Financing Politics in Indonesia

Mohtar Mas'Oed,Amalinda Savirani

doi:10.22146/pcd.25741

Abstract

This paper aims to map out practices of political financing in Indonesia from the political to the socio-historical perspective. Arguing about the party financing and the corruption of politicians and the parties, this paper also proposes about strategies at the individual level for performing financing politics, as well as factors that help to explain their performance. It compares cases in three different periods of Indonesian history: the post-independence, the Suharto (New Order) era, and reformasi after the fall of Suharto in 1998. This paper discusses and analyses the financing politics belonging to the political and socio-historical perspective, the issue of financing politics, the results of mapping students theses from three universities in Java together with relevant papers by LIPI (the Indonesian Sciences Institute), and directly presents three case studies of individual performing financing politics. Two of the case studies concern with politicians from the post-independence and Suharto era, while the third concerns a member of the city of Solo's local parliament. This paper shows how financing politics would be no longer relevant, as the cultural capital, political capital, and social capital also may contribute in supporting one's political career.

Highlights

Over the past few decades, democratisation has become the major factor behind political changes in the ‘Global South’
It has aimed to broaden the perspective of the study beyond a political science point of view
The political school dominates the study of financing politics

Summary

Introduction

Over the past few decades, democratisation has become the major factor behind political changes in the ‘Global South’. In the context of Indonesia, studies on financing politics have so far focused on state subsidies and the corrupt nature of political parties(Mietzner, 2007; Sulaiman & Klinken, 2007; Hadiz & Robison, 2004; Lay, 1993). Total state subsidies have fallen 89 percent since before 2005 from IDR 105 billion to IDR 10.5 billion (Mietzner, 2007, p.244) These factors have forced political parties to seek alternative sources of funding in order to maintain their activities. Studies on political parties were limited, as there were only three parties allowed—and they were controlled by the government, while elections were held with expected results

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Conclusion

Findings

92 Bibliography