The Political Economy of Oligarchy and the Reorganization of Power in Indonesia

This article elaborates on and defends the ideas presented in our Reorganising Power in Indonesia: The Politics of Oligarchy in an Age of Markets, in the context of the debate in the present issue. We argue that developments in post-Suharto Indonesia are best analyzed within a structural political economy approach and understood in relation to political conflicts that precede and follow democratic and market transitions, which preserve or reshape the social order. In the process, the article spells out the basic features of the oligarchy thesis and its continuing relevance to understandings of resilience and change in Indonesian politics.