Overview

This book explores democratic development in Indonesia—the world's third-largest democracy after India and the United States. Through case studies, it looks at two rival versions of democracy—the republican form and the electoral form—and posits that electoral democracy is not sustainable without republican institutions, laws, and norms. In recent years, there has been growing instability in Indonesian democracy, with brutal fighting among political forces and deep polarization. This book contends that what needs to be explained is not the democratic decline in Indonesia but rather the deviant form of democracy that the country has been practicing since the fall of the military dictatorship. It is argued that in the last twenty-five years, Indonesia has practiced a Schumpeterian form of democracy with a heavy emphasis on election while neglecting the minimum threshold of a healthy republican form of democracy: political participation, equality of virtues, and the principle of nondomination. The book invites readers on an intellectual journey to explore the republican ideal through the lenses of philosophy, law, politics, and the history of the problem of democracy in Indonesia.

Full Product Details

9781032932873

Table of Contents

Reviews

""Intellectually daring and morally resonant, this magnificent book combines historical depth, philosophical rigor, and comparative sophistication to trace Indonesia’s constitutional destiny. Hendrianto’s multidisciplinary lens reveals Indonesia as a laboratory of democratic possibility—where republican ideals, democratic aspirations, and legal realities intersect. This is scholarship of the highest order: rigorous, humane, and transformative."" Richard Albert, Hines H. Baker and Thelma Kelley Baker Chair in Law, Professor of Government and Director of Constitutional Studies, The University of Texas, Austin ""Indonesia is one of the world’s largest and most important constitutional democracies. Yet is a democracy at clear risk of backsliding. What explains this constitutional vulnerability? In this important new book, Stefanus Hendrianto offers a potential answer – linked to the thinness of Indonesian democracy from its inception. Indonesian democracy, Hendrianto argues, was always too focused on elections, at the expense of deeper democratic values and forms of participation. Those failures, he suggests, are also now coming home to roost. The argument is novel, serious and important – and deserves broad notice from scholars of Indonesian and global constitutional law and democracy alike."" Rosalind Dixon, Anthony Mason Professor and Scientia Professor of Law, University of New South Wales, Sydney

""Intellectually daring and morally resonant, this magnificent book combines historical depth, philosophical rigor, and comparative sophistication to trace Indonesia’s constitutional destiny. Hendrianto’s multidisciplinary lens reveals Indonesia as a laboratory of democratic possibility—where republican ideals, democratic aspirations, and legal realities intersect. This is scholarship of the highest order: rigorous, humane, and transformative."" Richard Albert, Hines H. Baker and Thelma Kelley Baker Chair in Law, Professor of Government and Director of Constitutional Studies, The University of Texas, Austin

Author Information

Stefanus Hendrianto is a visiting assistant professor at Creighton University School of Law, USA.

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