Constitutional Change and Democracy in Indonesia (Problems of International Politics) - Softcover

Horowitz, Donald L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1107641152 ISBN 13: 9781107641150

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2013

Synopsis

After the fall of its authoritarian regime in 1998, Indonesia pursued an unusual course of democratization. It was insider-dominated and gradualist, and it involved free elections before a lengthy process of constitutional reform. At the end of the process, Indonesia's amended constitution was essentially a new and thoroughly democratic document. By proceeding as they did, the Indonesians averted the conflict that would have arisen between adherents of the old constitution and proponents of radical, immediate reform. Gradual reform also made possible the adoption of institutions that preserved pluralism and pushed politics toward the center. The resulting democracy has a number of prominent flaws, largely attributable to the process chosen, but is a better outcome than the most likely alternatives. Donald L. Horowitz documents the decisions that gave rise to this distinctive constitutional process. He then traces the effects of the new institutions on Indonesian politics and discusses their shortcomings as well as their achievements in steering Indonesia away from the dangers of polarization and violence, all the while placing the Indonesian story in the context of comparative experience with constitutional design and intergroup conflict.

About this title

Book Description:

This is the story of how democracy became entrenched in the world's largest Muslim-majority country. Indonesia was threatened by a possibility of deadlock over a new constitution and by violence between Islamic and secular groups. It managed to overcome these divisions by adopting an unconventional, gradual course of constitutional amendment that made consensus possible. The Indonesians also adopted political institutions that preserved their political pluralism and provided incentives for politicians to behave moderately. As a result, Indonesia has managed to hold multiple elections and to transfer power peacefully.

About the Author:

Donald L. Horowitz is the James B. Duke Professor of Law and Political Science at Duke University. He is the author of The Courts and Social Policy (1977), winner of the Louis Brownlow Award of the National Academy of Public Administration; The Jurocracy (1977), a book about government lawyers; Coup Theories and Officers' Motives: Sri Lanka in Comparative Perspective (1980); Ethnic Groups in Conflict (1985, 2000); A Democratic South Africa? Constitutional Engineering in a Divided Society (1991), winner of the Ralph Bunche Award of the American Political Science Association; and The Deadly Ethnic Riot (2001). Horowitz has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago Law School and the Central European University as well as a visiting fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge, at the Law Faculty of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. In 2001, he was Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics and in 2001-2002, he was a Carnegie Scholar. In 2009, he was presented with the Distinguished Scholar Award of the Ethnicity, Nationalism and Migration Section of the International Studies Association. Horowitz is currently writing a book about constitutional design, particularly for divided societies, a subject on which he has advised in a number of countries. In 2010-11, he was a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center. In 2011-12, he was a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the US Institute of Peace and in 2013, he will be a fellow of the American Academy in Berlin. Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1993, he served as president of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy from 2007 to 2010. In 2011, Horowitz was awarded an honorary doctoral degree by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the Flemish-speaking Free University of Brussels.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1107641152
• ISBN 13: 9781107641150
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 342