What makes large, multi-ethnic states hang together? At a time when ethnic and religious conflict has gained global prominence, the territorial organization of states is a critical area of study. Exploring how multi-ethnic and geographically dispersed states grapple with questions of territorial administration and change, this book argues that territorial change is a result of ongoing negotiations between states and societies where mutual and overlapping interests can often emerge. It focuses on the changing dynamics of central-local relations in Indonesia. Since the fall of Suharto’s New Order government, new provinces have been sprouting up throughout the Indonesian archipelago. After decades of stability, this sudden change in Indonesia’s territorial structure is puzzling. The author analyses this "provincial proliferation", which is driven by multilevel alliances across different territorial administrative levels, or territorial coalitions. He demonstrates that national level institutional changes including decentralization and democratization explain the timing of the phenomenon. Variations also occur based on historical, cultural, and political contexts at the regional level. The concept of territorial coalitions challenges the dichotomy between centre and periphery that is common in other studies of central-local relations. This book will be of interest to scholars in the fields of comparative politics, political geography, history and Asian and Southeast Asian politics.

Since 1998, which marked the end of the thirty-three-year New Order regime under President Suharto, there has been a dramatic increase in ethnic conflict and violence in Indonesia. In his innovative and persuasive account, Jacques Bertrand argues that conflicts in Maluku, Kalimantan, Aceh, Papua, and East Timur were a result of the New Order's narrow and constraining reinterpretation of Indonesia's 'national model'. The author shows how, at the end of the 1990s, this national model came under intense pressure at the prospect of institutional transformation, a reconfiguration of ethnic relations, and an increase in the role of Islam in Indonesia's political institutions. It was within the context of these challenges, that the very definition of the Indonesian nation and what it meant to be Indonesian came under scrutiny. The book sheds light on the roots of religious and ethnic conflict at a turning point in Indonesia's history.

"This book addresses one of the most crucial questions in Southeast Asia: did the election in Indonesia in 2014 of a seemingly populist-oriented president alter the hegemony of the political and economic elites? Was it the end of the paradox that the basic social contradictions in the country’s substantial capitalist development were not reflected in organized politics by any independent representation of subordinated groups, in spite of democratization? Beyond simplified frameworks, grounded scholars have now come together to discuss whether and how a new Indonesian politics has evolved in a number of crucial fields. Their critical insights are a valuable contribution to the study of this question." — Professor Olle Törnquist, Department of Political Science, University of Oslo "A most valuable book for understanding the underpinnings of Indonesian politics in 2019 and beyond. A great range of themes are included: political parties, ideologies, political Islam, leadership legitimacy, the political middle class, the politics of centre–local relations, corruption, limited foreign policy reform, Papua, and youth activism. The book has eleven chapters, mostly by Indonesia-based analysts, plus a couple of wise old hands. Max Lane’s overview chapter is excellent." — Professor David Reeve, School of Humanities and Languages, University of New South Wales

Indonesian Education: Teachers, Schools, and Central Authority, the first published study of life inside Indonesian schools, explores the role that classroom teachers' behavior and locates their actions within the broader cultures of education and government in Indonesia.

There is a major contradiction in contemporary politics: there has been a wave of democratization that has swept across much of the world, while at the same time globalization appears to have reduced the social forces that have built democracy historically. This book, by an international group of authors, analyzes the ways in which local politics in developing countries - often neglected in work on democratization - render democratic experiments more or less successful in realizing substantial democracy.

Smith deciphers the paradox of the resource curse and questions its inevitability through an innovative comparison of the experiences of Iran and Indonesia.

Thirty-six essays by a team of leading scholars providing a global coverage of the history of nationalism in its different aspects - its ideas, its sentiments, and its politics.

The Islamization of politics in Indonesia after 1998 presents an underexplored puzzle: why has there been a rise in the number of shari'a laws despite the electoral decline of Islamist parties? Michael Buehler presents an analysis of the conditions under which Islamist activists situated outside formal party politics may capture and exert influence in Muslim-majority countries facing democratization. His analysis shows that introducing competitive elections creates new pressures for entrenched elites to mobilize and structure the electorate, thereby opening up new opportunities for Islamist activists to influence politics. Buehler's analysis of changing state-religion relations in formerly authoritarian Islamic countries illuminates broader theoretical debates on Islamization in the context of democratization. This timely text is essential reading for students, scholars, and government analysts.

The formation of the Riau Islands Province (RIP) in 2002 is argued to be part of a broader trend of pemekaran (blossoming) that saw the creation of seven new provinces and more than 100 new districts throughout Indonesia after the fall of the New Order. This article argues that the main motivation for these subnational movements was a combination of rational interests and cultural sentiments. In the case of RIP, rational interests involved struggles over unfair distribution of power and resources, including the way development under the control of (mainland) Riau Province had been detrimental to the peripheral and archipelagic people of Riau Islands. Cultural sentiments also played an important role, as the people of the Riau Islands considered themselves as “archipelagic Malays” and heirs of the great Malay-maritime empires of the past, as opposed to “mainland Malays” who were mostly farmers. Since becoming its own province, RIP has been performing well and has surpassed Riau, the “parent” province, in multiple aspects including human development, poverty alleviation, and government administration. Ultimately, the formation of RIP is argued to be a natural process in a large, diverse, and decentralizing country like Indonesia, where cultural identities are being reasserted and local autonomies re-negotiated. Despite the usual hiccups such as capacity gaps and corruption, the formation of the Province has been positive in achieving a balance between keeping the country intact while allowing local stakeholders a substantial level of autonomy.