Research question

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was also targeted at changing the nature of Golongan Karya (Golkar)⁹—from a shy political party into a real political party¹⁰—and military’s involvement in politics—

which then became the main goal of military reform in Indonesia.

1.2.1. Research question

The progress of the military reform in Indonesia since its inception in 1998 has received mix assessments. Some scholars argue that the military reform in Indonesia has been, to certain degree, successful in distancing the armed forces from politics, while others contend it. This dissertation is aiming at assessing the progress of the reform and identifying the most likely determinant that defines this progress. The most advance progress is taking place in the establishment of democratic control over the armed forces while in the disbandment of military business activities, the reform has only partially successful in taking over military’s formal business activities and the worst progress takes place in the abandonment of military, especially the Army, territorial command structure. Since this research seeks to explain the variation in the outcomes of the reform from one issue to another, the main question posted in this research is: why has the reform resulted in different outcomes from one issue to another? In details, it also seeks to answer the following questions:

1. How do we measure the progress military reform? What are the most sensible indicators to measure such a progress?

2. Why does the reform quite successful in creating normative framework to ensure democratic control over the armed forces? What are the factors that enabling this success?

9 Golkar was the main political vehicle of Suharto to win elections. It was founded as a group of professional associations instead of political party. It did not transform into political party until 1998 under the leadership of Akbar Tanjung. He adopted several reform agendas and managed to lead the party amid public’s call for disbandment and eventually gained significant number of votes in 1999 election.

Under his leadership, however, Golkar suffered from split in which some senior members that were against him opted to established new political parties. None of these new parties, however, performed successfully during the 1999 election. On the transformation of Golkar during this period, see Tanjung (2007) or Tomsa (2008).

10 Since it was never referred as political party during Suharto era, Golkar was granted with various benefits including the ability to perform the so-called pembinaan sepanjang tahun (year-long coaching).

This pembinaan provided Golkar with indefinite period of campaign in comparison to the other two political parties which were only allowed to do campaign in the designated period—usually few months prior to the election. In addition, it was mandatory for civil servants to be member of Golkar and those who did not chose for Golkar during the election would be punished.

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3. Why does the reform relatively unsuccessful in disbanding military business activities? What are the stumbling blocks?

4. Why does the reform fail to abandon military’s territorial command structure?

What are the stumbling blocks?

Assessing those questions would give a clear picture of how has the military’s withdrawal from politics in Indonesia been taking place, to what extent and why.

Assessing the case of military reform in Indonesia also contributes to the debate of civil-military relations studies in Third World countries in which Ruland, Manea and Born (in Ruland, Manea & Born, 2013) have argued that Western classical ideals of civilian control over the armed forces and military professionalism have failed to explain the Third World countries’ cases. This research also contributes in understanding the trajectory of democratic transition in post-authoritarian countries since the role of the armed forces in that process is an important one.

To understand the complexity of military reform in Indonesia, three frameworks can be applied to make sense of it. First, the reform can be framed within the concept of transition to democracy. The Indonesian military reform would not take place if Suharto’s authoritarian rule did not collapse. Military reform is an important feature of transition to democracy in Indonesia especially since the role of TNI in Indonesian politics during the reign of Suharto was influential. By reforming TNI, especially by departing them from politics, the road to democracy shall be relatively smooth.

Opposition from TNI, on the other hand, could significantly recourse the transition to different direction. Hence, within this framework, military reform in Indonesia should be considered as part of a larger socio-political reform. One of the implications to such an understanding is the need to examine relationship between military reform and other reforms, such as justice sector reform, political (institutional) reform, economic reform, etc. It means that the progress of military reform must also consider the progress in other sectors’ reform.

Second, military reform in Indonesia should also be considered within a larger Security Sector Reform (SSR). Military reform in Indonesia is aiming at establishing democratic control over the armed forces instead of simply creating civilian control over the armed forces. Traditional civilian control approach focuses on how to strike a balance relationship between civilian leaderships and the armed forces. Feaver (1996),

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for example, identified two central yet conflicting principles in finding that balance, which are: while the military must be strong enough to protect the state from external threat, they must be ensured not to use their monopoly of violence against the state and its inhabitant. To what extent does this control should be taking place, according to democratic control school, is subject to democratic governance. The term democratic control, hence, means that the control should be guided by democratic values (Pantev, 2005). Under such values, it is crucial “to reorient and limit the military’s activities to its normative duties, and subordinate it to those democratically elected to take charge of the country’s affairs” (Akonyunlu, 2007, 13). The normative duty of the armed forces in democratic society is to defend the country from external threat and, hence, the armed forces should become a defense tool with externally-oriented task. It would prohibit domination of certain group or groups within civilian camp over the armed forces, which Huntington (1957) referred as subjective control. Democratic control over the armed forces, hence, has a close resonance with Huntington’s ideals of objective control.

An emphasis on democratic control over the armed forces is particularly important due to several reasons. Mietzner (2004, 4) wrote that the armed forces are key factor in successful transition and hence, to minimize their role in shaping the future of the transition period, it is necessary to as soon as possible establish “constitutional mechanisms that put democratically elected, civilian state institutions in charge of all aspects of governance, including the security sector.” What important is that “in some cases, the establishment of civilian control by only one dominant civilian element in the post-authoritarian transition can reinforce the very manipulability of the armed forces that the regime change aimed to removed” (Mietzner, 2004, 4). Coughlan (1998, 519) wrote that the “lack of effective mechanism of civilian control means that the political system is always hostage to the threat of military intervention or of intervention on the part of any societal group that can gain the military’s support.” Hence, she considered democratic control as an effective means of controlling the armed forces since it is not only ensuring military’s submission to democratic values but also preventing part of civilian group to solely control the armed forces for their own benefits. In addition, the word “security” in SSR should not only be associated with the armed forces per se, but also with other security agencies, such as police force and intelligence agencies. The relationship between military reform and police as well as intelligence reforms is,

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therefore, important. A dominant focus on certain reform, for example on military reform, would create a sense of jealousy from officers to other security agencies.

Finally, one additional context should also be taken into consideration in understanding military reform in Indonesia. While it is true that the reform would not taking place without the pressures from civilian groups, the decision to initiate reform has been made internally by the armed forces. Hence, military reform in Indonesia is indeed an internally-driven project. The use of this framework has always been contested by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) since according to them acknowledging that military reform is an internally-driven project is basically giving the armed forces an empty cheque. They afraid that the armed forces would easily conclude that the reform has been successful and hence no further reform need to be done, while NGO activists believe that the reform, as of today, has yet to achieve what they desire.

To overcome this fear, scholars who involved in military reform in Indonesia proposed two different conceptual frameworks to understand military reform in Indonesia.¹¹ The first concept is military reform, which is similar to the first generation of reform concept introduced by Cottey, Edmunds, and Forster (2002), and the second concept is defense transformation, which basically closely related to Huntington’s (1957) identification of military professionalism.¹²

Hence, taking into consideration those three contexts, this research considers the Indonesian case of military reform as an internally-driven effort by the armed forces to disengage from politics during the transition to democracy. It means that the reform should be framed from the perspective of the armed forces which, as any other political actors, their behaviors are taken according to rational calculations. The existence and

11 A handful of scholars involved in military reform in Indonesia and gained trust from defense establishment—TNI and Ministry of Defense. Among these scholars are Kusnanto Anggoro, Edy Prasetyono, Rizal Sukma, and Andi Widjajanto who involved in the drafting of various regulations with the defense establishment and had written several—and restricted—documents for the defense establishment.

12 While various scholarly works can be found with regard to these two concepts, in the context of Indonesia, the main idea is basically distinguishing the political nature and the non-political nature of the reform. During my personal encounters with Widjajanto, Prasetyono, and Anggoro, they laid out at least two main reasons for this separation. The first reason is to prevent military officers from getting tired with critics by acknowledging that military reform has performed tremendously but at the same time—which is the second reason—the concept of military transformation would lead these officers to seriously think about their main business—defense professionalism—instead of about political role of TNI. It is, therefore, a subtle way to redirect their focus from politics.

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interests of other actors, however, are also worth considering since they surely have impacts to the armed forces’ behaviors.