The Politics of Power: Freeport in Suharto's Indonesia (review)

Book Reviews379 less an articulation of shared cultural norms than a deliberate ideological construction ofregional rulers aimed at their common interest in securing elite-centred political regimes. He observes that coercive approaches to state- and nation-building have led to contradictions between (elite) regime or state security, on the one hand, and the human security of broad populations across the region on the other. Ameliorating such contradictions, he argues, requires the institutionalization of popularly accountable political regimes. Until such transformations occur more widely across Southeast Asia, no normative basis exists for building transparent, sovereignty-pooling institutions of regional cooperation. Thailand's abortive 1998 proposal to substantially modify ASEAN's cardinal norm of non-interference, therefore, was rejected for very real fears that "enhanced interaction" could abet threats to regime security and thereby exacerbate regional tensions. The price for keeping interstate peace, however, is to privilege regime security over human security, and thus to ignore or cope inadequately with the burgeoning range of threats to the latter. Security and Southeast Asia offers a comprehensive review of the spectrum of forces that shape security discourse and practice in the region. The invocation of critical security theory helps to frame the informed and well-rendered empirical discussion. This combination, together with an engaging writing style, makes the book a welcome contribution to the literature on Southeast Asia's international relations and a particularly useful teaching text. Greg Felker Division of Social Science The Hong Kong University of Science Er Technology Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong The Politics of Power: Freeport in Suharto's Indonesia. By Denise Leith. Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawai'i Press, 2003. 347pp. Indonesia's mining industry is at the centre of much of the political drama in the archipelago. Large foreign companies dominate mining, giving rise to nationalist concerns over who controls the country's natural resources. And what is at stake from an economic point ofview is not small. Indonesia has extensive reserves of hard minerals and coal. Mining produces a significant share of Indonesia's export revenue — it was the dollar-earning export of coal, copper, gold, silver, nickel, 380Book Reviews tin and bauxite that helped arrest somewhat Indonesia's economic collapse when the rupiah crashed in 1998. And mining taxes and production shares are a major source of government revenue. But lucrative mining projects have also been associated with allegations of corruption as companies turn to well-placed local businessmen as partners to smooth development. At the same time, the often poor local communities question just what benefits they actually receive from mines in their midst. Most mines are in outlying provinces and there are often complaints that the modern operations socially damage traditional rural communities. Irreversible environmental damage is another fear. Mining and other resource exploitation have also become focal points in arguments by the provinces for greater autonomy from the central government and greater share of resource royalties and control over how they are spent. And in the case ofrestive Aceh in northern Sumatra and Indonesian Papua in the east (Irian Jaya as it was in the Suharto period), mining companies may find themselves in a no man's land between separatists and the military. Yet it is surprising how little attention political scientists, economists and historians have given to mining in Indonesia. Helping to redress this is Denise Leith in her study of the US mining company, Freeport-McMoran, in The Politics of Power: Freeport in Suharto's Indonesia. Leith argues that during the two decades of former president Suharto's rule until his fall in 1998, Freeport became enmeshed in the workings of his authoritarian regime. In order to develop and operate what is today one the world's largest copper, gold and silver mines in Indonesian Papua, the Louisiana based Freeport became a close ally of Suharto. Entering Indonesia in 1967, the company's Papua operations became an integral part of Suharto's system of patronage. The outcome of this was favouritism towards the Suharto family and cronies in business dealings and compromising relations with the military. But in the last years of Suharto, and since his fall, Freeport has become a target of attack domestically and internationally for alleged...