Indonesian Cultural Policy in the Reform Era

The focus of research about the relationship between the state and culture in Suharto-era Indonesia depends on the researcher’s field of research. Political scientists who studied the New Order tended to use culture as an explanatory device for political behavior without considering the state’s influence over culture or culture’s use as a tool of governance.² Researchers investigating other fields, such as anthropology,³ the performing arts, and literature,⁴ demonstrated a strong understanding of the importance of the state–culture relationship. Within these fields, a small number of articles were particularly influential in shaping our understanding of Suharto-era cultural policy, providing a framework for later research. This research is important because it establishes a relationship between an arena of state activity (culture, narrowly defined by the state)⁵ and the assumptions and practices of Indonesians (culture, broadly defined as a way of life).⁶ By examining the objectives and intended outcomes of national policy details and programs, cultural-policy research can be used to draw conclusions about how the state imagines and understands Indonesians. Researchers have used these findings to interpret state policies relative to a number of research topics concerned with culture—such as state regulation of customary practices, literature, the arts, popular culture, and the media, among others. The most influential articles on cultural policy are focused on the authoritarian, Suharto-era state, which raises the question of whether their approaches are still relevant in present-day Indonesia, with its freely elected parliament and significantly changed political system.

In this article, I take a narrow definition of cultural policy, addressing only those policies focused on activities that have been designated “cultural” by the Indonesian state, which I recognize as a heterogeneous institution with conflicting motivations and interests. I will examine how these policies were designed to influence the behavior of Indonesians. It will be necessary to consider broader social changes, in particular those caused by state policies, if they alter the context of cultural activities and trends (for instance, one might consider the way political decentralization has influenced individuals’ inclination to participate in local rituals). Cultural-policy research therefore cannot only focus on policy-making, but should track the relationships among narrowly defined cultural policies established by the state, the practices of practitioners and audiences, the ambitions of policy makers to influence characteristics and behaviors, and the ways in which these policies have changed Indonesian “cultures,” broadly defined as ways of life.

The purpose of this article is primarily to assess how cultural policy in Indonesia has changed since the resignation of Suharto (1998), and the degree to which an influential body of research on New Order era cultural policy is still relevant today. The first section addresses research that has analyzed the cultural-policy goals of the New Order state. It then focuses on three influential, widely referenced articles, published over a fifteen-year period by Greg Acciaioli, Keith Foulcher, and Philip Yampolsky, ⁷ which capture perspectives from both anthropology (Acciaioli) and arts researchers (Foulcher),⁸ and provide accounts of the thrust and detail of policy.⁹ The first aim of this discussion is to link Suharto-era cultural-policy research to the broader field of cultural-policy research by examining the concept of “authoritarian” cultural policy. Connecting these ideas to broader cultural-policy approaches both provides a basis for hypothesizing about the characteristics of New Order cultural policy and assists in achieving the primary aim of this paper—to examine how cultural policy in Indonesia has changed since the fall of Suharto.

My intention is to provide a broad assessment of cultural policy change by drawing on events of both national and regional importance across Indonesia as a starting point for cultural-policy analysis of the Reformasi (post-Suharto) period. West Java receives the most attention, as it was one of my bases during an extended stay in Indonesia in 2001. (The examples from West Java in each of the sections on non-national cultural policy indicate that diversity exists within jurisdictions as well as between them. I also conducted interviews and collected...