Title: Indonesian local politics
Speakers:
1. Inclusive governance and local initiatives in Indonesia: Three cases from Wonosobo, Surakarta and Jakarta.
Ahmad Suaedy (Senior researcher, The Wahid Institute, Jakarta)
2. Islam, democracy and local bosses: Oligarchy and social movement in Bangkalan, Madura.
Abdur Rozaki (Lecturer, Sunan Kalijaga University, Yogyakarta)

Date: June 5 (Fri.), 2015, 15:00 –
Place: Tonan-tei Room No. 201, Inamori Foundation Memorial Building, CSEAS, Kyoto University

Abstract:
Inclusive governance and local initiatives in Indonesia: Three cases from Wonosobo, Surakarta and Jakarta.
During the last ten years numerous reports of rising intolerance in Indonesia shows that minorities are becoming victims. The treatment of vulnerable groups such as the disabled and informal sectors also tends to be ignored, resulting in thickened exclusion groups in Indonesia.
Departing from research in three areas, Wonosobo and Surakarta in Central Java and Jakarta, this presentation will demonstrate the creativity of local or regional leaders in making breakthroughs for minorities and vulnerable groups to be social included in these areas. Their activities are against the mainstream policies of the central government and the regions in general.
Such breakthroughs include inserting them into a system of planning and implementation of development from the beginning and putting them into the formal sector with legal certainty. Participation and cultural creations also sustain their breakthroughs. However, their breakthroughs cannot be applied solidly, given the weak legal compliance in Indonesian both by society and the central government. Various rules of national law which are not in favor the minority and vulnerable groups also force the leader to take the path of discretionary policy, rather than the establishment of a system that is well established and permanent.

Islam, democracy and local bosses: Oligarchy and social movement in Bangkalan, Madura.
Decentralization policies and democratic electoral processes that have been in place for more than a decade in Indonesia have become a dynamic political arena in the circles of ‘local bosses’ and civil society organizations in usurping and influencing governance structures at the local level. In some regions, these sorts of processes have given rise to innovative leadership figures and civil society movements that are passionate in encouraging change. On the other hand, however, oligarchy leadership patterns have also emerged.
This presentation will discuss political oligarchy in Bangkalan, Madura, that is quite distinctive as it is developed out of a dominant religious socio-cultural basis, where Syaikhona Kholil’s symbolic goods were transformed into symbolic power by one of his descendants in dominating local governance structures. This political oligarchy also poses as a threat to actors of democracy. It has led to social resistance through contentious politics. Social activists have began framing issues on various cases of public policies that were not in the interest of citizens by utilizing existing political opportunity structures to expand mass mobilization structures in various social groups.
This presentation is based on in-depth interviews with the core network circle of local actors conducted during the last 2 years, since August 2012- July 2014, especially in the 2014 General Legislative Election.

Moderator: Okamoto Masaaki (CSEAS)