations that

can be developed by the bureaucracy within the existing political format and

within the long process of social development. Their policy recommendations

have largely favoured gradual improvement rather than radical changes. Here, in

practising the verstehen approach both towards the poor and the bureaucracy,

sociologists have tended to conceptualise the activities of the poor that try to

overcome poverty as comparable with the existing political format, and not in

opposition to it. Thus, in contrast to the fact that the form of their activities is

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highly political, the content of their activities has largely been a-political. This is

particularly manifested in policy-oriented research and publications.4

The approach of the sociologists and other Indonesian social science

scholars in dealing with poverty and social problems in general — and the fact

that they have primarily acted as some sort of intellectual mediator — has been

commonly criticised as attempting to produce ‘cosmetics’ for covering the

authoritarian nature of the Suharto regime. Related to this, these scholars have

often been viewed as selling poverty in airconditioned rooms to customers whose

living conditions are also above the poverty line. The worst has been the image of

sociologists as ‘NATO’, an abbreviation for ‘No Actions, Talks Only’. Such

accusations have often taken the form of self-criticism. And this has been

manifested in their observable daily scientific activities in collecting first hand

data and reporting their findings based on the utilisation of theories and scientific

methodology (Atal, 1983:3).

None the less, the involvement of Indonesian sociologists in fabricating

‘poverty’ has been significant, for themselves, for the bureaucracy and to a much

lesser extent for the poor themselves. In the first place, such involvement has

provided Indonesian sociologists with the opportunity to practice and improve

their skills as academic technicians in general and their methodology as

quantitative researchers in particular. Although the main reasons for this have

been attempts to associate the making of sociological knowledge with the use of

statistics, such trends have also been favoured by decision makers and politicians,

who preferred to be presented with numbers, statistical distributions and

correlations for policy purposes. The same has also been true with the use of an

ahistorical approach: the use of factor analysis has to large degree replaced the

use of historical analysis. In the second place, such involvement has provided

Indonesian sociologists with an important opportunity to familiarise themselves

with the real issues in Indonesia while exercising their intellectual capability.

Sociologists at the University of Gadjah Mada and at the Agricultural Institute of

Bogor, for instance, have concentrated their scholarly investigations on various

4 Generally speaking academic sociologists have used classrooms as arenas for expressing their critical opinions of the practice of bureaucratic authoritarian regime in Indonesia.

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issues in rural areas first in Java and then in other parts of Indonesia. As have

sociologists in the other provinces. In collaboration with a Dutch university and a

local NGO, sociologists at the Agricultural Institute of Bogor have also taken part

in gaining knowledge in order to generate non-agricultural employment in rural

areas. Sociologists at the University of Indonesia focused on the dynamics of the

urban poor — urban slums, the informal sectors, urban social stratification and

local participation.

In accordance with the above, Indonesian sociologists have also taken part

in developing systematic approaches towards poverty related issues and

popularising the use of empirical research techniques among decision makers.

Amongst the most significant efforts is the formulation of poverty indicators

based upon the conversion of diverse means of livelihood into a common index of

rice consumption per capita. The set of indicators was propagated by sociologists

at the Agricultural Institute of Bogor, with Sayogyo as the leading scholar. It has

been implemented in various parts of Indonesia to identify the distribution of

poverty in various areas and contexts.

In a broader context, the involvement of Indonesian sociologists has been

significant in fostering a greater distance between the Armed Forces and the

civilian bureaucracy. Although the Armed Forces still represent a dominant player

in Indonesian politics up to the present and Indonesian sociologists have a

tendency to leave the armed forces alone, they have taken part in strengthening

the civilian bureaucracy in dealing with social problems. Through their work,

sociologists have socialised the use of a welfare approach among members of the

(civilian) bureaucracy as an alternative to the use of security approach which the

civil servants’ military partners tend to encourage. Such socialisation has involved

introducing civil servants to an awareness of the different perspectives that

Indonesia’s diverse social groups have on issues that are deemed to be “social

problems”. Understanding the issues from the community’s perspective opens up

new possibilities in finding solutions, not least the use of persuasion rather than

fear. Sociologists have helped bureaucrats consolidate a welfare-based approach

as the preferred means of solving problems. They have argued that while

development is intended as a means to improve the conditions of the people (the

250

majority of whom are poor), the state has to work to achieve this overriding

objective — national development. Therefore if state functionaries can alleviate

poverty, they are contributing directly to “development”. Not only is the state

bureaucracy to serve the interests of the people rather than being served by the

people, but the use of welfare approach is more effective than the use of security

approach. Here, although the use of security approach might save the time and

energy of the state bureaucracy, its effectiveness for institution-building is very

questionable. Understood in this way, the use of the security approach (the use of

force) is conditional rather than a necessity.

The role of Indonesian sociologists in the development process has been

one of raising the awareness of decision-makers and influencing the orientation of

civil servants, rather than working directly with social groups. Their educative

role in the state has been to persuade the civil bureaucracy that their duty lies in

absorbing and accommodating societal demands. They have regarded policy

formulation as the generation of attempts by the state to solve social problems.

Poorly conceived public policy, by contrast, creates problems for societal groups.

So important has this been for Indonesian sociologists that they have consistently

found that the failure of policy implementation can largely be traced to a failure

by decision-makers in identifying and accommodating societal conditions and

recognising the just demands of citizens. Sociologists, through the collection of

sound evidence on the formulation and implementation of social policy have

shown that programs rarely fail because the social groups involved are unable to

make good use of the support offered by the state. This avoids facile strategies by

officials that seek to “blame the victim” for policy failures. In general they have

succeeded in showing their civil service clients that imposing policy on societal

groups — including the poor — tends to be rejected by societal groups, creating

alienation, non-involvement, and additional social problems, while having little

prospect of achieving the original aims of the program.

In this awareness raising process, Indonesian sociologists have argued that

the state bureaucracy has its limitations on imposing a development policy over

society. Neither decision-makers nor the state bureaucracy at large are always

right, nor do they constitute the only means of development in Indonesia. Here,

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sociologists have favoured conceiving the development programme as a form of

cooperation between the state bureaucracy and society, within which society is the

subject rather than the object of policy process. They have, generally speaking,

argued that it was the state bureaucracy that gained (short-term) advantages —

rather than the majority of Indonesians — from the use of strict top-down

development planning. For long-term purposes, not only has such practice

inhibited the transformation of social mobilisation into social participation, but it

has also brought about social problems. In short, while accepting that the state

does have an inherent preference for using top-down development planning,

Indonesian sociologists have emphasised the importance for the bureaucracy of

encouraging conditions that are conducive for development through both public

and private means, and encouraging citizens and social groups to take their own

initiatives. The state gradually came to accept the approaches advocated by

sociologists, particularly since the late 1980s. This went hand in hand with the

fact that the state could no longer fully finance the development programme as

they could when windfall revenues from oil were more plentiful. At the same

time, social pressures were building to change the development strategy. The

combination of changing economic fortunes and societal pressures brought about

the need for greater social participation. This happened with a slowdown in the

mid-1980s, including a lasting drop in oil revenues, and this combination re-

occurred in 1997-98, this time bringing down Suharto’s government.

I have mentioned that an aspect of this awareness-raising process concerns

the way social problems came to be defined by the state. Indonesian sociologists

have pointed out the need for the state bureaucracy to differentiate between

ideologically and sociologically based definitions of social problems. They have

pursued this awareness-raising by introducing the idea that official and

ideological definitions of social problems only represent a version of social

definitions. The more the bureaucracy pushes such a definition on society, the

more it falls into the trap of reducing the magnitude of social problems into

individual problems and/or providing a very limited space for societal groupings

to express their own definition. In accordance with this, Indonesian sociologists

have also introduced the difference between subjectively felt needs and

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objectively felt needs to emphasise the need for decision makers to expand input

for policy formulation beyond their own personal experiences and/or the

experiences of a limited segment of society. The worst consequence of failing to

adequately identify the nature of problems is the formulation of misleading

development policy. Since political electoral and media processes do not fully

reflect the nature and extent of social problems throughout the archipelago, the

state has serious deficits in terms of reliable knowledge (by contrast with self-

serving reports by local organs of the state) about social conditions and needs

throughout the country. In the absence of serious scientific investigation of

conditions, or of the free expression of views by the affected social groups,

middle-class Java-based notions can substitute for real information leading to

programs that are poorly designed, if not outright unsuitable, for many

communities — take, for example, rural policies based on Javanese conditions

which are then applied in very different milieux in the outer islands.

The attempts to raise the awareness of the bureaucracy in dealing with

problems during the economic development era have not been without obstacles.

Those whose main intention was to raise societal awareness have also faced the

same basic problems, which have largely come from Suharto and the state

bureaucracy. To be more specific, as they have been so preoccupied with the idea

of obtaining results (ie. economic growth) as quickly as possible, the poor have

been the last to share in economic progress. Too often it was urban riots or other

bloody clashes that roused the bureaucracy to allocate more resources to satisfy

the interests of the poor. Here, Indonesian sociologists used those incidents for

their awareness-raising ‘project’: the state bureaucracy needs to make greater

efforts (ie. to modify its policy) to improve the living conditions of the poor and

to reduce the socio-economic gap in Indonesia.5

It should be emphasised that Indonesian sociologists have neither

abandoned the issue of an economic gap, nor has the state completely neglected

criticism towards its policy. The economists-technocrats of the Suharto regime

5 The acceptance of the economic gap in Indonesia by the state has seldom been rooted in the idea of the universality of class distinction in a broad sense. ‘[...] perhaps because of a socio-cultural or politico cultural bias that assumes that [Indonesian] society is egalitarian’ (Tjondronegoro in Nordholt and Visser eds. 1995:69).

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provided counter scholarly discourse to sociological and other similar discourses

of Indonesia. They claimed that an economic gap is inevitable during the

transitional era of capitalist development and that the bureaucracy has attempted

to reduce inequality, pointing to programs such as the Eight Dimensions of

Equality policy (8 jalur pemerataan) and the multi-stranded attempts to lift

economic growth in East Indonesia, the widening gap between the East and the

rest of the country being one glaring economic gap the regime chose to

acknowledge. The Armed Forces have also been active in keeping political order

in Indonesia, by using repressive measures and various other techniques that

achieve compliance through fear. Tjondronegoro (Tjondronegoro in Nordholt and

Visser eds. 1995:69) has claimed:

‘The government’s emphasis on law and order has the consequence that institutions relating to law enforcement are called in earlier than sociologists. To some extent this approach might silence conflict situations; however, the long-term solutions are often further than ever from reach’.

We are in no position to regard the sociological discourse as in opposition

with the discourse of economists-technocrats. Although sociological interventions

and the success of sociologists in influencing social policy served to strengthen

the division of labour between economic and non-economic based social sciences,

those two have been variants of a broader shared scholarly discourse of economic

development. As a matter of fact, by following a strategy of supporting the state

by providing its policy-makers with a more accurate and complete picture of

society,6 a variant of sociological knowledge has been created that has

inadvertently strengthened the dominant discourse of economic development,

thereby contributing to the dominant discourse of the Pancasila Democracy era.

To be more specific, both economic and sociological experts have taken part in

shifting political discourse from the previous fixation on nation building,

nationalism and national independence to the promotion of a modern economic

6 The idea that the use of sociology to support the state in acquiring a complete picture of society in Indonesia had been widely accepted in almost all bureaucratic circles by the end of 1980s. See Tjondronegoro in Nordholt and Visser eds. 1995) for a detailed description. My own research and interviews confirm the claim that Indonesian sociologists have been basically in favour of such an idea.

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basis of Indonesia. Here, in contrast to the dominant discourse of the Sukarno

regime, not only has the promotion of the economic basis of Indonesia at large

been regarded as an attempt to realise Indonesia’s independence, but such a

determination has also been firmly believed to be more relevant than political-

cultural attempts to establish nation building, nationalism and Indonesia’s

independence in itself.7

The shift has further consequences. Among the most significant ones has

been the shift from viewing communal and political loyalty as ‘independent

variables’ to recognising them as ‘dependent variables’. Political conflict and

communal tensions are no longer regarded as something which springs out of

nowhere. Moreover, scholars have shown that conflicts and tensions of this kind

arise from the way the processes of rapid economic transformation have

developed under a bureaucratic authoritarian regime. Despite the fact that it is

only a small number of Indonesian Chinese who have dominated the economy and

they have only been a part of the Indonesian capitalist class, the most widely

accepted explanation of anti-Chinese sentiment in recent times is that is animated

by broader dissatisfaction about the widening gap between the rich and poor. The

same is also been true regarding the burning of churches. None the less,

sociological practice has gradually contributed to redressing the balance of power

between state and society. It has even contributed to the accumulated pressure for

democratisation in Indonesia. I will return to this issue later in this chapter.

B.2. The Political Meaning Of ‘Value Neutrality’

From the previous section, we can see that although Indonesian sociologists are

extremely dependent on the state, they are still able to produce adequate

knowledge under the Suharto regime even though their fields of inquiry are fairly

limited. Indonesian sociologists are able, to a certain extent, to make themselves

useful in Indonesia. The symbiotic relationship that sociologists have developed

with the state has been largely responsible for this limited success. The bases of

the sociological fabrication of Indonesia itself have been the combination of 7 Kleden (1987:xiv-xv) has noted that social and cultural engineering has been a crucial element in political engineering under the Suharto regime at large. Within this context, I tend to regard both

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supporting the foundations of the existing regime while carefully maintaining a

distance from that format. This is achieved through negotiation with decision

makers, and through avoiding criticism of the state, its domination over policy

process and its lack of neutrality. Accordingly, sociologists have provided almost

no reason for the President and the state bureaucracy (particularly the Armed

Forces) to crush them: the state is better off with sociology than without it.

It is worth emphasising that the above has not completely been due to

shrewd institutional power plays by Indonesian sociologists. Generally speaking,

sociology itself has a methodological mechanism that permits sociologists to take

a subordinate position to the state, namely, the adoption of value neutrality. While

sociologists console themselves with the belief that their work is not influenced

by ideology or by personal interest, their confidence in the value neutrality of

their work is, at best, shared only by certain elements in the state and the educated

middle classes. It is a claim that is not generally conceded in society at large, and

sociologists spend a lot of effort in trying to achieve an acceptance of the validity

of their position among as wide a section of state and society as possible.

Due to their relative lack of power in Indonesia, sociologists have a

tendency to popularise the idea of value neutrality in a narrow sense. Their

understanding of this idea has often mutually supported a Weberian philosophical

sense of the term as interpreted by modernist sociologists. Here, the production of

sociological and other scientific knowledge alike are thought to be inseparable

from the use of scientific methodology, a mechanism to prevent extra scientific

intervention (such as, personal, ideological, political and funding bias). As Yusra

(1995:314) noted in the biography of Soemardjan:

‘[...] sebagai ilmuwan Selo Soemardjan amat memerlukan dan menjaga kebebasan yang diperlukan bagi suatu proses penelitian dan agar hasil penelitian sosial obyektif, tidak dipengaruhi oleh kepentingan-kepentingan non-ilmiah -- misalnya kepentingan bisnis, juga pengaruh kepentingan politik pemerintahan’.

the politically expected and actual roles of Indonesian sociologists as having been rooted in so-called ‘national development’ rather than in ‘national identity’.

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‘[...] As a scholar, Selo Soemardjan zealously guarded and insisted on the freedom necessary to conduct research. [He did this] to ensure that the results of social research were objective, and not influenced by non-scientific interests – such as business interests, or interests arising from government policies’.

The emphasis upon objectivity in the production of sociological

knowledge has promoted the production of descriptive sociological propositions.

Sociologists tend to take this for granted. Furthermore, they have neither opposed

attempts to analyse it, nor provided further elaboration, so much so that little

interest have been shown to Kleden’s analysis of value free social sciences (1987,

1995). For Kleden, a critical Indonesian sociologist, the idea of value neutrality

has been problematical. And he (Kleden in Nordholt and Visser eds., 1995:32)

differentiated this value problematique into several dimensions. The first

dimension concerns values in the context of the constitution of knowledge, that is,

whether the content of the social sciences is founded upon certain values. The

second dimension concerns values (and other normative patterns) as the object of

scientific study. The third dimension is value judgement, namely, whether social

science propositions are merely descriptive, or are they evaluative and normative

in character. The fourth dimension concerns the value implications of social

science knowledge. To sum up, using Frederichs’ categorisation of the modes of

sociological concern (1972), Indonesian sociologists can be regarded as ‘priests’

rather than ‘prophets’. They tend to believe that their scholarly works are

basically value-free, within which extra scientific influences are eliminated to a

considerable extent.

Under the Suharto regime, the idea of the objectivity of sociology has been

institutionalised and expressed as part of the formal accreditation of professional

members of the discipline. When the Indonesian Sociological Association was

established in 1990, this idea was taken as a principle governing its members in

the acquisition of knowledge. According to the Code of Ethics of the ISI,

researchers are required to maintain objectivity and integrity both in theoretical

and applied works within society, also to respect the rights of research subjects,

and make an effort to avoid any misinterpretation of research findings:

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‘Dalam bidang Penelitian wajib menjaga obyektifitas dan integritas dalam hal karya teoretik maupun karya terapan dalam masyarakat; menghormati hak asasi subyek yang menjadi fokus penelitian dengan memberikan informasi yang benar tentang maksud penelitian tersebut; menjaga agar hasil penelitian dikomunikasikan dengan baik sehingga dapat diterima masyarakat tanpa salah tafsir.’

‘The duty [of sociologists] is to uphold objectivity and integrity in both theoretical and applied work in society; [they must] respect the basic rights of the people who are the focus of research, while providing truthful information about the objectives of the research project; [finally, they must] be vigilant to ensure that their research results are clearly communicated so that society receives them free of errors of interpretation.’

In relation to the above, Indonesian sociologists have realised the

importance of academic freedom in Indonesia for the realisation and

manifestation of value-free sociology. However, Indonesian sociologists — and

other Indonesian scholars alike — have been preoccupied with issues other than

clearly formulating concepts of ‘academic freedom’. Answers to such questions as

‘to what extent has academic freedom been relevant to the dynamics of the state

and society in Indonesia?’ have yet to be elaborated; and the idea of academic

freedom has largely been acknowledged as an abstract principle. Here, Indonesian

sociologists have provided only partial answers to the issue of academic freedom

in Indonesia. Their criticism of political restrictions on practising academic

freedom has been expressed mainly in gossip rather than in contemplation: they

tend to play with the idea of academic freedom rather than work on it. And, as

Kleden (1987:xlv) has argued, this has been an uncommon phenomenon among

Indonesian sociologists:

‘[...] tradisi ngobrol masih jauh lebih kuat dari tradisi diskusi. Yang terjadi ialah munculnya berbagai gagasan dan pendapat yang kemudian dengan segera dilupakan lagi, karena gagasan-gagasan itu tinggal buah pikiran yang terpencar satu dari yang lainnya, dan hampir tidak diorganisasikan menjadi suatu kerangka yang lebih bertahan. [...] Yang membedakan sebuah diskusi dari kebiasaan ngobrol ialah bahwa dalam obrolan orang-orang hanya

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bermain-main dengan gagasan sedangkan dalam diskusi orang mengerjakan suatu gagasan.’

‘[...] the tradition of gossip is still stronger than that of discussion. Its manifestation is the creation of various ideas and opinions that are then forgotten, because they are separated one from another and almost lack the organisation to become a more sustainable frame [of thought]. [...] The difference between discussion and gossip is that people only play with ideas in gossip, whereas in discussion they work on an idea.’

The popularisation of value free sociology in a narrow sense has both been

favoured by Indonesian sociologists and received acceptance by the Suharto

regime at large. For sociologists, then their emphasis upon objectivity represented

a precaution, avoiding offending the bureaucracy at large while legitimising their

involvement in the policy process. Furthermore, they fabricated the belief that

their involvement has been morally neutral and descriptive in character. In short,

the popularisation of value-free sociology has provided a normative pattern for

Indonesian sociologists to take over some conventional functions of the policy-

making process that in more open societies would be undertaken by political

parties. Sociologists do this without actually having any party affiliations.

On the other hand, the Suharto regime used the Indonesian sociologists’

belief of value free sociology for its own benefit. This provided the regime with

an image that the regime was tolerant of Indonesian sociologists attempting to

develop their own enterprise. And this was crucial for the regime, which claimed

that a scientific approach was being used to formulate its development policy. If

policy was based on value-free scientific inquiry, then it is largely above

reproach. Furthermore, the minimal discourse of ‘objective knowledge’ by

Indonesian sociologists (namely, that sociologists are independent of normative

judgements) made sociology one of the least threats to the domination of the state

bureaucracy over the policy process, or to the regime’s ‘developmentalism’. The

bureaucracy still had plenty of room to selectively use work produced by

Indonesian sociologists: they could either follow-up, abandon, ignore or reject

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sociological findings.8 Indonesian sociologists themselves have, generally

speaking, accepted that their professional duty is concerned primarily with

providing information on various options for decision making. In this sense, we

have plenty of information on how the sociologists and other scholars have often

allowed practical interests to determine theoretical considerations (Kleden, 1987).

The acceptance of the idea of value free social sciences minimised the

tensions between scholars of social sciences and decision-makers. An example

was the tension experienced between a leading Indonesian sociologist and a state

minister. The sociologist and his team discovered that obstacles to the

development of co-operatives were deeper than the ones that the official report

had indicated. The recommendation that came out of their empirical study was to

change the law regarding co-operatives to facilitate greater societal involvement

in the development of co-operatives. And this positioned the minister in a difficult

situation, so much so that the minister terminated the sociologist’s employment.

Another example was the tension between a sociologist and some high-ranking

state officials. The sociologist questioned the political decision which

acknowledged R.A. Kartini9 as a National Heroine. He also questioned the

relevance of the policy of teaching religion as a compulsory subject in higher

education. In another article, he criticised the use of the birth of the cultural-

nationalist movement Boedi Oetomo during colonial times as the basis for

determining the annual celebration, National Awakening Day. The officials did

not particularly favour such ideas. And yet there were no legal actions taken by

the officials to ‘punish’ him. Within this context, when tension can no longer be

concealed, prosecution has been directed not at the findings and recommendations

themselves, but at the non-scientific activities of the scholars.

Broadly speaking, however, the adoption of restricted value free claims in

Indonesia has led to a bifurcation of sociological discussion. Those things that

serve the state and which have strong claims to value neutrality constitute most of

8 The mis-use of sociological findings has been common knowledge among Indonesian sociologists. For a description of the uses and misuses of sociological knowledge by the state bureaucracy in the policy process, see Yusra (1995) and Abdullah (Abdullah in Nordholt and Visser eds. 1995). 9 An icon for Indonesian women and nationalists, Kartini pioneered Indonesian writing by women in the colonial era.

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the public utterances of sociologists. Privately, their knowledge of society is much

wider, but there are issues that they keep mainly for the private sphere where they

are less vulnerable to the state’s sanctions of terror or other ‘black politics’

practices. The problem of East Timor, the involvement of Suharto’s children in

business, and the authoritarian features of the Suharto regime, for example, have

been of common interest to Indonesian sociologists. Their critical views of those

issues have largely been confined to the private sphere, such as in discussions

among close friends.

To sum up, the dynamics of the discourse of value free sociology has

scientific as well as political dimensions based on the lower power ratio of

Indonesian sociologists to the state bureaucracy. And the blend between those

dimensions has been more crucial than in democratic societies, where there has

been a clearer distance between scholars and decision-makers, and the

institutionalisation of sociology has achieved a more stable condition.

The adoption of the idea of value neutrality in sociology by Indonesian

sociologists has been far from accidental or merely acting as a safety-valve

mechanism to absorb the potential use of force by the state bureaucracy. Among

Indonesian sociologists who have a strong reliance on the modernisation

approach, we can see that the use of this approach is sincere and widely shared. I

will discuss this issue and the influence of the modernisation approach on

Indonesian sociologists in the fabrication of ‘Indonesia’ in the next section.

C. INDONESIAN SOCIOLOGISTS AND THE MODERNISATION

APPROACH

Indonesian sociologists are ‘semi-Indonesians’ in an analytical sense — that is,

they are Indonesians as well as sociologists. I have already shown their

contribution to the bureaucratic practice of the bureaucratic authoritarian regime.

This section discusses their attempts at working within the modernisation

approach, and the surprising contribution of functionalism in creating the basis for

democracy through scholarly works.

C.1. The Modernisation Approach and Regime Maintenance

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My examination to this point of the relationship between Indonesian sociology

and the state under the Suharto regime shows that the struggle to find a legitimate

place in the developmentalist order, one which preserves an important element of

scientific autonomy, has been more important than any engagement with

Indonesian civil society. Thus this relationship with the state has been the main

force for the creation of sociological knowledge and the sociological community

in Indonesia. We also have sufficient grounds to claim that this is due to the fact

that not only has the practice of the bureaucratic authoritarian regime increased

the grip of the state on monopolising the means of violence, financial resources,

and cultural-ideological orientation, but both the President and the state

bureaucracy have used their power with little accountability to society. Under

these conditions, the closer the relation of any given Indonesian sociologist to the

state bureaucracy, the more he or she is able to count on the bureaucracy to fulfil

his or her needs for acquiring sociological knowledge, finance, and prestige.

Given the mutual benefit to bureaucrat and sociologist, the question to

follow is: has the tendency of Indonesian sociologists to be supportive of the

regime — rather than opposing it — been only due to the state’s monopoly and

control over their needs?

It appears to me that the tendency has also emerged out of the use of the

modernisation approach by Indonesian sociologists in fabricating ‘Indonesia’.

Their use of the modernisation approach has reinforced a sense of professional

commitment and voluntarily choice in promoting intimacy with the bureaucracy

and relative tolerance of the bureaucracy. It would be a fallacy to claim that this

intimacy and toleration were merely due to external-bureaucratic forces. To put it

in another way, the influences of the modernisation approach have gone beyond

establishing a bureaucratic authoritarian regime around the mid 1960s: there has

been mutual support and logical consistency between the practice of bureaucratic

authoritarianism and the sociological appropriation of ‘Indonesia’.

Before I elaborate upon this argument, allow me to pinpoint the strong

attachment of Indonesian sociologists to the modernisation approach.

Indonesian sociologists have imported various sociological theories of

development up to now, such as dependency and imperialist, world systems, and

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the mode of production theories. We have no evidence for believing the

development of sociology in Indonesia is isolated from the development of

sociology in the international world, particularly from such developments in

America. And within this context, younger generations of Indonesian sociologists

have been less familiar with the modernisation approach than has Soemardjan and

his contemporaries, and they have also been more critical of some its conceptual

aspects and its bias. None the less, Indonesian sociologists have neither developed

their own sociological approach, nor completely abandoned the one established in

the 1950s by senior scholars like Soemardjan. There have always been attempts to

keep it alive — both in the international arena and in Indonesia.

The attempts to maintain the basic ideas of the modernisation approach in

Indonesia itself can be seen from the activities of Indonesian sociologists. With

respect to the teaching of sociology, various sociological theories of development

have been taught, within which the modernisation approach has been important up

to the present. The use of the modernisation approach to analyse different aspects

of the relationship between the individuals and society has been an inseparable

part of other subjects, particularly standard subjects such as ‘Sociological

Theories’. The popularity of the modernisation approach is also noticeable in

other activities (that is, in research and publications). This usually went hand in

hand with the familiarity of Indonesian sociologists with functionalism. To sum

up, although the modernisation approach and functionalism are far from being the

only sociological approaches in Indonesia, those two seem to be dominant in

informing the appropriation of scholarly knowledge on poverty-related social

issues by Indonesian sociologists. And, as we have seen, the state has cooperated

in allowing sociologists to take issues of poverty as their most important niche for

research and policy advice.

The close relationship between the modernisation approach and the

practice of an authoritarian style of governance under the Suharto regime has been

made manifest in various ways — both in terms of historical events and in the

conceptual dimensions of the modernisation approach itself. Although there have

been attempts to produce other theories of development since the 1970s, those

attempts have not succeeded in replacing the modernisation approach without

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producing an adequate alternative for policy development. Not only have those

attempts ended up in the production of various — and often conflicting —

theories, but the theories have mainly criticised modernisation approach. Other

attempts with similar effects have been observable with reference to

functionalism. Habermas, in his critical theory, succeeded in promoting an

antithesis to functionalism (namely, the destructive effects of stabilisation on

human beings in the capitalist system). Other critical attempts have resulted in the

same fate up to now. In short, the significance of the attempts by post-1950s

sociologists and scholars of the social sciences in general have sharpened our

critical awareness of the basic assumptions and limits of both the modernisation

approach and functionalism, but without greatly influencing scientific practice in

policy-related research.

The influence of both the modernisation approach and functionalism has

been — in some respects — even greater among Indonesian sociologists than in

America and other international centres of sociology. Indonesian scholarly works

have mainly served to consolidate and reinforce those sociological approaches.

Attempts to question their relevance in the Indonesian context have been the work

of individual intellectuals — the mainstream has changed very little. Indonesian

sociologists have been preoccupied with striving to solve social problems rather

than formulating an alternative approach. Indonesian sociologists have been more

interested in being creative ‘users’ of those mainstream approaches and still have

found them to be useful (and often rewarding) for fabricating ‘Indonesia’.

The persistence in the use of the modernisation approach can be

understood by discussing the conceptual dimensions of this approach, namely, its

view of development, the responsibility of intellectuals and scientific

methodology.

It is a fact that modernist theorists have been very productive scholars

during the heyday of the modernisation approach. While Neil Smelser and other

social differentiation theorists have a strong attachment to functionalism, other

modernist theories have looked to the works of Weber and/or Durkheim to anchor

their assumptions, while other modernist theorists have relied on other intellectual

sources. Subsequently, not only have they produced numerous theories based on

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data from diverse societies in non-Western societies, but there have been a great

number of variations of modernisation theories. None the less, the domain

assumptions of those modernist scholars have remained basically the same,

especially in the tendency to distance their works from Marxism (Hoogvelt, 1981,

1982, 1997; Suwarsono and So, 1991). And the anti-Marxist stance has more

often than not supported the characterisation of Marxism as being economically

deterministic. Broadly, they support Weber’s ideas as a superior theoretical

framework to Marxism, and other views which have largely come out of Parsons’

interpretation of European sociological thought from the 1930s American context.

In relation to this, not only have Soemardjan and most of his

contemporaries been trained within this intellectual milieu but they have also

transferred them to the Indonesian arena. Although I have found that none of them

clearly declared themselves to be anti-Marxists, their analysis of Indonesian

society has been far removed from Marxism. This is the notion of sociology that

became entrenched during the 1960s, and it has had parallels with the ideological

slant of the Suharto regime since its beginnings. Furthermore, although the two

might use the same term in different ways, anti-Marxist assumptions have

provided a shared background for them both. And this tendency has been firmly

maintained by the Suharto regime at large. Although the People’s Consultative

Assembly allowed the study of Marxism, there has been no clear distinction

between Marxism and communism, or between Marxist and Marxian ideas under

the Suharto regime. As a matter of fact, the state bureaucracy has developed

various mechanisms to ensure that the study of Marxism is conducted within a

very limited circle. Communism was suppressed by Suharto in the mid-1960s in a

purge that cost hundreds of thousands of lives, and saw many leftists jailed and

exiled for more than a decade. The children of former PKI members cannot be

employed in the civil service. Therefore to advocate a Marxist or Marxian social

theory, and run the risk of being accused of communist leanings, is a dangerous

choice to make.

The modernisation approach promoted common ideas shared by

Indonesian sociologists and the state bureaucracy in another respect, that is, in

their view of social change. Although modernist scholars have favoured social

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transformation in the Third World, generally speaking they promoted the idea of

gradual social changes (eg. a relatively orderly progression through stages of

development).10 This accorded with their tendency to hold reformist and non-

radical attitudes. Their scholarly ideas of revolution in Asia, Africa and Latin

America are far removed from radical prescriptions of taking over of the means of

production by the proletariat and/or peasants.

Given these circumstances, the accommodation of sociologists to the

state’s agenda has not been too difficult. Not only has this been due to their

formal training, but the fact that the possession of a higher degree as a condition

of entry into the profession limits the recruitment base of leaders of the discipline.

A higher education degree (in sociology and other subjects) is common mainly

among the relatively better off families who value higher educational

achievement. These families, these elites share attitudes with decision-makers in

the bureaucracy. The state’s decision-makers also come from a similar

educational, class and elite background. To further reinforce the unchallenged

acceptance of modernisation theory, in accordance with the practice of

bureaucratic authoritarianism, the Suharto regime has propagated such ideas as

anti-radicalism and stages of (economic) development in its attempts at regime

maintenance.

None the less, there are other salient features of the modernisation

approach in the Indonesian context. It serves as a fortifier of state bureaucracy.

The reinforcing effects of the modernisation approach can be seen in various

intentional and unintentional uses of modernisation approach. These include

providing a scientific apology for attempts to maintain the predominance of the

state over civil society, providing knowledge for decision-makers to strengthen

this state bureaucracy, and providing an intellectual bias for the fabrication of the

New Order’s construction of ‘Indonesia’ in general.

Allow me to discuss these features of the modernisation approach in the

remaining pages of this section.

10 Amongst the most elaborate conception of gradual social change has been Rostow’s stages of economic growth (1971).

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There is nothing special about the claim that Indonesia and other societies

in Asia, Africa and Latin America were in a precarious position in the 1970s.

Using different theoretical frameworks, numerous studies have arrived at the same

conclusion. Here, the common domain assumptions of modernist scholars have

made their works distinctive. To be more specific, while acknowledging the

impact of colonialism upon the vulnerability of those societies, they have focused

on the product of colonialism rather than the practice of colonialism in shaping

those societies and their economic, cultural and political vulnerability. They have

interpreted the condition of those societies in the mid 1960s or so as a starting

point of analysis.11

Although there have been various research topics which fall under the

modernisation approach, those studies tend to pay attention to the dynamics of

entrepreneurship and the state in the Third World. Here, assuming the

significance of those societal components, researchers have found that problems

in Third World societies are related to the vulnerability of entrepreneurship and a

regime reluctant to promote entrepreneurship in particular and social development

in general. Within the Indonesian context, for example, Geertz (1963) found that

although the practice of religion among the Javanese and Balinese promoted the

development of entrepreneurship, such effects were limited. On the other hand,

while the Indonesian Chinese are thought to play more significant roles, they

represent a minority group — with different racial attributes — within a

pluralistic society. The state itself has limited resources with which to normalise

Indonesia. Here, Geertz and other modernist scholars of Indonesia (such as

Mochtar Naim) were preoccupied with the questions ‘To what extent can local

entrepreneurs be agents of change?’ and ‘Can the state provide an alternative?’

Soemardjan and his colleagues (including Mely Tan) have a more positive

answer to those questions. Being Indonesian actors themselves, the issues have

been transformed into an expectation that the state should provide a route for

social development in Indonesia. Not only did they share this belief with other

Indonesian scholars (particularly with the economics scholars), Suharto and the 11 This idea was cultivated in particular from the dependency and/or imperialist points of view, such as by Frank (1974, 1979, 1984). Scholars with a postcolonial thesis, such as Lele have also

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Armed Forces, it was also a perspective found within international funding

agencies and the governments of advanced industrialised countries. Subsequently,

as we have seen, Suharto’s regime was showered with foreign funding,

particularly with grants and soft loans. Furthermore, while the Armed Forces have

shared in maintaining security and political stability, the scholars provided

Suharto’s regime with policy programs (and policy recommendations) to advance

Indonesian society.

The preferences to continue to adopt this viewpoint lasted throughout the

Suharto era and Indonesian sociologists maintained this co-operative attitude. The

questions they raised mainly centred around such issues as the extent to which the

state bureaucracy played its role, the impact of state-dominated economic

development, and later, the tendency of the emerging middle classes in 1980s

Indonesia to support regime maintenance. On the other hand, they maintained an

intellectual distance from the capitalists. Their interest in the development of the

capitalist classes in Indonesia was either in criticising the capitalist class or

avoiding discussing them at all. Indonesian sociologists have intellectually never

changed sides from the state to the capitalist classes. While Indonesian

sociologists have more knowledge of the state bureaucracy and the poor than of

the capitalists, scholars in political economy, economics, and management science

have primarily studied the dynamics of capitalism. Accordingly, there have been

few attempts by Indonesian sociologists to develop preferences regarding the

capitalists and their impact on the fabrication of ‘Indonesia’. To sum up, the

modernisation approach has provided Indonesian sociologists with a conceptual

framework to position the state bureaucracy as the main focus of their discourse.

The conceptual framework itself is a complex one. Its acceptance as a

means of orientation by policy-makers both in the advanced industrialised

countries and in Indonesia has had significant political consequences.

Notwithstanding sociologists inclination to see their work as value-free, it is hard

to escape the argument that the modernisation approach is not only a guide to

scholarly research — it is also imbued with strong political predispositions and

proposed it (in Breckenridge and van der Veer eds. 1993:45-75).

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doctrines.12 Its usefulness in the political realm as well as in fields of social policy

is supported the fact that modernist studies have been so complicated that they not

only cover highly abstract-general and middle range concepts (eg. modernity), but

also operationalised concepts (eg. media exposure rate), which are measurable

across different societal contexts. In this respect, not only has the modernisation

approach been largely convincing in a scientific sense for situation analysis

purposes, but it has also provided policy makers with the practical knowledge to

deal with different aspects of social development. To put it in other words, the use

of the modernisation approach has facilitated both diagnoses of social pathology

of the society under study and therapeutic recommendations to deal with so-

called ‘social problems’.

Furthermore, the complexity of the modernisation approach has been

noticeable with respect to its supportive bias towards planned state intervention.

The development of the modernisation approach has reached a point where its

principles can be put into action through such mechanisms, upon which a sense of

the ‘scientific’ has also been attached. In fact, it has helped the development of

social planning, social engineering and other related specialisations, and it has

differentiated the modernisation approach from other scholarly approaches to

social development. Dependency theorists, for instance, have lacked the ability to

promote the construction of an integrated scholarly approach, which has wide

acceptance among different parties within society.

Suharto welcomed the service of Indonesian scholars with this ability to

deal with social problems in Indonesia. He has developed attachments with those

scholars of the social sciences who were optimistic, pragmatic and supportive of

the state bureaucracy. He established political and bureaucratic mechanisms to

ensure the confinement of Indonesian scholars to their ‘legitimate’ roles

throughout his term of office for more than three decades. On the other hand, the

internalisation of the modernisation approach by Indonesian sociologists brought

about a scholarly maturity capable of distinguishing between scientific analysis

and state-sponsored programs designed to change social reality. They are aware of

12 See eg. Lele (in Breckenride and van der Veer eds. 1993:45-75), Frank (1974, 1979, 1984) and Hoogvelt (1981).

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the intimate relations between the two and have developed a conviction that

changing social reality involves moral considerations. And as the latter has been

regarded as being in conflict with their doctrine of value neutrality, they have

confined themselves to the production of empirical and a-historical knowledge to

actualise planned interventions (for technocratic purposes). This has constituted

the sense of the responsibility of Indonesian scholars: to promote the development

of Indonesia.

It should be emphasised that younger generations of Indonesian

sociologists have attempted to familiarise themselves with other approaches.

None the less, they remained considerably attached to the bureaucracy and its

‘modernisation approach projects’. What they do (at best) is to get involved in

criticising some aspects of the sociological ideas of Soemardjan and his

colleagues, rather than abandoning the whole project of the modernisation

approach. They assist their seniors to sharpen their sociological ideas, with

reference to the effects of economic development upon impoverishment of people

who are scarcely able to clothes themselves. While the older generations have set

up ‘the variables’, the younger ones have been preoccupied with attempts either to

justify or to refute some aspects of ‘the variables’. There have only been a handful

of sociologists who consciously distance themselves from the bureaucracy to a

greater extent.

The realisation of planned intervention has significant consequences.

Although I have not been able to find, in the works of Indonesian sociologists,

explicit claims that planned state intervention is a mechanism to deliver

Indonesians from suffering to liberation, it would be less difficult to detect this

orientation in the broad ethos of the discipline. In fact, they have taken for granted

the idea of development is the route to freedom and the liberation of human

beings, while focusing on particular practices of development as the target for

sociological criticism. Furthermore, although having great respect for the

individuals, their emphases have mainly been directed towards fostering a

consensual and a harmonious society — conditions to be created through planned

intervention. They have justified the preference for consensus and a harmonious

society from various angles. An influential Indonesian sociologist, for instance,

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used sociological and non-sociological justifications. With respect to the latter,

this Javanese sociologist claimed that this belief accorded with what he regards as

the Javanese tradition of emphasising the necessity for the microcosmic to adapt

to the characteristics of the macrocosmos. Another leading sociologist embedded

his justification in the idea of the social integration of pluralistic society, namely,

the relevance of using a systemic approach to analyse Indonesia and to promote

the creation of consensus and harmony in a pluralistic society. Other sociologists

have used different reasoning to emphasise the conviction that individual needs

and wishes are satisfied by societal progress.

This is another point which has made Indonesian sociologists supportive

of the state bureaucracy. It is more than using the same language of planned

intervention and consensus with the bureaucracy — they have in principle helped

the bureaucracy to realise its political determination by cultivating the idea that

the bureaucracy is the only agency in society with the ability to facilitate planned

intervention and consensus with the minimal use of force. Here, although they

have admitted that the use of force has been fact of life, planned intervention and

the promotion of consensus lie beyond the use of force by the bureaucracy on the

poor and other societal groups. The use of excessive force is relevant only within

a security approach rather than a welfare approach to society.

There is another significant consequence of planned intervention and the

use of the modernisation approach in general. It has contributed to the

reinforcement of the political prerogatives of the state in Indonesia and thereby

strengthened the already strong state bureaucracy.

I have pointed out that the modernisation approach is a scholarly as well

as a political doctrine of development of Third World societies. As a scholarly

doctrine, the modernist approach has a bias in dividing the world into a tidy

dichotomy of Third World societies against advanced industrialised countries. I

will discuss this later in this chapter. My concern here is the bias of the

modernisation approach in viewing Third World societies as social systems that

are conceptually distinguishable one from one another. Modernist scholars

regarded each of those societies as a societal system with its own internal system

boundaries (that is, cultural, economic and political boundaries). Thus while Third

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World societies are cast in a single-homogenised mould (characterised by

traditional pattern variable and other characteristics that mark them off from

advanced societies), each society is clearly distinguishable from the others, and

each has its own endogenous system boundaries. Indonesia, in this respect, has

been conceptualised as a discrete societal system. A modernist researcher does not

need to be an expert in functionalism to have such a predetermined idea.

A noticeable practice of this is that while having a relatively vivid

intellectual picture that system boundaries are a social fact, modernist scholars

tend to take the boundaries for granted. It appears to me that this has largely been

due to practical reasons: studying the social dynamics within Indonesia is far

more important than investigating the systemic boundaries within which the social

dynamics take place. In this respect, modernist scholars have unintentionally

treated official-administrative boundaries as sociological boundaries of Indonesia

when they conduct research in Indonesia.

Within this context, Indonesian sociologists have little interest in

criticising the above conceptions. In fact, as their focus has mainly been on a

more crucial-practical issue of ‘how do we develop Indonesia?’, analysis of the

sociological boundaries of Indonesia has been listed as one of the lowest priorities

on their agenda. While any discussion of the official-administrative boundaries

only constitute an aspect of sociological boundaries mainly discussed in class-

room talks, generally speaking they have taken the pre-established boundaries for

granted: they have unintentionally made a contribution to reinforcing a sense of

the truth in associating sociological boundaries with official-administrative

boundaries.

These scholarly defined boundaries have far-reaching consequences. Not

only have they provided scientific justification for the state’s definition of the

cultural and economic boundaries of Indonesia, but they have also positioned the

bureaucracy as the one responsible for (the development of) Indonesia. Here, they

have taken part in fabricating the idea that the state — rather than the capitalists

or other non-state elements — is the main agent of change. Thus, in addition to its

capability to facilitate social integration, the state has been regarded as having the

ability to facilitate social differentiation: the state has been at the centre of

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promoting national integration, poverty alleviation, and fostering the growth of

the capitalist classes.

Suharto and the Armed Forces were certainly happy with such thinking. In

addition to the state’s disproportionate power in Indonesia, they have found

scholarly justification for this central position in ‘boosting’ development in

Indonesia, that is, in managing both the flow of exogenous factors (eg. the transfer

of technology in a very broad sense) and endogenous factors (eg. identifying

those groups that will benefit from development). On the other hand, although I

do not share the main argument in Anderson’s state qua state thesis, Indonesian

sociologists have replaced some basic roles of the communists and other

mainstream politicians of the Sukarno era in revitalising the predominance of the

state over society in Indonesia. And thus, not only has the modernisation approach

helped in establishing the bureaucratic authoritarian regime in the mid-1960s, but

in the hands of Indonesian sociologists, it has also contributed to the maintenance

of this regime.

C.2. Orientalist Discourse in the Hands of Indonesian Scholars

I have argued that not only has modernisation approach fulfilled the function of a

scientific enterprise as a means of understanding Indonesia from a sociological

perspective, but it has also helped provide a means of orientation. Additionally,

the latter has served to strengthen the state. Here, while strongly emphasising the

a-political character of their sociological analysis (ie. avoiding the discussion of

controversial political issues), the products of Indonesian sociologists and

Indonesian scholars of the social sciences in general have accorded with the

interests of the state bureaucracy. In the process of accommodating their scientific

practice to the state, not only have the limits of the predominance of the state over

civil society been largely ignored, but Indonesian sociologists have also taken part

in maintaining the practice of the bureaucratic authoritarian regime.

This does not mean that Indonesian sociologists have uncritically accepted

functionalism and the modernisation approach in their struggle for recognition.

This has been conditioned by the fact that sociology is a multiple paradigm

science. Different views of the relation between individuals and society have been

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propagated by sociologists even since the founding times, and sociologists have

been involved in criticising each other’s ideas.

However, instead of scrutinising the philosophical foundation and

ideological bias of their sociological approaches, Indonesian sociologists have

mainly focused their critiques on the relevance of any given sociological

proposition for the Indonesian context. I have found no sociological writings

which have systematically compared Indonesia with other societies. Cross-

cultural and cross-social group studies by Indonesian sociologists have yet to be

conducted. However, it would not be too difficult to get involved in an intellectual

conversation on this issue. During my fieldwork, for instance, a leading

Indonesian sociologist illustrated the difference with reference to the concept of

social groups. He firmly believed that social groups are found in every society.

The concept of ‘social groups’ is universal. None the less, he argued, families in

Indonesia are different from the ones in other societies. Another sociologist told

me some years ago that there was nothing special about the five principles of

Pancasila. Based on his experience of his stay in the US while pursuing a doctoral

degree, he felt that the same principles can also be found among non-Indonesians

(that is, the Americans).

By adopting these and other theoretical stances, Indonesian sociologists

have both deliberately and inadvertently been involved in keeping the Orientalist

modes of discourse alive.

The involvement itself can be identified in conceptualising Indonesia as a

transitional society, in conceptualising historical analysis as optional and in

uncritically adopting the Western construction of the criteria for modernity

(particularly those of the 1950s).

Along with modernist scholars in general, Indonesian sociologists have

adopted in fabricating Indonesia the 1950s dichotomy of modern versus

traditional societies. Indonesia has been a priori conceived as a transitional

society within this intellectual blueprint. I have discussed how Indonesian

sociologists have taken part in fabricating economic development under the

Suharto regime. I have also indicated their preference for emphasising the

importance of the state bureaucracy in the promotion of economic development.

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While economic development has been regarded as the main route to modernise

Indonesia, the state bureaucracy has been viewed as one of the main agents of

such development and the modernisation process.

The adoption of a transitional view of Indonesia, however, has led

Indonesian sociologists into a predicament. Generally speaking, they have

understood that in a transitional society like Indonesia, both the traditional and

modern features of society exist. Furthermore, they have regarded the traditional

features as real and also accepted that some traditional features of Indonesia are in

need of engineering to adapt to the changing conditions and the transition to

modernity. And it would not be too difficult for sociologists to provide some

examples of the empirical representation of the traditional and transitional

features of Indonesia, such as, large sized families, the predominance of the

agricultural sector and the so-called ‘peasant mentality’, and the common practice

of patron-client frameworks among Indonesians. However, they have left

unanswered such crucial questions as whether tradition is socially real or merely a

conceptual apparatus to simplify a sociological view of Indonesia, the criteria of

tradition within the Indonesian context, and the extent to which the Durkheimian

or Weberian criteria can be validly and reliably used within the Indonesian

context? Indonesian sociologists have regarded these three questions as important

issues within the basic research domain, which have less direct-applicable utility

for solving the increasingly pressing and urgent social problems in Indonesia.

Therefore, such issues can be put aside while they concentrate on immediate

issues of social development.

In short, rather than subjecting the Orientalist bias of their scientific

approach to systematic deliberation, Indonesian sociologists have largely

positioned themselves as users of Orientalist discourse in fabricating Indonesia.

An Indonesian sociologist once ‘complained’ that Indonesia was always

regarded as a transitional society during the colonial, Sukarno, and Suharto

periods. He made this observation in a seminar on the labour movement in

Indonesia. This kind of complaint is not unusual. They also commonly believed

that the development of sociology is far from being a universal science. In spite of

this, Loekman Sutrisno and other leading Indonesian sociologists have never

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systematically questioned the basis of such labelling and they have never made

scholarly attempts to overcome the Orientalist bias of sociology. I pointed out

earlier that during the colonial era in Indonesia, the ideas of tradition and

transition were seen as key conceptual tools for understanding Indonesian society.

The cultivation of these and other Orientalist categories in colonial times through

to the present has received little attention from sociologists. Furthermore, they

have made few attempts to systematically distinguish between underdeveloped

and undeveloped elements within Indonesia.

Within this context, Indonesian sociologists have generally accepted the

belief that the Western European and American experience of modernisation is

non-replicable within the Indonesian context. While acknowledging the

importance of Western achievements in promoting modernity in Indonesia, the

paths to modernity in Indonesia follow social diffusion and/or neo-evolutionary

routes. This lies in accordance with the conviction that the transfer of technology

(in the broadest sense) into Indonesia is a necessary condition, both through

bilateral and multilateral frameworks. And Indonesian sociologists have realised

that it has been unavoidable for Indonesia to pay the cost of such technology

transfer. The problems have been to minimise the cost and to maximise the

benefit of the transfer. They have adopted and taken part in further cultivation of

this ‘means-end’ scheme.

The main problems that sociology in Indonesia has faced are: Indonesian

sociologists have had little sociological sense about the criteria for a modern and

economically developed Indonesia.13 They have regarded attempts to formulate

such criteria as largely incompatible with their mission to produce descriptive-

empirical knowledge of aspects of Indonesia that are useful in the development

process. I have pointed out that, generally speaking, Indonesian sociologists have

worked on narrowly defined social issues. They have used their intellectual power

to deal with current problems rather than with the long-term development of

13 Hoogvelt (1981) identified the criteria for development which were commonly promoted by modernist scholars, namely, the urbanisation rate, the rate of literacy and training, the circulation of newsletters, political democracy (eg. general elections and a multi-party system), free enterprise, secularisation, the social mobility rate, differentiation in occupations, the recognition of voluntary associations (eg. trade unions), national integration, the nuclear family, and independent judiciary bodies). I have found no works by Indonesian sociologists to formulate such criteria.

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Indonesia. They have developed a professional self-conception of attaching

derogatory connotations to ‘future Indonesia’ in such a way that they have largely

repressed their need to construct an adequate picture of future Indonesia.

Indonesian sociologists have been analogous to blindfolded actors who have little

sense of what kind of Indonesia that they would like to see in the future. They

have regarded such a search for the future as teleological, which should be

scientifically avoided if not eliminated. Furthermore, although this has been in

accordance with the needs of the state bureaucracy (ie. the major customers of

sociological analysis), the media, publishers and other funding agencies have also

helped in this contraction of sociological focus.

Thus, Indonesian sociologists have led themselves to a predicament. On

the one hand, they have accepted the dictum that modernisation is a global

process. This has provided Indonesian sociologists with intellectual support and a

justification for taking part in modernising Indonesia. On the other hand, they

have been dependent on the works of Neil Smelser, Walt Rostow and some other

prominent theorists of the modernisation approach for satisfying their undeniable

need for a broader picture of the development of Indonesia. I have shown in

chapter IV that modernisation theories have a strong attachment to Orientalism.

Here, Indonesian sociologists have used those ideas as intellectual sources and

they have been critical of the conceptual products of ‘the stages of development’,

and yet their criticisms have focused on particular aspects rather than on the basis

of those products. Indonesian sociologists have acquired plenty of first hand

information about social phenomena in Indonesia. And they have used such

information mainly to criticise some aspects of the idea of the stages of social

development (eg. the growing effects of economic development regarding

inequality, and the observable appearances of McClelland’s ‘N-Ach’) rather than

formulating alternative conceptions. To sum up, they have inadvertently

prolonged the life of Orientalist modes of discourse in the scholarly fabrication of

‘Indonesia’ and taken part in the further cultivation of normalisation of Indonesia.

The extension of Orientalist discourse in the hands of Indonesian

sociologists has also been indicated in the way that sociologists have treated the

historical analysis of Indonesia. They have been influenced by the modernisation

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approach and American social sciences in general. This, coupled with a political

sense of urgency in solving mounting social problems in Indonesia, have led

Indonesian sociologists to regard historical analysis as a subsidiary and

unimportant background to sociological analysis rather than as a fundamental of

sociological analysis. They viewed the use of either quantitative or qualitative

methodology as an alternative to historical analysis. It seems to me that while

conceptualising historical analysis as a scientific means by which to understand

the past in Indonesia, such understanding has been regarded as optional and

effective in providing a historical background of Indonesia. In short, the use of the

modernisation approach has gone hand in hand with the paramount phenomenon

of ‘the retreat of sociologists into the present’ (Elias, 1987a) among Indonesian

sociologists.

Subsequently, not only have Indonesian sociologists abandoned the

Orientalist-colonial construction upon which contemporary Indonesia has been

established, but they have also left the Orientalist bias of sociology largely un-

debunked. They have inadvertently revitalised the idea that collaboration with the

West is required for modernising Indonesia. Such collaboration has been

conceived as a condition for both the technological and bureaucratic

transformation processes in Indonesia.

It should be emphasised that there are scholarly attempts to localise the so-

called ‘Western components’ of sociology in Indonesia and other Third World

societies. However, those have been mainly on a personal basis with poor

documentation and have resulted in either reinforcing the Western-Eastern

dichotomy or criticising the Western domination of social sciences. Kleden’s

(1987) idea of indigenising social sciences was a good example of this. His

analysis ended up in emphasising the need for indigenisation of social sciences,

while he had blurred answers to the questions of ‘What are indigenous social

sciences?’ and ‘Does the indigenisation imply the construction of an Islamisation

of sociology?’ Another example is Sosrodihardjo’s statement (1996:26) that the

use of irrelevant sociological theories in Indonesia allows the use of a Western

parameter to evaluate the Indonesian culture:

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‘Kita mempelajari sosiologi untuk keperluan Indonesia sendiri, meskipun dapat saja kita adakan studi banding. Maka jika kita pergunakan teori-teori sosiologi yang tidak sesuai dengan keadaan negara kita, maka hal ini berarti, bahwa kebudayaan Indonesia diukur dengan tolok ukur Barat.’

‘We study sociology for the needs of Indonesia itself, even though we certainly can carry out comparable investigations [to those done elsewhere]. Therefore, if we are to use sociological theories that are not appropriate for the situation in our country, then it means that we are judging Indonesian culture according to Western standards.’

In short, Indonesian sociologists are only in the earliest stages of scrutinising the

relevance of sociological theories within the Indonesian context and going beyond

the Orientalist bias.

Furthermore, Indonesian sociologists have made few efforts either to

question or support the attempts to orientalise Indonesia. Such political attempts

particularly have taken the form of promoting the Pancasila format as the sole

national ideology, the need for Indonesians to develop national awareness

(kesadaran nasional), and other related topics. The main proponents of Pancasila

ideology have popularised the belief that Pancasila was founded on the cultural

grounds of Indonesia to distinguish Indonesia and Indonesians from other

societies and nations in the world. Here, not only has the bureaucracy preserved

Orientalist beliefs, but it has also developed political and educational mechanisms

to fabricate this colonial heritage.

D. SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN INDONESIA

As I have already discussed both the context and content of sociology in

Indonesia, the focus of this section is on the material effects of the modernisation

approach on the dynamics of Indonesian society. The backbone of my discussion

is on the roles of Indonesian sociologists in the process of democratisation:

sociological identification of the processes of social change in Indonesia is an

inseparable part of social change itself. The engagement of sociologists in work

that fosters democratic development has been particularly noticeable since the

mid 1980s. Although the state bureaucracy has made various attempts to block

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this work, the components of the process became the seeds for further

democratisation in the 1990s.

D.1. Intended Implications of the Modernisation Approach

I have shown so far that the use of the modernisation approach for solving

narrowly defined social problems during the Suharto era has led Indonesian

sociologists to acquire (a fairly restricted) sociological knowledge about

Indonesia. Not only have they been seldom involved in contemplating the

capitalistic and Orientalist bias of the modernisation approach and the link-and-

match between the modernisation approach and the Pancasila format, but they

have also never systematically pointed out the limits of the state’s domination

over society. Instead, they have actively taken part in promoting the stabilisation

of a military-dominated government. They have contributed to the practice of the

bureaucratic authoritarian regime, and reinforcing the state’s domination over

civil society. They have successfully distanced themselves from the use of force,

but, on the other hand, they have often been involved in practices of corruption,

particularly in so far as contracted projects are concerned.

Within this context, it is highly relevant to raise the question: ‘Can the use

of sociology by Indonesian scholars still be regarded as attempts to liberate

Indonesians and to increase freedom?’ or ‘Has sociology undergone goal

displacement in the hands of Indonesian sociologists?’

There is some truth in Kleden’s claim (1995) that sociology and other

social sciences in Indonesia are the science of the state rather than the science of

society. And such dynamics have actually strengthened the state bureaucracy.

Soemardjan (1995), for instance, pointed out some requirements for promoting

development in Indonesia, that is, knowledge of past and present social reality,

knowledge of the shortcomings, weaknesses and mistakes of present society, the

belief in the ability of society to engage in social improvement, ‘how to’

knowledge of social improvement, and a firm belief in providing directions for

development. I have discussed at length the relevance of sociology for policy

makers.

However, my data has indicated that it would not be adequate to interpret

the fortifying effects of sociology upon state bureaucracy as socially destructive

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or reflecting an inability of Indonesian sociologists to influence the dynamics of

Indonesia at large.

Not only has the collaboration between Indonesian sociologists and policy

makers conditioned the institutionalisation of sociology on a massive scale, but

the sociologists and other scholars of social sciences alike have used such

collaboration to influence the dynamics of state bureaucracy. The latter has

especially been achieved under the shared belief of shifting the approach of policy

formulation, from a security to welfare approach. And this has had significant

impact on the internal relations in the state bureaucracy, namely, the relation

between its civilian segment and the Armed Forces. Here, although the Armed

Forces have always attempted to intervene in civilian affairs, a rather clear

division of labour between the two wings of state bureaucracy has emerged.

The influence of Indonesian sociologists in this process of ‘division of

labour’ has particularly been on strengthening the civilian bureaucracy in dealing

with the problems of economic development rather than on directly challenging

the domination of the Armed Forces. Here, while admitting the strategic position

of the civilian bureaucracy, sociologists have made various scientific and political

efforts to raise the consciousness of the civilian bureaucracy in conceiving of

societal groups as subjects rather than as objects of policy formulation. To be

included in those efforts are the promotion of a consciousness that societal groups

do exist in their complexity, the poor have both the ability and the will to improve

their conditions, respect by the bureaucracy for the dynamics of societal

groupings are required and the service of Indonesian sociologists are an

inseparable part of National Development.

The above does not mean that Indonesian sociologists have been

completely immune to interference by the Armed Forces. Both the social and

cultural worlds of Indonesian sociologists and other Indonesians alike have been

affected by military interventions, particularly with respect to the ability of the

Armed Forces to utilise terror and coercive force with relative impunity, and often

with the explicit blessing of President Suharto.14 Subsequently, there has been a

14 Numerous studies have been conducted on this dark side of the armed forces in Indonesia. See eg. Southwood and Flannagan (1983).

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tendency for Indonesian sociologists to feel insecure about the presence of the

Armed Forces. And this has been a mechanism that has contributed to corrosive

practices of self-censorship among Indonesian sociologists.

Such effects of sociology upon the (civilian) bureaucracy have

undoubtedly brought about advantages to the state bureaucracy at large. Its

dominant position in Indonesia has allowed policy makers relative liberty whether

to follow up or abandon sociological findings and recommendations. And when

required, the services of Indonesian sociologists can be used as support for their

statements about Indonesia, authorising views of Indonesia, and maintaining

domination over civil society in Indonesia; while the sociologists themselves have

basically had little ability to control their products once they have delivered them

to the bureaucracy. None the less, they have taken part in promoting some

distance between the civilian bureaucracy and the Armed Forces.

There are other impacts of sociology in Indonesia, namely, long term

impacts in cultivating the societal basis of democracy in Indonesia. Such impacts

represent the other half of the dynamics of sociology under Suharto regime.

D.2. The Cultivation of a Societal Basis of Democracy

Although the inseparability of economic, cultural and political aspects of social

phenomena has been fully recognised in the modernisation approach and

sociology in general, sociologists have been involved in reinforcing some

divisions of labour among scholars of the social sciences since the era of the

founding fathers. The reinforcement of the division of social sciences according to

scientific disciplines has developed furthest among American academics. Its

materialisation among Indonesian sociologists has taken place in their relative

unfamiliarity with the practices and discourses of democracy. While the

deliberation of democracy and democratisation have particularly been the field of

scholars of politics, such issues have also been part of the so-called ‘specialisation

within sociology’ (ie. political sociology).

There have been other inhibiting factors on the sociological discussion of

democracy and democratisation. Those have emerged out of the political situation

in Indonesia. Not only did the Suharto regime dominate the discourse of

democracy, but it also fabricated mechanisms to institutionalise its version of

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democracy in Indonesia. The version of democracy itself (ie. the Pancasila

Democracy) was deliberately transformed from state ideology into the sole

national ideology: the regime’s efforts were directed at inculcating its official

ideology among Indonesian citizens so that it became the core of the nation’s

shared values. Furthermore, the Suharto regime made various attempts to ensure

that the ideological format and the practices of bureaucratic authoritarianism went

uncontested, preventing both the emergence and re-emergence of alternative

ideologies in Indonesia.

The combination of the above factors have been significant in creating

reluctance among Indonesian sociologists in general to openly and directly

scrutinise state force in Indonesia.15 Their criticisms of the state and the

management of state force have mainly occurred in the relatively limited space of

face-to-face discussions. I have found only a few Indonesian sociologists who

have produced writing (prior to the late 1990s crisis) such as on the system of

general elections, democratisation, the party system, Suharto’s dominant roles in

Indonesia, political succession, and the 1945 Constitution. None the less, the

activities of Indonesian sociologists throughout and under the framework of the

bureaucratic authoritarian regime have had some unintended consequences in

facilitating societal demands for democratisation. Sociologists followed different

routes than those approved by the regime in fabricating democratisation,

particularly in so far as non- state components of democratisation are concerned.

It should be emphasised that the routes themselves have developed

relatively independently of the routes taken by non-government organisations. I

have pointed out that such collaboration has been limited: that is, there has been

limited exchange of ideas between most sociologists and NGOs. Both Indonesian

sociologists and NGO activists have a tendency to be selective in developing such

collaboration, particularly regarding such politically sensitive issues as

democratisation. They have been critical towards each other’s works rather than

15 According to Wallerstein (1984:185), ‘the intellectual who cuts himself or herself off from political life cuts himself or herself off from the possibility of truly perceptive social analysis -- indeed, cuts himself or herself off from the truth.’ I do support Wallerstein’s claim of the salience of intellectuals to involvement with political life. Based on my data on Indonesian sociologists, writing treatises has only been a channel for expressing their involvement.

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forming a common cause under the Suharto regime. In short, Indonesian

sociologists have been caught between (less) activism and (more)

intellectualism.16

The involvement of Indonesian sociologists in the democratisation process

itself has been indicated in the first place by their involvement in improving the

material bases of the poor.

Not only have different societies faced different problems and challenges

in developing democratisation, but also different societies have constructed

different paths to the development of democracy. Democratisation itself has never

reached a final, definitive end-state within a state-society relation — including

Indonesia. It remains a regulative ideal, and often a radical one, against which the

actual achievement of any given society may be measured. Various treatises have

been produced to understand the ups and downs of democratisation in Indonesia

particularly since the end of the colonial era.17 Here, neither economic

development nor deliberate attempts to democratise by politicians has had

automatic effect upon the democratisation of society. And during the Suharto era,

increasing tensions arising from unresolved social tensions have led to widespread

demands for democratisation particularly since the late 1980s (Robison in

Hewison et al. eds. 1993:41-74). Here the state could only try to contain the

growth of democratic forces, it could not direct them. Thus social groups and

individuals and social movements beyond total state domination played crucial

roles in advancing democratisation.

Within this context, the roles of Indonesian sociologists in subtly

cultivating democratisation have particularly focused on fabricating the need for

poverty alleviation. And as I have discussed earlier, sociological analyses have

been a part of poverty alleviation programmes.18 The programmes themselves

16 Indonesian sociologists and other Indonesian academics alike have never been ‘ivory tower’ intellectuals. They have been absorbed into community service activities during their career. For one, they would find it very difficult to secure a decent income only on their salary as academics. Furthermore, their relatively blurred job description has provided an opportunity to go beyond the walls of teaching duties. 17 See eg. Ramage, 1995; Bourchier and Legge eds., 1994; Hewison et al. eds., 1993; and Feith, 1962. 18 This does not necessarily mean that Indonesian sociologists are completely absorbed in the social issues of poverty. Many have popularised such ideas as the rule of the law, the role of the

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have promoted the growth of marginally poor Indonesians, that is, people with

greater access to family earning and social mobility than the poor (Schlosstein,

1991; The World Bank, 1990). Those people have greater aspirations for their

children to lead a better life, and they have more ability than the poor to provide

(minimum) education for them. They have had also more purchasing power to

fulfil their basic needs (ie. food, clothing, housing, and health services), and to

diversify their consumption. The advice, analysis and advocacy of sociologists

have tended to reassure bureaucrats that development brings rising expectations

and greater self-esteem by social groups. They have encouraged them to have

confidence in their ability to respond effectively to the upheavals of social change

without resorting to repression.

The improvement of conditions among the marginally poor has had further

effects. The fact that their communities have experienced economic improvement

has encouraged them to strive for better life styles and to have confidence in their

future. Here, there is plenty of evidence that political participation has become

part of their conception of basic needs and that they have also become critical of

the existing political format. They have developed mechanisms to voice their

dissatisfaction, such as engaging in peaceful protests and demonstrations under

the popular belief of justice under the Pancasila19 format rather than relying on

Islamic symbols. They have expected the bureaucracy and the People’s

Consultative Assembly (parliament) to be more accommodative. Factory workers,

for example, have become more open and active in protesting against poor

working conditions and low pay even though there are tremendous obstacles to

legal industrial action. The marginal poor have also become more open in voicing

protests against unfair seizure of their lands. Some students and NGO activists

middle classes, rural-urban discrepancy, and violence through newspapers, weekly magazines, and other popular media. Although their scientific value is debateable, those 4 -7 page articles have positive effects on Indonesians. Such articles have promoted popularity of the sociologists themselves within wider audiences (i.e., to be recognised as ‘experts’ (pakars) or ‘social observers’ (pengamat masalah sosial). Urban middle class Indonesians’ awareness of the abnormality of state-society relations in Suharto era has also been reinforced. Amongst productive writers are Heru Nugroho, Ariel Heryanto, Arief Budiman, Hotman Siahaan, Ignas Kleden, Dede Oetomo, and Satjipto Rahardjo. 19 One of the five principles of Pancasila is social justice. The others are: belief in one God; just and civilised humanitarianism; a united Indonesia; and democracy guided by wisdom, through consultation and representation.

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have often linked up with disadvantaged social groups in their protests and

demonstrations. Furthermore, the latter two have also been active in protests

against the bureaucracy on broader issues: for example, demanding the

resignation of the minister of transportation, and demanding greater

democratisation.

The snowballing momentum of democratic political action has particularly

been noticeable in Jakarta and other urban areas in Java — the main centres of

economic development in Indonesia.

The unanticipated consequences of sociological advice in fostering

democratisation can also be seen in other respects: taking part in creating an

atmosphere of democratisation.

In discussing poverty in Indonesia, Indonesian sociologists have

emphasised the need to conceive the poor as subjects rather than objects of

poverty alleviation programmes. They have criticised the existing top-down

planning and pointed out the impacts of economic growth policy on increasing

economic inequality, and taken part in proposing bottom-up planning framework

as an alternative. Selo Soemardjan, for instance, has noted that both national and

local development must be based on societal needs, articulated by the society and

producing benefits for them (Soemardjan, 1994a: 5). Similar to this, my

informant, a sociologist, has told me in an interview that security approach

mungkin cocok untuk awal Orde Baru. [Security approach] tidak bisa digunakan

lagi untuk menangani kesenjangan kaya-miskin karena hanya akan menghasilkan

penghancuran Indonesia. (Security approach might be effective during the early

years of the New Order era. The use of such approach in handling economic

discrepancy would destroy Indonesia at large). On top of that, sociologists have

stressed the conviction that not only are basic needs basically open-ended, but

they cannot be solely fulfilled through economic improvements that leave them in

the position of being perpetual mendicants. It is sociologically sound for the poor

both to fulfil non-material needs (eg. political participation, personal security) and

to have their definition of fulfilling their needs respected. Tjondronegoro (1984),

for example, has pointed out in his intensive sociological study that participation

and democratisation at large are part of daily life in rural areas. Their existence is

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evidence at hamlets. Here, sociologists have supported each other and created an

expert consensus among Indonesian sociologists that makes their advocacy to the

state so much more persuasive.

The consensual view itself, which has emerged out of their involvement in

contracted projects, has been transmitted to the marginally poor through both the

media and students-activists. Although these ideas are cast in relatively simple

words, they have become part of the daily world of the poor and the marginally

poor. They have become the indirect audience of sociologists. And in mutual

support of their personal experience, the poor — particularly the urban poor and

near poor — have become more critical of the implementation of economic

development policy and components of the bureaucratic authoritarian regime. To

sum up, Indonesian sociologists have taken part in raising the awareness of the

poor and creating a climate for societal demands for democratisation (that is,

greater societal participation in policy processes within the existing ideological

framework).20

It should be emphasised that such sociological views are not advocated by

all Indonesian scholars. Even some Indonesian sociologists, usually of the older

generation, have continued to stress the issues of social integration and assumed

primordial attachments. None the less, the latter has lost its popularity among

Indonesian sociologists across generations particularly since the mid 1980s, while

the issue of the discourse of so-called ‘Asian Values’ has a very limited audience.


Sociologists have secured their existence by establishing a partnership

with the civil bureaucracy as joint contributors to Indonesia’s national

development. They have provided policy formation with superior information and

given the bureaucrats the legitimacy of dispassionate, scientific assessment of

social needs. They persuaded policy-makers they had a complementary role in

development plans with economic technocrats, advising on social policy while

20 It worth mentioning that Indonesian sociologists have never cultivated the societal basis of democratisation single-handedly. Others have also shared a similar view including politicians, some high-ranking state officials (eg. at the BAPPENAS), economist-technocrats, and international funding agencies (eg. the World Bank).

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economist made recommendations about economic policy. To win this degree of

official acceptance, sociologists had to confine their research focus to relatively

narrow, but important, issues such as poverty, and adopt a more applied, short-

term, results-oriented set of concerns.

However, in persuading the bureaucracy that sociology was useful they

won respect for the type of knowledge they could bring to the policy-formulation

process. This was a platform that not only strengthened the civil bureaucracy’s

pursuit of social and economic development. It gave them rationales for proposing

more constructive alternatives to the use of repression. It had a more important

educative, even socialising, influence on the bureaucracy. It persuaded them to

accept the inevitable healthy growth of more assertive forms of participation by

citizens. After a confident experience of sustained social stability, sociologists

gradually won a degree of acceptance within the civil bureaucracy that

overcoming poverty means more than changing economic status, and is linked in

important ways to the greater autonomy experienced and responsibly exploited by

individuals and groups. The sociologists’ success has only been partial, but it is

important, and matches the growing skill with which social groups, NGOs,

students and emerging opposition forces have eroded the paternalistic, top-down

exercise of power by the bureaucratic developmentalist state. There is still a long

way to go, but sociologists have begun the slow process of bringing state elites to

understand that they need to do more than instruct the people. They have to learn

better ways of responding to society as they discover that the people themselves

are the most reliable source of information about social conditions and social

possibilities. This is still a long way from accepting that state agencies and law-

makers are accountable to citizens, but it has moved the outlook within the civil

bureaucracy in a democratic direction, and away from a dependence on force.

If engagement with the state has had its benefits, so, too, has it had costs.

The legacy of an uncritical acceptance of the main tenets of modernisation theory

and Parsonian functionalism live on. It has been complicit with state ideologies in

constructing an established understanding of ‘Indonesia’. Regrettably, even the

Orientalist assumptions about Indonesian society, which should have been shed

with the elimination of colonial rule, still remain enmeshed in sociology’s

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continued reliance on modernisation theory. This is partly a cost of the close ties

with the state and the related absorption with a limited range of policy-oriented

and problem-solving concerns. This has meant that the sociological mainstream

has been largely non-reflexive, and has given little attention to theoretical

critiques of its scientific and professional practice, and very little to the historical,

epistemological and normative dimensions of its scientific practice. As a result of

its peculiarly close engagement with the state, Indonesian sociology has been

neither value-free, nor fully autonomous. Rather it has established a negotiated

domain of relative autonomy for the production of scientific knowledge of

society. The degree of scientific autonomy achieved is related to the specificities

of power and the historical and social context that shaped the Pancasila

Democracy era. This chapter has shown how sociologists have secured their

limited scientific autonomy by opportunistically exploiting their relationship with

the state bureaucracy.

On the surface, Indonesian sociologists have played their role according to

the relatively strict rules and interests imposed upon them by the bureaucracy. Not

only have those rules had strong objective dimensions, but they have also had

strong subjective dimensions. The practice of the bureaucratic authoritarian

regime in Indonesia has been materialised in the reinforcement of the state in the

subjective world of Indonesian sociologists and, in fact, Indonesians at large. We

hardly need a specialist to confirm the fact that the President and state

bureaucracy dominated Indonesia during the making of the Pancasila Democracy

era. And this domination has had a long history in Indonesia, long before the birth

of the Pancasila Democracy era. The state has amassed its strength over society

since colonial times and such accumulation of power has found its scholarly

justification in the hands of foreign and local Indonesianists.

None the less, the subordination of scholars to the state has never been

absolute. And in so far as Indonesian sociologists are concerned, the cost has

brought about the community of Indonesian sociologists whose scholarly

fabrication has constituted elements for the seeds of criticism of the practice of

the bureaucratic authoritarian regime itself. Indonesian sociologists have directly

and indirectly taken part in developing the footpath towards democratisation,

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while scholars of economics have shared in the emergence of capitalism in

Indonesia.

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CHAPTER VIII SOCIOLOGY AND PANCASILA DEMOCRACY-IN-CRISIS

Introductory remarks The escalation of the democratisation movement

The poverty of sociology in Indonesia Concluding remarks


The last part of this thesis discusses sociology within the context of state-society

relations in Indonesia during the 1990s. My discussion particularly focuses on the

dynamics of sociology and Indonesian sociologists until mid 1997.

The main argument concerns the stagnation of the content of sociology in

pre-crisis Indonesia. Although sociology has obtained full recognition as a

scientific perspective by the end of the 1980s, the sociological problems of

Indonesia remained embedded in the official definition of the social problems of

Indonesia. The state’s agenda and the whole practice of social policy by the

bureaucratic authoritarian regime in modernising Indonesian society have

constituted the overwhelming majority of sociological projects in Indonesia.

Indonesian sociologists have been trapped in issues such as the normalisation of

economic circumstances of the poor and promoting their professionalism rather

than taking part in openly questioning the existing style and organisation of

governance ⎯ the ‘engine’ of economic improvement in Indonesia. In other

words, Indonesian sociologists and their scientific mission to bridge das sollen

and das sein aspects of Indonesia have been a part of the social lag in 1990s

Indonesia itself.

B. THE ESCALATION OF THE DEMOCRATISATION MOVEMENT

Although economic improvement does not automatically produce democracy, it

has significant effects upon increasing demands for democratisation. This greater

demand has surfaced in urban areas of Indonesia in the 1990s. Unlike in rural

areas, people in the urban areas have been in a better position, in many respects,

to actualise their demands and to construct opportunities for pursuing such

demands. Accordingly, the contestation of issues fundamental to regime

maintenance has principally taken place in urban areas (particularly in Java).

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In discussing the dynamics of regime change and regime maintenance, I

firmly believe that although there have been various discursive and organisational

attempts to block the flow of democratisation, those attempts have only reinforced

the feeling that Indonesia needs greater democratisation. The discursive

backbones of greater democratisation itself have particularly focused on

redressing the balance between the state and civil society: to push forward the

basic belief that the Suharto regime must observe agreed limitations to the

exercise of state power in Indonesia.

This period of rapid change also unsettled the established environment

within which Indonesian sociology had found its niche. On the one hand, the

regime’s controls over an increasingly complex and restive society were sorely

tested. Conversely, the growing ineffectiveness of social control created greater

opportunities for democratisation.

B.1. Pressures for Regime Change: A Basic Tendency

Although pressures for regime change have occurred since the early years of

Suharto regime, the flow of the pressures differed in many respects in the 1990s.

Not only was the pressure more significant in its scale and originated from a

greater range of directions, but it also occurred within an improved economic

context. Furthermore, unresolved past dissatisfaction with the regime

accumulated, including disaffection with the institutionalisation of Pancasila by

the regime as Azas Tunggal1 with respect to both the management of state power

and civil society.

The pressures for regime change in 1990s basically were present since the

late 1980s. At first, the main issues were numerous and fundamental in building

democracy. They included demands for greater political participation, political

accountability, political-bureaucratic transparency, political openness, succession

(institutionalising the orderly transfer of power after Suharto), disparity of income

distribution, issues of corruption, and distancing politics from business. Some

regional and sectoral problems were sufficiently grievous to become national

issues, such as, unjust compensation for peasants who were forced from their land

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and rises in electricity prices. Unlike the 1970s when overseas investors were

welcomed back, foreign debt and foreign capital became unpopular in the 1990s.

However, these pressures significantly developed over only a few years, so that

by the mid-1990s they coalesced into a focus on the practice of the bureaucratic

authoritarian regime at large and the ideological and constitutional bases of the

state. Key supports of bureaucratic authoritarianism were challenged, such as the

dual function of the Armed Forces and issues of human rights were pressed much

more vigorously. By the mid 1990s, the belief that the armed forces should restrict

their involvement in politics became widespread.

A significant development stemming from this popular tension was also

the growth of new centres of political pressure, even though outright opposition

was proscribed. Because opposition parties capable of developing the nucleus of

an alternative government did not exist, a whole diversity of dissident groups

emerged to occupy niches in the authoritarian structure. The official non-

government parties, PDI and PPP were tame and passive up to the sudden

unanticipated growth in 1995-96 of a mass following that Megawati Sukarnoputri

built through the evocation of her father’s (founding President Sukarno) memory.

Interestingly, the construction of these dissident centres took place from within

both state and society. They included General (ret.) Sumitro, the Petisi 50 group,

groups of armed forces officers (retired and serving), student activists, some

individual members of the parliament (both from the armed forces faction and the

ruling party, Golkar), pro-democracy NGOs, the press, some religious leaders,

and various intellectuals. Lane (1991:27-9) noted the growing alienation from the

regime of sections of the armed forces, as well as independent initiatives taken by

business and the student movement. From these many directions, there were

growing attempts to contest Pancasila Democracy.

During his office as the commander of the armed forces, for example,

General Edi Sudradjat was in favour of political change ⎯ political openness. He

claimed that the development of Indonesia in the 1980s was so complex and had

reached such a stage that the shift from authoritarian style of governance to a

1 The decree issued by the government that all social organisations in Indonesia should base themselves solely on the state ideology of Pancasila.

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more democratic one was essential for securing the future of Indonesia. Not only

would political openness enable the articulation of societal interests and

aspirations, but the development of the society itself had also become more

detached from the state. He suggested that the armed forces should take part in

this shift, namely, openness from within the armed forces.

Another example was the coverage in various media of the domination of

the regime over Indonesian society, including disclosure of evidence implicating

the President himself. The media was persistent in making bold use of the

invitation to openness, and the exposure only concluded when Suharto himself

brought the policy of openness to an end, and many of his associates pointed to

the consequences of glasnost in the former Soviet Union. The need for regime

change, however, grew rather than died with the closure of the issue.

It is worth noting that the Suharto regime itself slowly lost its integrative

force as there have been growing open internal contradiction, amongst others,

within the state bureaucracy particularly since the mid 1980s. Examples of such

tension occurred between the armed forces and Golkar (eg. the open disagreement

by the military to support Sudharmono as Vice President, who was proffered both

by Suharto and Golkar during the 1-11 March 1988 session of the People's

Consultative Assembly), disagreements between the armed forces and the civilian

state bureaucracy (eg. in the case of B.J. Habibie's involvement in the purchase of

armoured ships for armed forces), and pressures for regional decentralisation2

sporadically occurring.3 To sum up, the growing tensions in the 1990s cannot be

understood as ‘simply a contest between the state and civil society, notably the

bourgeoisie’. (Robison in Hewison et al. eds. 1993:46).

Internal contradictions within the regime produced a series of challenges

that the Suharto regime had to face. They became increasingly difficult, though, it

must be said, Suharto handled them very skilfully until the economic crisis of

1997 overwhelmed the regime. As Hewison et al. (1993:6) noted, the various

challenges from society and conflicts among the elites built significant pressure in

Indonesia demanding democratic reforms such as:

2 Decentralisation of authority differs from separatism. The latter has become insignificant in recent years within the national level. See Liddle (1992) and Amal (1992) for details.

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‘First, legal guarantees of ‘citizens’ to participate in the formulation of policies. Second, the institutionalisation of specific political freedoms including freedom of speech, association and judicial rights, as well as representative control over the executive and the bureaucracy. Third, political contestant is considered legitimate and is legally supported. Finally, political democracy is also seen to encompass popular accountability.’

B.2. Attempts at Regime Maintenance

In coping with mounting waves for reform, Suharto and his close circle attempted

to maintain his presidency and the New Order regime as a whole. Many suggested

Suharto had clung to power too long. Despite the repression the reforms he

directed in the 1960s were widely welcomed, and there were, for a while, high

hopes for his government. By the 1990s that mood had long soured, not least

because of his blatant support for the greed and corruption of his family, and the

continued use of repressive measures long after the influence of the communist

party had been completely extinguished. He defended the Armed Forces claim to

have a permanent role in society, politics and economy (the dwifungsi doctrine).

He was content to use the armed forces for regime maintenance, as was

exemplified in the July 1996 incident (namely, the military repression of

Megawati’s PDI supporters at their headquarters in Jakarta).

Generally speaking, there have been two systematic processes upon which

Suharto attempted to secure his regime, that is, the acceleration of the business

interests of his children and relatives, and the creation of new political basis.

With respect to the former process, while there have been attempts among

business actors to push for a more regular market-based environment free from

political interference and favouritism (MacIntyre, 1991), did not bring

transparency, openness and competition in Indonesian business: cronyism has

persisted. As a matter of fact, in so far as Suharto and his children are concerned,

they took advantage of economic development, the office of the president and

political stability to pursue their business interests and to accumulate fortunes

measured in (US dollars) billions. Most of Suharto’s children have been involved

in business and it is common knowledge among Indonesians that abuses of power 3 See eg. Vatikiotis (1992) for details.

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regularly occurred in this process.4 Their business activities have been, amongst

others, in the automotive industry, the lottery, media, public infrastructure,

airlines, banking, and the manufacturing industry.5

Suharto’s circle often justified this accumulation of vast wealth by his

family by appealing to national culture, notably the very strong Indonesian value

of the family. According to this simplistic and disingenuous rationale, it is the

duty of a father to help his children to pursue their interests. B.J. Habibie

explicitly stated this in an interview with a foreign television reporter. On the

other hand, such manipulation of an (almost) ‘sacred’ value created controversies

and rumours. Many Indonesians questioned its implication, noting its self-serving

character and observing the many real-life nuances these values have, particularly

among the poor. Moreover, as the value is paired with another value (namely, that

children should bow to their father’s wishes), and since the involvement of the

President and his children in business has been on such a huge scale as to have

significant political and economic impacts upon Indonesia, the President became

fully implicated in most of the excesses of his children. Even for those for whom

these values have strong meaning there were responses that suggested that the

abuses far exceeded the reasonable boundaries of intra-familial favouritism that

might be seen as tolerable. As well as amassing fortunes, Suharto’s children and

cronies obtained seats in parliament, senior positions in the ruling party (Golkar)

and many other political preferments. To sum up, not only has this involvement

upset the public’s sense of justice, but it has also promoted the return of pre-

modern particularism in Indonesia in many respects, such as, the encouragement

of patronage as a mechanism for access to resources, rather than due process, and

rewards for merit.

4 An informant for this study, an employee at one of the big banks in Indonesia, detected growing dissatisfaction in the business community with Suharto’s children, particularly with his youngest son. Tommy’s pursuit of business interests has largely been dependent upon the shadow of his father. 5 The hard data for their involvement in business is not yet open for public inspection. Amongst the few Indonesian scholars who have actively followed the development of Suharto’s business empire are Christianto Wibisono (Pusat Data Bisnis Indonesia) and George Aditjondro (former lecturer at the Christian University of Satyawacana, Central Java). At present, both have fled the country.

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The growth of the President’s business empire continued throughout most

of the 1990s and at times created local and international controversies. Amongst

the most noticeable ones was what was initially referred to as ‘the national car

project’, and then later as ‘the Mobil Timor project’. Not only have the monopoly

and tax concessions given to the youngest of Suharto’s sons, Tommy, created

tension between Tommy and his elder brother, Bambang, but they so flouted the

norms of free trade (and the interests of the existing vehicle manufacturers) that

the Japanese car industry moved to take international legal and trade action

against Indonesia. Furthermore, the project conditioned further ground for

increasing pressures for universalisation and regime change in Indonesia. The

core justification for the authoritarianism of the New Order was that it was

building a stronger economy and a better society. The perversions of market-

based development that had become entrenched in the late New Order period

undermined the legitimacy of the regime and encouraged demands to stop the

abuses and institute sound development policies. The relatively muted response to

IMF reforms (by contrast with, for example, Thailand) is in part attributable to the

recognition that the causes of the crash were, to an important extent, ‘home-

grown’.

In addition to the above, Suharto’s systematic attempts to create a real

power basis in the changing situation of 1990s Indonesia can also be detected

from B.J. Habibie’s project, the Association of Muslim Intellectuals (ICMI).

ICMI was created in the 1990s with the blessing of Suharto.6 The organisation

was officially founded by B.J. Habibie7 to organise Indonesian (Muslims) to

promote the welfare of Indonesian (Muslims) from the national down to the local

level. Although membership was basically open to Indonesian Muslims who

6 For a detailed description of ICMI see eg. Ramage (1995). 7 Although Habibie, a technocrat and the longest serving minister in the Suharto regime, was assigned to deal with affairs of research and technology, he also had other jobs and functions. These have dealt with both the administrative and substantive issues of advanced scientific research (eg. in the aircraft industry, shipyard, military industry of arms and ammunition, steel industry, the Body for Technological Research and Applied Technology, the Centre for Scientific and Technological Research, and the National Research Council). He has also held positions as a Member of Parliament, and in the advisory board of GOLKAR, the chairman of the ICMI. In short, he has been ‘a champion of advanced technology‘ (van Dijk, 1994), and amongst the few powerful civilian figures particularly since 1990s. Suharto anointed him as his successor in 1998, though probably in the belief that no succession was about to occur.

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loosely regarded themselves as ‘intelligentsia’, the majority of its members have

been high-ranking officers in the civilian state bureaucracy.

What is the significance of the ICMI for regime maintenance?

As MacIntyre (1991:1) noted, three basic mechanisms have been used by

state bureaucracy to absorb the interests of societal groups, that is, patron-client

relationships ⎯ '[.] restricted to personalised and particularist concessions from a

patron within the state to an individual or individuals on the outside'; corporatist

channels; and political input by 'osmis' or absorption. Here, there has been little

doubt that ICMI has been an organisation to be understood within these kinds of

mechanism rather than a reflection of political initiatives of the civil society in

Indonesia. ICMI has been another channel created to manage societal pressures

according to its ability and its will rather than the other way around. Suharto

himself attempted to ensure that the dynamics of ICMI were manageable within

the state corporatist framework. For example, Suharto refused the nomination of

leading figures of ICMI (such as Adi Sasono and Djimly Assiddiqie) for the final

People’s Consultative Assembly of the Suharto era. Amien Rais, the chairman of

Muhammadiyah, was also removed from his position as the chairman of the

expert council of the ICMI, only to become the most outspoken of the opposition

leaders who challenged Suharto in 1998. Adi Sasono, the secretary general of

ICMI, was also reminded to ‘behave himself’. Furthermore, Parni Hardi was

removed from his position as chief editor of Republika, the leading Jakarta

broadsheet created to promulgate the ideas of ICMI.

On the other hand, ICMI has been controversial since its establishment.

And although various aspects and actions of the Association have been criticised

from both within the state and within the society in Indonesia, those criticisms

have been mainly on the (religious) sectarian character of ICMI during an era

within which many Indonesians are in favour of avoiding communal tensions

based on religion or ethnicity, promoting further economic development and

promoting the autonomy of civil society vis-a-vis the state. Some high-ranking

officers from the armed forces have also been against the promotion of the ICMI.

C. THE POVERTY OF SOCIOLOGY IN INDONESIA

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The struggle of Indonesian sociologists since the 1960s has been positive in

shaping the format of the production of sociological knowledge in Indonesia

during the making of the Pancasila Democracy era. I discussed in the preceding

chapter that in so doing Indonesian sociologists have opportunistically

manipulated both the mainstream sociological approach and the practice of the

bureaucratic authoritarian regime. And it seems to me, that generally speaking,

they have retained the format to a large extent in the 1990s. Not only has there

been little contestation of sociological approaches in the 1990s in Indonesia, but

also Indonesian sociologists have deliberately as well as unintentionally preserved

their modes of knowledge production within the existing relations of power.

I will discuss the dynamics of sociology in the 1990s in this section. My

focus is particularly on the idea that the progress of sociology has been left behind

in the wider societal dynamics of Indonesia.

C.1. The Internalisation of a Systemic Approach of Society

I have discussed in the preceding chapter that the practice of the bureaucratic

authoritarian regime has been conducive to institutionalising sociology in

Indonesia since the mid 1960. By the 1990s, the number of sociologists had

grown significantly. Although the majority of Indonesian sociologists underwent

their postgraduate training in American universities, other countries have surfaced

as alternative places for studying sociology, such as, Australia, England,

Germany, and Singapore. Some Indonesian universities have also produced

doctorates in sociology. Furthermore, due to the dynamics of sociology in the

international context, various alternative sociological perspectives have entered

Indonesia. Here, the younger the Indonesian sociologist, the more he or she is

dissatisfied with modernisation approach and/or functionalism. For example, they

have been less convinced of the notion that democracy automatically follows

economic prosperity. The younger generations of Indonesian sociologists also

became critical of the material effects of functionalism in the maintenance of the

status quo. In short, although the emerging ideas created a distance between

Soemardjan and his contemporaries on the one hand and the younger generations

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of Indonesian sociologists on the other hand, I sincerely believe that this has been

fertile ground for formulating alternative sociological approach in the long run.

Interestingly, such attempts have nevertheless remained embedded in the

modernisation approach and in functionalism. Those mainstream approaches have

provided both the Indonesian sociologists of the Soemardjan generation and their

direct or indirect ‘products’ with shared domain assumptions. While the younger

generations of Indonesian sociologists might be dissatisfied with the concepts that

modernist and/or functionalist thinkers have propagated, they have certainly

adopted the very basic assumptions of functionalism and/or the modernisation

approach.8

Amongst the most common bonds between Indonesian sociologists was

the idea of a societal system, an idea that was elaborately propagated by

functionalist thinkers in the US (eg. Talcott Parsons and Robert Merton). In

fabricating ‘1990s Indonesia’, Indonesian sociologists still firmly believed that

Indonesia is a societal system, whose components are interrelated and

interdependent. Differences lie in the extent to which rural societies, the poor in

general and societies in the eastern parts of Indonesia have gained advantages

from the dynamics of economic development in contemporary Indonesia.

Differences have also been manifested with respect to the roles of the middle

classes, the domination of the state in Indonesia, and other components of the

system.

Furthermore, there had been a greater adoption of progressive

development by the 1990s. Here, Indonesian sociologists firmly took for granted

the idea that society progresses both in terms of its differentiation and integration

processes in their construction of ‘Indonesia’. With respect to the former, they

joined other scholars in understanding Indonesia as a society en route to

capitalism. However, while admitting the different routes for capitalist

development, they have had no clear conception of what kinds of capitalist

formation have taken place in present day Indonesia. It has been common for

Indonesian sociologists to take as given that 1990s Indonesia is on the right track

8 My observation of the dynamics of Indonesian sociologists has shown that scientific attempts to scrutinize basic assumptions of functionalism have been minimal.

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for such development. On the other hand, the idea has grown that the maintenance

of the present coercive-based and state-centred integrative mechanism faces

greater difficulties and is unsuitable to the progress of Indonesia at large.

Within this context, Indonesian sociologists have rather been in favour of

the idea of gradual changes than radical changes. Such ideas have been paramount

among Indonesian sociologists of different generations. Disagreement has

occurred only in answering the question ‘how gradual is ‘gradual?’. For example,

although they accepted the idea that the armed forces and civilian state

bureaucracy are necessary in Indonesia, there have been different opinions

regarding the conceptualisation of the functions of the state bureaucracy in

Indonesia. Some sociologists have concentrated on the idea of deliberately

restricting the roles of the armed forces. They have attempted to scrutinise the

concept of the dual functions of the armed forces. On the other hand, other

sociologists have emphasised the idea of democratisation, sustainable

development, and other scholarly ideas which do not directly contemplate the

domination both by the armed forces and President Suharto over Indonesia at

large.

In his inaugural lecture, Soetrisno (1995:43-50) acknowledged that the

secure existence of civil society should be taken into account as an indicator of

national development in the 1990s. Rather than questioning the basis of

contemporary economic development, he forcefully argued the necessity for

economic achievement to go hand in hand with the development of civil society.

And in a reformist fashion, he skilfully emphasised the central roles of the

Suharto regime in institutionalising civil society, which involved such crucial

issues as human rights, societal participation in policy making, and securing the

autonomy of societal groups within the state. Instead of opposing the regime, he

has pointed out the necessity for the state bureaucracy to promote circumstances

conducive for democratisation: the emergence of greater democratisation out of

the practice of the bureaucratic authoritarian regime itself.

Another example of the way sociological discourse has opened up has

been the interest taken in the growing involvement of Suharto and his children in

business. Here criticism has been on the unfair practice of Suharto’s promotion of

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their business interests in the form of abuses of state offices, corruption,

monopolies, concessions, and nepotism. Criticism became widespread due to fact

that the promotion of these interests has placed a burden on the wider society in

the 1990s. There has been a growing tendency among Indonesian sociologists to

regard such practices as preventing progress in Indonesia.

Informants of this study, in various interview sessions, have stated in

different words that the tendency is a setback in the development of Indonesia and

would likely to invite growing dissatisfactions from segments of the society.

Differences of view occurred with respect to the sources of gradual

changes. On the one hand, under the strong influence of the modernisation

approach and of functionalism, the older generation of Indonesian sociologists

remained loyal opponents of institution building. On the other hand, younger

generations have been in favour of emphasising the humanistic dimensions of

gradual changes. Not only have they regarded the interrelationship between social

institutions and individuals, but also some of them have taken a step further in

stressing the strategic roles that the individuals play in social development. They

generally accepted the idea that institution-building itself depends on the

creativity of individuals, and, accordingly, have been critical of the practices of

the bureaucratic authoritarian regime and the imbalances in power relations in

Indonesia.

To sum up, although the modernisation approach increasingly lost its

popularity, Indonesian sociologists have a long way to go before completely

abandoning it, let alone going beyond the mainstream approaches. By the mid

1990s they had largely internalised the conviction that a systemic approach does

not necessarily have a bias for preserving the status quo, but rather goes hand in

hand with gradual changes. I have found no Indonesian sociologists during my

fieldwork who oppose this idea. They have instead emphasised the processual

nature of the societal system.

It is worth noting that the signs of the shifting orientations of sociologists

are more visible in conversations, interviews and seminars rather than in

systematic, elaborated works. An example of this was a seminar on social

development in Jakarta at the University of Indonesia around mid 1995. The

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speakers, senior Indonesian sociologists, argued that there is plenty of evidence

for believing that Jakarta had become the centre for the accumulation of capital

and the formations of a domestic class of capitalists. One in particular jokingly

reminded his audience not to tell other people that he made such claim. The

paucity of published works, which would make such assertions and produce

evidence and analysis to back up the claims that Indonesia is a capitalist society,

has largely been the prerogative of foreign Indonesianists, such as Richard

Robison. The relative silence on such issues is partly due to low priority put on

publication by Indonesian sociologists. Foreign scholars can investigate such

trends with relative impunity. Richard Robison, for example, enjoys great

immunity with respect to political interference of both the state and various

societal groupings in Indonesia. In contemplating the progress of Indonesia, he

developed a thesis that the 1990s Indonesia is on the way to constructing a

parliamentary democracy ⎯ a format which provides guarantees for further

progress.

C.2. Sociology: Pro-Society in a Pro-State

Aditjondro (in Nordholt and Visser eds. 1995:35-42) has written about the shift of

the social sciences from ‘pro-state’ to ‘pro-society’ in contemporary Indonesia. I

have basically shared this view, which emphasises the distinction between the

state and civil society. The main issue is the extent to which such analytical

distinction was borne out by observable practice in the 1990s.

It appears to me that while this ideal was gathering support it was largely

paid lip service until the mid 1990s. Up till then, most Indonesian sociologists

maintained their close collaboration with the state under the practice of the

bureaucratic-authoritarian regime. Here, they faithfully acknowledged their

position to provide the state with policy recommendations on poverty alleviation

through conventional (functionalist) sociological interpretations of Indonesian

society. To a large extent, they were still careful to avoid clashes with the state

bureaucracy.

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Interestingly, the state bureaucracy itself has been on its way to shifting

focus from a concern with social development to the development of advanced

technology. Accordingly, demands for the bureaucracy for sociological studies

decreased. The response of Indonesian sociologists concentrated on criticising

Habibie and his high technology projects rather than on the underlying practices

of the bureaucratic authoritarian regime in Indonesia. They have made attempts to

contest Habibie’s claims about the benefits of the development of advanced

technology in the 1990s Indonesia.9 However, Habibie and other producers of the

sciences of advanced high technology have mainly been dependent on Suharto for

support. They have tried to persuade social scientists to produce scientific studies

in development that are in favour of technological development, and accord it a

crucial role in the modernisation process.

Thus while there has been some movement in the orientation of

mainstream sociologists, they have been slow to break with the established

patterns of symbiosis with the authoritarian state. They have developed some

limited critiques of new problems, but without challenging the fundamentals of

the New Order state. While increasingly sympathetic to a restive and pro-

democratic civil society, they have been in danger of falling behind developments

in society and so losing, to some extent, their relevance to the emerging post-

Suharto society.

D. CONCLUDING REMARKS

I have discussed in this chapter how the roles of Indonesian sociologists and

social scientists in general have been replaced by the producers of advanced

technological knowledge in the 1990s. Furthermore, although they have been

aware of rapid social development in Indonesia, only Arief Budiman, George

Adijontro and a handful of other Indonesian sociologists who have taken the rapid

social development as a sociological focus in ‘1990s Indonesia’. Most Indonesian

sociologists have clung to the roles permitted them under the bureaucratic

authoritarian style of government. For the most part, this state-driven

developmentalism remained the context for the sociological fabrication of ‘1990s 9 One of my informants told me that he told Habibie in person that he believed Habibie’s aircraft

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Indonesia’. They have kept practising what Robert Frederichs’ (1972) refers to as

a priestly mode of sociology. Furthermore, discursive collaboration among

Indonesian sociologists at large is not yet conducive to the collective work of

discovering new orientations once freed from the limitations of bureaucratic

authoritarianism.

industry brings benefits for employees of the industry rather than for people in Irian Jaya.

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CHAPTER IX C O N C L U S I O N

Introductory remarks A summary of research findings

Concluding reflections on the research findings


Scholarship on Indonesia preceded the formation of the independent nation-state

after World War II, and the emergence of indigenous sociologists possessing the

appropriate disciplinary training. Chapters III and IV explored this pioneering

study of Indonesian societies, and noted both the constructions of social life that

endured into the post-colonial era, and those that ceased to be influential. The

development of the discipline in the hands of Indonesian sociologists was

discussed in chapters V, VI, VII and VIII. Although there have been major

differences between the situation of Indonesia prior to and since the establishment

of the republican government, it would be too artificial to overlook a definite

continuity. When Selo Soemardjan and other Indonesian scholars of his

generation took a role in the fabrication of ‘Indonesia’, they were far from

recording their understanding on a tabula rasa. Those scholars and their subject

matter constitute historical phenomena, sedimentary products from colonial

scholarship and colonial power relations, their works being conceived in this

milieu.

This has been one point from many derived from my research findings.

There are two main points that I would like to discuss in this final part of

the thesis in order to obtain a clearer picture of the dynamics of sociology in

Indonesia. In the first place, I would like to provide a general summary of the

preceding chapters and some subsequent conclusions. Secondly, I would like to

contemplate some basic challenges that must be met by Indonesian sociologists in

facing the 21st century.

B. A SUMMARY OF RESEARCH FINDINGS

Although they may have used different language and a range of arguments,

sociologists and other scientists alike have been faithfully committed to producing

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more adequate forms of knowledge. This constitutes a shared belief among them

and continues to be their enduring hope, basic challenge, and responsibility. In so

doing sociologists have actualised this gigantic project not only by producing a

more adequate form of knowledge of the relations between individuals and

society, but also by scrutinising other conceptions of the same subject matter and

constantly discussing the autonomy of their scientific enterprise.

Within this context, I agree with Norbert Elias’ view that it would be

misguided to ask ‘is sociology autonomous vis-a-vis its social context?’ Instead,

the basic question for sociology is concerned with ‘to what extent is sociology

autonomous with reference to its social context?’. The latter has opened up more

opportunity and perspective by raising the autonomy of sociology as the basis of

its formulation and has been an acknowledgment that both sociology and its social

context are processual phenomena. Such a perspective has also been conducive to

understanding the struggle of sociologists to increase the autonomy of sociology

with reference to its context.

My research has been conducted from this second position, and it principal

concern had been with the development of sociology in the hands of Indonesian

scholars. There has been no doubt that this study deals only with a modest

regional variation within the larger, long-term process of the internationalisation

of sociology. Within the various phases of the growth of sociology, my main

focus has been on both the establishment of the sociological community in

Indonesia and the sociological fabrication of ‘Indonesia’ itself from the mid-

1960s up to the mid-1990s. This was a period of rapid modernisation and social

change under the bureaucratic-authoritarian state dominated by President Suharto

(the ‘Pancasila Democracy’ era). Here, I confined myself to defining the context

of sociology in Indonesia, that is, the relation between the state and society in a

changing international context during these three eventful decades.

For data construction purposes, not only have I especially employed

library research and secondary data, but also first hand data collection. Here,

while I have found that library research has been very useful to construct

information about the development of sociology prior to the 1960s in Indonesia,

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the new materials I have been able to assemble have been crucial in building an

account of the dynamics of sociology from the mid-1960s until the mid-1990s.

What are the noticeable features of the primary context of sociology in

Indonesia during the progress and regress of the Pancasila Democracy era?

We have observed that the relation between the state and society in

Indonesia is highly complex. I discussed in chapter V that the relation has been

significantly marked by the dynamics as those of a bureaucratic authoritarian

regime, or in Feith’s terms (1980), ‘a repressive-developmentalist regime’. The

bureaucratic authoritarianism of Suharto’s New Order was highly centralised. The

development of the state and society, and their mutual relations were largely

determined within the state itself through collaboration between the President, the

armed forces and the technocrats. The technocrats who served the state adopted a

perspective in which the discipline of economics predominated. The President, the

military and the bureaucracy were all involved in designing, organising,

implementing and controlling the course of the modernisation of Indonesia. They

were so dominant in policy formation and in prescribing both the needs of society

and the acceptable perspectives about the nature of the social transformation that

wide sections of society were reduced to compliant approbation. The growing

power of the state and its paternalism reinforced the imbalance in power relations

between the state and society in Indonesia. The state was subject to few domestic

constraints, and its autonomy was further facilitated by financial support that the

Suharto regime received from international financial institutions and foreign

investors. These funds were undoubtedly vital in driving the growth of the

Indonesian economy, but they also unavoidably increased the autonomy of the

state vis-a-vis society.

Although the bureaucratic authoritarian regime was a relatively recent

phenomenon, its emergence does not constitute a discontinuity from the past. It

rather represented a surge within the long-term evolution of a severely

imbalanced relation between the state and society in Indonesia. The Dutch planted

the seeds of this imbalanced relation when the VOC was replaced by the colonial

state. The end of Dutch colonialism in 1945-1950 did not permanently reverse the

power of state over society. While the state was for a while weak and disorganised

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in the 1950s, while open political organisation flourished in society, Sukarno and

the Armed Forces reasserted the State’s leading role during the Guided

Democracy era. Suharto took over the legacy of Guided Democracy and the

legacy of colonial administrative practices and made them work with a pro-

capitalist development strategy from the mid-1960s onward.

Scholars of the social sciences have played their roles in the process of the

construction and maintenance of the colonial legacy. I have pointed out the

involvement of Dutch scholars in this process earlier (see chapter III). They took

part in fabricating the modernisation of Indonesian society through the strong

hands of the Dutch colonial state, which was particularly evident since the

launching of the Ethical Policy at the beginning of the twentieth century. Their

policy recommendations to improve the living condition of Indonesians (through

education, for example) and their preference for the process of the Westernisation

of Indonesia were devised without scrutinising the basis of the colonial-created-

state. Furthermore, I have shown in chapter IV how foreign scholars —

particularly under the umbrella of American universities and foreign policy —

replaced the domination of Dutch indologists in the role of constructing

‘Indonesia’. Here the idea of ‘modernising Indonesia’ was largely cultivated with

a strong American influence during the atmosphere of the Cold War. Their

involvement culminated with the fabrication of a need for developing a

bureaucratic authoritarian regime (in the already imbalanced relation between the

state and society) to follow a program of accelerated economic development

which, they believed, would itself eventually strengthen society against the state.

Their scholarly discourse was primarily anchored in the format that featured the

development of a democracy rather than the outright Westernisation of Indonesia.

Nevertheless, those scholars held a shared belief that as the development of

democracy required a certain economic achievement, Indonesia was in need of a

style of governance that guaranteed rapid and sustainable economic development

in a pluralistic society. Restricted political participation was unintentionally

understood to be a ‘trade-off’ for high economic growth.

How do Indonesian scholars produce sociological knowledge within the

restricted intellectual climate of the bureaucratic authoritarian regime?

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Although they have never totally accepted the format of bureaucratic

authoritarian regime, Indonesian sociologists have mainly been in agreement with

the idea of economic development. To be more specific, they have constructed

their scholarship to improve the economic condition of those who are below the

poverty line or who have restricted access to economic resources. And although

they have not been particularly interested in the issues of national integration and

the uses of coercive measures to maintain this national integration, it would not be

too difficult for them to accept the significance of social integration in Indonesia.

They have taken for granted the idea that achieving co-operation among various

socio-economic strata and religious communities constitutes a challenge for social

policy. And within this context, based on the belief in the progress of society,

most Indonesian sociologists have regarded the developmentalist agenda of the

Suharto regime as a means of achieving a better integrated yet more complex

society. Thus, Indonesian sociologists have been able to develop a shared

meaning and commitment with the Suharto regime at large. This has been

manifested in their collaboration with policy makers including the

institutionalisation of the sociological community in Indonesia. In fact, some

Indonesian sociologists have directly taken part in making policy.

The sociological fabrication of ‘Indonesia’ itself has predominantly been

rooted in the modernisation approach and in functionalism, with strong

intellectual affinities to those aspects of the American sociological tradition. So

noticeable has been the influence of those mainstream approaches of the 1950s

and 1960s that it seems to me their conception of a systemic approach has been

largely established in dialogue with leading advocates of these approaches to

sociology. They have also regarded their scholarly activities as attempts to

increase the interdependency among various sections of Indonesian society.

Sociologists have favoured the growth of greater autonomy for the distinct

cultural, religious and regional elements of Indonesian society, while

simultaneously seeking to foster their deepening interdependence.

The above does not mean that Indonesian scholars have isolated

themselves from the development of sociology in the international world. They

used such issues as economic inequality and dependent development, which were

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drawn from dependency theories and critiques of imperialism, to enrich their

modernisation approach in fabricating ‘Indonesia’. In doing this, they recognised

a range of dangers to Indonesia in the global economy and sought to guard against

them without abandoning the strategic commitment to modernisation. Similar

modus operandi were also manifested with respect to other sociological

approaches, to the extent that their use of the modernisation approach and

functionalism has been far from being ‘pure’. The mainstream approaches have

been interpreted and utilised to provide a rude ‘blue print’ and ‘dream’ of what

Indonesia and other Third World countries would be and how to convert that

image into reality.

The unifying logic of these and other ways in which the contours of

sociological ideas and sociological practice have been moulded in Indonesia lies

in the mutual accommodation between sociologists and the state. Each has used

the other in pursuit of their objectives, but the context has been one in which the

sate has possessed great power and has been subject to very few countervailing

sanctions. The regime has also been free to intervene whenever it feels it

necessary. This has not been, for these reasons, an environment that was entirely

favourable to the unfettered development of all aspects of the discipline.

Nevertheless, Indonesian sociologists have used their context both to produce

sociological knowledge, to increase their numbers and to establish their

community. They have used the regime’s social programs to promote social

recognition. They have deliberately attached their ‘sociological projects’ to the

regime’s proposed ‘development’ projects and have become ‘hired hands’ of the

regime. Moreover, they have taken sides in fabricating the development of

Indonesia, including taking part in strengthening the state. The practice of the

bureaucratic authoritarian regime, unlike the populist authoritarian regime of

Sukarno’s Guided Democracy, required the services of social science scholars to

deal with the so-called ‘social problems of Indonesia’. Thus social sciences had a

place in the developmentalist order. Thus most Indonesian sociologists have also

regarded their contribution to Indonesia via performing services for the state as

the responsibility of being intellectuals in a developing country. It appears to me

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that the image of scholars existing in an ‘ivory tower’ is not well suited to a

developing country like Indonesia.

While sociologists have had a commitment to scientific methods,

intellectual integrity and ethical behaviour, it is altogether another matter to assert

that their practice is value free. All of the preceding conclusions stand to the

contrary.

It appears to me that Indonesian sociologists themselves perceive their

value attachment with reserve. They have been relatively tolerant towards the

practices of the Suharto regime and have supported the regime at large in so far as

it has pursued ‘order and progress’ as a high priority in its agenda. Not only have

sociologists emphasised the need for the regime to make greater efforts in shifting

its approach towards a welfare approach, but they also believed that particularism

of Indonesia and other societies alike (such as the ideology of nationalism) is far

from being absolute. They have thus stood in the way of xenophobia and

isolationism.

Interestingly, Indonesian sociologists have been more than keen to

disseminate arguments about the value neutrality of sociological knowledge. They

have been extremely active in cultivating this view. Their attachment to the

doctrine has become almost a core ideological proposition about the production of

sociological knowledge. It is striking, in view of the implausibility of the claim,

given the evidence reviewed here. The implausibility, of course, confronts

sociologists. It is not so obvious to outsiders. Still the question arises: why have

Indonesian sociologists been so insistent on voicing the so-called ‘value

neutrality’ in fabricating ‘Indonesia’?

While the historical and cultural context of late twentieth century

Indonesia is very different, the colonial history of scholarship on Indonesia, with

its strong attachment to the conventional philosophical approach of scientific

knowledge, seems to repeat itself in the hands of modern Indonesian sociologists.

Indonesian sociologists have opportunistically deployed the claim of value

neutrality as a strategy to survive and gain professional recognition in a context of

imbalanced power relations between the state and society, where the use of

coercive force has been a fact of daily life and social integration has often been

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politically conceived in a rather mechanistic fashion rather than in an organic one.

Not only have such conditions prevented Indonesian sociologists from engaging

in an open discussion of the value implications of their works, but such conditions

have also been conducive to concealing the influence of value judgements and

subjective bias in research. Thus, the sociological manufacturing of the value

‘free-ness’ of the scientific approach signified the Indonesian sociologists’

attempt to avoid being completely co-opted into the logic of Suharto’s

bureaucratic authoritarian regime. They are attached to the doctrine, since it partly

insulates them from arbitrary interference by the state.

Yet their degree of autonomy is limited. On the whole I firmly believe that

the dynamic associated with Indonesian sociologists does not correspond with the

autonomy and authority of ‘traditional intellectuals’, as defined by Gramsci

(1973:7). In other social contexts, not only the Western (Italian) one discussed by

Gramsci, the outstanding thinkers of any generation achieve an intellectual pre-

eminence that sets them off, to a significant degree, from too close an association

with any one part of society. These ‘traditional intellectuals’ contribute to society

from a privileged location between classes, which seems ‘to represent an

historical continuity uninterrupted even by the most complicated and radical

changes in political and social forms’.1 In contrast, Indonesian sociologists have

benefited from their privileged position during the building of Pancasila

Democracy, and are unavoidably associated with it. Their scholarly activities have

been located within the social order of this era.

C. CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS ON THE RESEARCH FINDINGS

This thesis has addressed the development of sociology in a post-colonial

Southeast Asian society. It is a large and complex plural society responding to the

upheavals of industrial transformations overseen by an authoritarian

1 Gramsci (1973:7) added that since ‘traditional’ intellectuals ‘experience through an “esprit de corps” their uninterrupted historical continuity and their special qualification, they thus put themselves forward as autonomous and independent of the dominant social group’.

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developmentalist regime. This context, this particular social figuration, has

afforded relatively less autonomy for the development of the scientific processes

of knowledge acquisition than the practitioners of sociology would ideally seek.

Yet, again stressing Elias’ insight that the production of knowledge is always

subject to some extent to social constraints, I have also contended that scientific

practice and the social location of social scientists gives them scope to seek both

knowledge itself and the means of extending the autonomy of scientific practice. I

believe the investigation of the Indonesian case shows the utility of Elias’

approach to the sociology of knowledge in contexts very different to those he

knew best.

The matters I have investigated raise some important issues about the

essential nature of the sociological enterprise as well as about the role in society

of sociologists in particular, and intellectuals more broadly. The role and qualities

of intellectuals (and sociologists) is shown by this study to be profoundly

influenced by the particularities of state, society and history. While it is beyond

the scope of this study, it is instructive to consider in passing how typologies of

intellectuals, categories of knowledge, and the problem of the autonomy of

scientific work are dealt with by certain influential theorists. It is unlikely that

these theories translate easily into the Indonesian context, but they help illuminate

the state of affairs in Indonesia, and the challenges that lie ahead for Indonesian

sociologists. Considerations about these challenges will conclude this section and

the thesis as a whole.

My understanding of Elias’ framework of thought indicated that the

ultimate goals that sociologists share in propagating knowledge both as a means

of communication and orientation are modulated by problems and challenges that

arise from the particularities of their social figuration. They are influenced by the

necessity of finding solutions to these problems. The context of knowledge

production affects the way in which knowledge is pursued, but the activity of

scientists also acts back on the context itself. While the forces at work in different

societies are sufficiently similar to ensure meaningful comparison among social

outcomes — including the distinctive qualities of key social groups like

intellectuals and social scientists — such complex and historically variable

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circumstances can also be expected to give rise to distinct differences in time,

place and society. Thus the profile of Indonesian sociologists given here may be

different from other contemporary industrialising societies, as well as from

advanced capitalist societies. Therefore, while typologies of intellectuals in

general may be illuminating, they cannot be applied to cases like Indonesia

indiscriminately.2

In his Sociological Imagination, Mills (1970) observed that the

bureaucratisation of (mainstream) sociology facilitated the construction of

sociology as a servant of power. He also noted that the critical function of

sociology has been lost in the hands of mainstream sociologists, namely,

functionalist sociologists.

My study has demonstrated that there is some truth to Mills’ assumption,

upon which he rested his observations about the way the magnitude of the balance

of power influenced the dynamics of sociology. However, it appears to me that

the dynamics of sociology are far too complicated to be categorised solely by

reference to the attachment of sociologists to the centres of power. The experience

of Indonesian sociologists has shown that the development of sociology in

Indonesia has been facilitated by the attachment of sociologists to the state since

the colonial era, and not just the post-1965 regime. Furthermore, in contrast to

Mills’ claim, the attachment to the state has, perhaps paradoxically, actually

proven to be a condition for the development of critical attitudes among

sociologists in Indonesia. Here, it seems that the commitment of sociologists to

their own scientific goals and values and the creativity they have shown in

pursuing that commitment, has been significant. These factors of individual

2 Bozoki, Foucault and Steven Brint have also been amongst those scholars who developed an interest in constructing classifications of intellectuals and/or intelligentsia. For example Bozoki (1994) has categorised Hungarian intelligentsia into four major types, namely, technocracy and meritocracy, the ‘popular’ critical’ intelligentsia, the ‘urban' intellectual opposition, and the ‘mediacracy’. Foucault (1977, 1974, 1970) marked intellectuals into universal and specific intellectuals. Steven Brint (1994) emphasised the differences between social trustee professionalism and expert professionalism. It would be interesting and relevant to analyse those classifications in a context other than the present thesis.

316

agency have been too valuable to be taken for granted in analysing the dynamics

of sociology.3

Another theorist who has illuminated the dilemmas of knowledge

production and the issues of whose interests are served by certain types of

knowledge is Jurgen Habermas (1972), particularly his important work

Knowledge and Human Interest. If I were to work with Habermas’ concepts

(Habermas, 1972; Zaret in Calhoun ed., 1991:212-35; Outhwaite ed., 1996), I

would conclude that the sociology in Indonesia has been attached to human

interests rather than having an intrinsic technical nature of its own. The

commitment to the betterment of society in general and the poor in particular has

also contributed to establishing the social status of sociologists in society at large.

Indonesian sociologists and those who dominate policy formulation have

always made attempts to use and support each other’s interests. And that has

created difficulties in applying Habermas’ typology of the sciences within the

Indonesian context. The elements of empirical/analytic knowledge (that is, a type

of knowledge used to understand objects as a means to fulfil the technical need of

the material reproduction of human existence) has, in Indonesia, been intertwined

with hermeneutic/historical knowledge (namely, a type of knowledge employed to

understand meaning-loaded phenomena) as well as with critical knowledge (that

is, a type of knowledge which is concerned with uncovering conditions of

constraint and domination). Furthermore, Indonesian sociologists have had a

relatively strong tendency to employ the modernisation approach and

functionalism to perform their scholarly services and to pursue their interests.

They have also tended to maintain a close relationship with policy makers in

government. And in most cases, their strong reliance on policy research ⎯ in

varying degrees ⎯ has inevitably positioned them as a tool of economic and

3 The emphasis on the commitment and creativity of sociologists is in accordance with Gouldner’s view (1979) of intellectuals as the new class. According to Gouldner, there have been indications that intellectuals are on the way to becoming a class. The basis of the new class is cultural capital and it has inevitably been in tension with the old moneyed class. None the less, Gouldner’s argument appears to be in need of further elaboration and must take into account the development of sociologists, intellectuals and intelligentsia in Indonesia and in other developing capitalist societies. Those societies have existed in the same system with advanced capitalist societies within the same epoch. For critical analysis of Gouldner’s theses see eg. Etzioni-Halevy (1985), Lemert ed. (1991), and Brint (1994).

317

political interests in controlling the (social) world of Indonesia. While that may be

the case, it is also true that Ignas Kleden, Ariel Heryanto, Arief Budiman, Selo

Soemardjan, Paulus Wirutomo and other leading Indonesian sociologists have

been no less involved in raising awareness (particularly) of the policy makers with

respect to the dynamics of society (and, particularly, the difficulties of the poor)

in Indonesia.

While very difficult conditions, to some amelioration of the harsher

consequences of bureaucratic authoritarianism, they are also aware that the

entrenched practices of the discipline fall short of their own ideals, and are falling

behind the rapidly advancing agendas of post-Suharto Indonesia. How can they

proceed to shape their discipline in the next century, being conscious that the

institutional form of the discipline reflects its accommodation to Suharto’s New

Order. The present arrangement cannot be assumed to be a suitable foundation for

future development.

Indonesian sociologists are little different to sociologists in other countries

— they would like to see a semi-autonomous sociology in Indonesia. They have

made systematic attempts up to the present to produce knowledge as a means of

communication and as a means of orientation. However, we have also seen that

they are well adjusted to the conditions that prevailed under the New Order, and

will need to make serious adjustments if they are to realise their shared ideals.

Among the issues they have to deal with in their scholarly works are the

following:

First. Although Indonesian sociologists have cultivated the emergence of

welfare approach in Indonesia, they only have limited knowledge about the way

the mechanisms of violence are systematically deployed as tools of social control.

State violence, the use of the ‘security approach’, has been a substitute for

democratic negotiation about the terms of integrating Indonesia’s many societies

into a unified whole. Sociologists have avoided systematic scientific investigation

of this side of state domination. They have, of course, encountered issues of state

violence as individual citizens, yet they have little systematic knowledge about it.

The achievement of democratic reforms will be aided by making this knowledge

available. Furthermore, such knowledge has yet to be shared and opened up to

318

scholarly scrutiny so that they raise public awareness of the practice of ‘black

politics’ in Indonesia.

The second basic challenge that Indonesian sociologists have yet to deal

with is the formulation of an agreed basis of academic freedom, and its pursuit as

part of the post-Suharto reform process. They have attempted to practice

academic freedom, but what they can do now is to put more effort into cultivating

the seeds of academic freedom and engaging in open declarations of their

principal position. This way, not only have they taken part in strengthening the

basis of democratisation in Indonesia through their scholarly works on poverty

alleviation, economic development and other projects to normalise society in

Indonesia, but they will also be active in promoting democratisation themselves.

The latter is another route for democratising social life in Indonesia, namely, by

increasing their autonomy in an interdependent context and taking part in

developing a structured civil society and an integrated political society.

Furthermore, attempts to formulate academic freedom would demonstrate their

concern for the development of sociology in Indonesia and their self-conception

of being intellectuals rather than academic technicians within the state-society

relation.

Another challenge for Indonesian sociologists concerns their responsibility

as intellectuals to produce sociological knowledge to liberate human beings. Their

collaboration with policy makers during the Suharto era has been conducive to

promoting sociology both as a means of communication and orientation. To a

large extent, this was also manifested in the collaboration between Dutch scholars

and colonial rulers in producing indology. Just as the colonial scholars played a

part in bringing about the Independence movement, Soemardjan and his

contemporaries had played a role in building some societal basis for the

democracy movement. The next challenge is to go beyond the ‘here and now’

dimensions of constructing ‘Indonesia’; to take part in such basic issues as human

rights, the balance between the state and society, citizenship and various

dimensions of democratisation itself in a changing world system. And while such

attempts have inevitably required closer collaboration with activists, they have

319

taken pro-active roles in, what Touraine (1995) has regarded as the formation of

action sociology.

297

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