The intervention of oligarchy in the Indonesian legislative process
| Published date | 01 June 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/20578911231159395 |
| Author | Derwin Tambunan |
| Date | 01 June 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Original Research Articles |
The intervention of oligarchy in
the Indonesian legislative
process
Derwin Tambunan
The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Abstract
Contemporary scholarship suggests that in post-Soeharto Indonesia, politics have become more
democratic, replacing a brutal military dictatorship with considerable autocratic governance that
appears to value a democratic governance system. However, exactly why there has not been an
actual change in democratic policy-making in the parliament remains poorly understood.
Contemporary scholarship asserts that the Indonesian policy-making process is characterized by
‘empty ritual’instead of a genuine political process, due to the oligarchic nature of Indonesian pol-
itics. Nonetheless, there are few explanations of how or to what extent oligarchydictates the policy-
making process at the legislative level; instead, we are left with an unclear picture of the current
political process of policy-making in the parliament. This study aims to fill this gap and investigate
how oligarchy has used cartel-like strategies to overcome the legislative process in the parliament.
A literature review and analysis of secondary data sources were employed to answer these ques-
tions. The findings show that the persistence of oligarchic cartels is evident in the legislative process
of the Election Act 7/2017. This suggests that Indonesian oligarchs have hijacked the parliament’s
democratic policy-making process, finding ways to achieve consensus in passing bills and thereby
evading complex disputes to dictate policy to their economic and political benefit.
Keywords
cartels, legislation, oligarchy, parliament, policy-making
Introduction
In the post-Soeharto regime, after 1998, some scholars had hoped that Indonesia would transform
itself from a brutal authoritarian regime to a new era of reform (Acemoglu and Robison, 2001;
Robison and Hadiz, 2004, 2017). However, much-anticipated benefits from such a reformation
Corresponding author:
Derwin Tambunan, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Brisbane, Australia.
Email: d.tambunan@uq.net.au
Original Research Article
Asian Journal of Comparative Politics
2023, Vol. 8(2) 637–653
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/20578911231159395
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have not transpired; instead, Soeharto’s military brutal authoritarianism has been replaced by an
undemocratic oligarchic political system (Aspinall and Berenschot, 2019; Berenschot, 2018;
Mietzner, 2013; Winters, 2016, 2013).
This study examines how the oligarchy has intervened in the legislative process of Indonesia’s
national parliament. Mainstream political discourse claims that, in the post-Soeharto regime,
Indonesian politics has shifted from authoritarianism to oligarchy, in which material power deter-
mines Indonesia’s politics and economy (Abdullah, 2016; Bourchier and Hadiz, 2003; Choi, 2009).
Scholars such as Hargens (2020), Slater (2018, 2004), and Ambardi (2011, 2009) suggest that
Indonesian politics post-Soeharto is characterized by cartels. Slater (2018) proposes that these
cartels have engendered unbalanced interactions among political parties so that Indonesian politics
is now dominated by a group of strongmen. Hence, this study explores how oligarchy employs car-
telized strategies and functions in the legislative process.
The central hypothesis of this research is that the Indonesian oligarchy uses cartel strategies to
capture the decision-making process in the parliament, thus maintaining their ascendancy in
Indonesia’s politics and its economy to perpetuate their domination. Election Act 7/2017, particu-
larly its Article 222, will be discussed to substantiate this hypothesis. This particular Act is exam-
ined because the legislative process of this bill enables a valuable analysis; this process has
substantially impacted the political process in contemporary Indonesian politics and is considered
a core strategy for party oligarchs to entrench their political hegemony to enable their access to state
resources and broader networks in the new political landscape (Persada, 2020; Rakhmatulloh, 2021;
Sucahyo, 2021).
This article is organized as follows. Firstly, I will discuss the research objective, followed by a
literature review. In the study’s central part, we have the case analysis and discussion. Finally, I
summarize the findings and articulate the conclusion.
Research objective and research method
Much earlier scholarly analysis claims that oligarchs ostensibly defend the democratic system or
pretend to defend the interests of the populace to disguise their self-serving agendas (Abdullah,
2016; Abinales, 2000; Abinales and Amaroso, 2005; Bourchier and Hadiz, 2003). This malicious
strategy shields their political and economic motivation from public scrutiny (Aspinall and
Mietzner, 2014, 2010; Robison, 1986). Their ostensible defence of the democratic system
enables the oligarchy to retain their domination of politics and the economy and to have privileged
access to state resources (Robison and Hadiz, 2017; Winters, 2011, 1996).
Mainstream scholarship proposes that contemporary Indonesia is characterized by a political
landscape in which political parties operate as cartels (Ambardi, 2011, 2009; Hargens, 2020;
Slater, 2018, 2004), and where oligarchic power decides political outcomes (e.g. Mietzner, 2015,
2013; Slater and Simmons, 2012). However, what remains poorly understood is how oligarchy dic-
tates the policy-making process at the legislative level; instead, we are left with an opaque picture of
the current political process in the parliament, particularly its policy-making process, and thereby
we are left with the baffling picture of those with power as being undifferentiated, untamed and
all-powerful. This study fills this deficiency and examines how Indonesian oligarchs use cartelized
strategies to capture the legislative process in the parliament to perpetuate their ascendancy in eco-
nomic and political domination. By examining the intervention of oligarchy in the legislative pro-
cesses, we will gain two distinctive understandings of how the Indonesian legislative process
achieves its decisions, particularly in the case of legislative process of the Election Act 7/2017,
638 Asian Journal of Comparative Politics 8(2)
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