Authoritarianism and Constitutional Politics in Post-Authoritarian Indonesian Society: Reemergence or Legacy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21776/ub.blj.2022.009.01.07Keywords:
Anti-subversion law, constitutionalism in Indonesia, Pancasila, post-authoritarianism, social organization lawAbstract
This paper discusses how the legacy of authoritarianism in Indonesia has influenced the country’s post-authoritarian constitutional politics. Because of some degree of ideological continuity from the authoritarian period, post-authoritarian Indonesia shows a unique situation of constitutional politics. Specifically, the positioning of Pancasila as an incontestable state ideology exposes the freedom of expression and association to severe risks, even in post-authoritarian Indonesia. In the discussion of post-authoritarian Indonesian society and constitutional politics, I review how the violation of Pancasila has been defined in Indonesia both during and after the authoritarian period. To explore this issue, I examine the court judgments concerning the anti-subversion law in which anti-Pancasila activities were defined to restrict opinions. I then review the social organization law amended in 2017 to argue how the law links Pancasila with the discourse of Asian values. In conclusion, this paper argues that both during and after the authoritarian period, the interpretation of Pancasila was restricted, thus subjecting Indonesia’s political freedom to risk.
References
Abdurrahman, Wakhidun, Adi Sulistiyono, and Abdul Manan. “The Concept of The State Law of Pancasila.” Souuth East Asia Journal of Contemporary Bussiness, Economics and Law17, no. 5 (2018): 71–72.
Aspinall, Edward. “Student Dissent in Indonesia in the 1980s.” Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1993.
Bourchier, David. Illiberal Democracy in Indonesia: The Ideology of the Family State. New York: Routledge Politics in Asia Series, 2014.
Burns, Peter. The Leiden Legacy: Concepts of Law inIndonesia. Netherlands: Brill, 2002.
———. “The Post Priok Trials: Religious Principles and Legal Issues.” Indonesia47 (1989): 61–88. https://hdl.handle.net/1813/53910.
Chen, Albert HY. “The Achievement of Constitutionalism in Asia: Moving Beyond “Constitutions without Constitutionalism.” In Constitutionalism in Asia in the Early Twenty-First Century, edited by Albert H.Y. Chen, 1–31. Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Creutzledt, Naomi, Marc Mason, and Kristen MacConnachie, eds. Routledge Handbook of Socio-Legal Theory and Method. New York: Routledge, 2020.
Cribb, Robert. “The Incredible Shrinking Pancasila: Nationalist Propaganda and the Missing Ideological Legacy of Suharto.” In The Return to Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia, edited by Thomas Reuter.Melbourne: Monash Asia Institute, 2010.
Grimm, Dieter. “Types of Constitutions.” In The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law, edited by Michel Rosenfeld and András Sajó, 98–132. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Hadiz, Vedi R. Localising Power in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia: A Southeast Asia Perspective. Redwood: Stanford University Press, 2010.
Heryanto, Ariel, and Vedi R. Hadiz. “Post-Authoritarian Indonesia: A Comparative Southeast Asian Perspective.” Critical Asian Studies37, no. 2 (2005): 251.
“Indonesia: The Anti-Subversion Law: A Briefing.” Amnesty International, 1997. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa21/003/1997/en/.
Simanjuntak, Marsillam. Pandangan Negara Integralistik. Jakarta: Grafiti, 1994.
Thio, Li-Ann. “Constitutionalism in Illiberal Polities.” In The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law, edited by Michel Rosenfeld and András Sajó, 133–52. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Uhlin, Anders. Indonesia and the ‘Third Wave of Democratization’: The Indonesian Pro-Democracy Movement in a Changing World. Routledge, 1997.
Yulardi, Wendra. “The Dynamic Interpretation of Pancasila in Indonesia State Administration History : Finding Its Authentic Interpretation.” Novelty11, no. 1 (2020): 42–47.
Bojonegoro Court Decision Number No.9/PTS.PID.SUBV/1981/
Court Decision No.01/PID.SUBV./1981/PN.KTB
Court Decision No.2/ III/ 1983/ PIDANA BIASA SUBVERSI/ PN.BJN
Court Decision No.7/PTS.PID.B.SUBV/1983/ PN-LSM
Court Decision No.06/ PTS.PID.B.SUBV/ 1983/ PN.LSM.
Court Decision No.3/ PID.B/ 1984/ PNS
Central Jakarta Court Decision No.225/ Pid.B/ 1996/ PN.Jkt.Pst.
The constitutional court decision No. 140/PUU-VII/2009
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Yuzuru Shimada
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
This journal embed or display simple machine-readable CC licensing information. This journal allow reuse and remixing of content in accordance with a Creative Commons license, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY NC)
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY NC) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
