Chapter 1. Introduction
1.5. Outline of chapters
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structure. In addition, this research also seeks to examine various documents, newspapers reports, as well as NGOs’ reports on the three cases under investigation.
While official documents are relatively difficult to be accessed, the last two sources are publicly available. Digging into sources in local language would produce thorough analysis of the cases. Finally, the focus on military interests, which some scholars considered as vague (Lee, 2011), would contribute to a clearer understanding of this concept. The focus on military interests, on the other hand, would also limit this research. This research, off course, would not neglect the contributions of other variables that shape the progress of military reform. Other limitation comes from the lack of measuring reliable information. As noted above, while official publications are widely available, official documentations are not. It would be difficult, therefore, to counter information from targeted interviewees.
1.5. Outline of chapters
This dissertation is organized as the following. Chapter 1 is an introduction, which basically outlines the puzzle, the argument, the methodology, and the organization of this dissertation. Chapter 2 provides review of previous literatures on military reform in Indonesia and presents the framework which is going to be used in this research. Chapter 3, 4 and 5 examine the three cases, i.e. the establishment of democratic control over the armed forces, the disbandment of military’s business activities, and the abandonment of the armed forces territorial command structure. In each of these chapters, explanation begins with the progress of reform in each issue and then followed by careful tracing on why such a progress has been made, whether it was successful or failed. Chapter 6 is the conclusion. This chapter lies out comparison between the three cases examined the previous chapters and provides some recommendations for further studies in this issue.
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Chapter 2
Explaining military’s withdrawal from politics
The aim of this chapter is to provide theoretical framework to examine military’s withdrawal from politics. This chapter is divided into three parts. The first part reviews literatures on the role of the armed forces in politics to lay out the spectrum of their involvement in politics. In the second part, a review of literatures that discuss variables that affect military’s withdrawal from politics is made available. Building from those two reviews of literatures, this chapter ends with its own modified theoretical framework to understand military withdrawal from politics within the context of transition to democracy that focus on military interests instead of other variables.
2.1. Review literatures on military’s involvement in and withdrawal from politics
This first part has three components. First, it discusses the relationship between military’s involvement in and withdrawal from politics to military’s professionalism. It then sets the indicators to measure involvement and withdrawal based on previous literatures as well the technique used in this measurement. Finally, this part assesses TNI’s involvement in and withdrawal from politics since 1945 until today to conclude that in the post-Suharto era there has been military’s withdrawal to certain degree.
2.1.1. Relationship between military’s involvement in and withdrawal from politics with military’s professionalism
The role of the armed forces in politics has long been a subject of debate within the study of political science. Their involvement and non-involvement in politics are related to the concept of military professionalism. Two schools of military professionalism hold different view on the role of the armed forces in politics. The “old professionalism school” argues that military should never involve in politics and their sole assignment is defense (Huntington, 1957; Perlmutter, 1977; Alagappa, 2001). “The new professionalism school”, on the contrary, argues that the armed forces are required to play a role in politics especially in maintaining domestic stability (Stepan, 1973, 1988;
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Sarkesian, 1981). Both schools, however, agree that the armed forces must be equipped with skills, with the old school argues that skill should be limited to expertise in managing violence while the new school thinks other skills should also be included, and that the armed forces must have strong corporate attachment.
Two notes should be given to the above debate. First, while the old professionalism school develops their framework from the experience of Western countries, in which the armed forces are distinctly different from society since the beginning of state-making, the new professionalism builds their understanding based on the experience of the Third World countries in which the role of the armed forces is crucial as provider of stability. Those different backgrounds produce different military cultures and, hence, different understandings of themselves and their roles. It should be noted, however, that that understanding is not taking place in vacuum. Sarkesian (1981), for example, warned that due to the interaction between military, democratization, and technology, it will be difficult to maintain the concept of old professionalism as the ideals of military professionalism in the years to come. It does not mean, however, that the shift from an old to a new professionalism is and will becoming a trend worldwide.
On the contrary, which is also the second note, a swing from a new to an old professionalism has been taking place in various countries that experiencing transition to democracy since an old professionalism concept is considered as important feature of democratic society. Therefore, the old professionalism school tends to dominate the ideals of professional armed forces in the current times. The last two waves of this shifting were taking place in Eastern Europe and East Asia, particularly in Southeast Asia, since the 1990s. In Southeast Asia, Alagappa (2001) suggested that a shifting toward old professionalism attitudes has taking place in most of its member countries.18 Mietzner (2011a) debunked Alagappa’s conclusion and instead points out to the fact that there has been a political resurgence of the armed forces in this region. Mietzner’s assertion is partly correct since there is indeed a swing back to the rise of new professionalism due to resistance from majority members of the armed forces.19 Thailand represents this case. The introduction of democracy that took place in Thailand
18 For reference to the Eastern European case see Edmunds, Cottey and Forster (2006).
19 Mietzner, however, argued that the main reason for such a resurgence, except in Myanmar, is the inability of civilian leaderships to conduct effective governing. In addition, this resurgence does not take place in all countries within the region. SAF (Singapore Armed Forces), for example, remains as non-political entity.
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since early 1990s went to a wrong direction with several taking over of governments by the armed forces. Scholars have attributed these coups to the culture of Royal Thai Forces’ involvement in politics and the weaknesses within civilian camp (Bunbongkarn in Blair 2013, 165-187; Croissant, et.al, 2013; Kocak & Kode in Heiduk, 2014, 83-101).
A closer look to the first factor suggests that there was time when several officers with democratic tendency held relatively strong influence on the government (Bunbongkarn in Blair, 2013, 165-187). The numbers of these officers, however, were relatively small and their ideas were soon to be rejected by majority within the brass. Since then, there has been a lack of continuation of these soft-minded officers within the Royal Thai Forces.
In the case of Indonesia, a closer look on its military history reveals that TNI’s conception of professionalism is closer to the new rather than the old professionalism ideals in most of the times. However, during the reform era, there has been a swing toward the old professionalism. It is worth noting that the old professionalism within the Indonesian armed forces is not a new idea. General Tahi Bonar Simatupang and General Abdul Harris Nasution, for example, were known as the vanguard of an old professionalism ideal, in which they dreamed of and actually took steps to create outwardly-oriented armed forces with high degree of expertise in managing violence and possession of modern weaponry while at the same time refraining from politics (Widjajanto, 2017, interview). While this dissertation has no intention to step into the debate over the essence of military professionalism, it takes military’s withdrawal from politics, and, hence, a swing from a new to an old ideal, as an important feature of military reform and, therefore, it is essential to understand the term military withdrawal at the first place. To be able to do so, a spectrum of military’s involvement in politics must firstly be explained.
Previous works on the role of the armed forces in politics can be summed up as the following. There are basically three roles for the armed forces in politics, i.e. as ruler, as influencer, and as pawn. The two ends of that spectrum can be easily defined since both indicate domination, either by the armed forces or civilian leadership. Condition in which the armed forces become a ruler is also referred as military ruler or military domination, which scholars also termed it as garrison state or praetorian state. On the other hand, condition in which the armed forces serve as pawn to civilian leadership is
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known as civilian control or civilian domination20. In a garrison state, condition in which “the specialist of violence is the most powerful group in society” (Laswell, 1941, 455), or praetoritarian state, a condition “in which the military tends to intervene and potentially could dominate the political system” (Perlmutter, 1969, 383), the power solely belong to the armed forces, while in civilian domination the armed forces have no right and power to make policies. Huntington (1957) further distinguishes the latter into two different types: objective and subjective civilian controls. The subjective civilian control means that the armed forces are under the control of certain groups within the civilian camp. On the other hand, under an objective civilian control, the armed forces pledge their loyalty to the state instead of to certain groups within the state. Coughlan (1998) argued that civilian control of the armed forces in a country which previously ruled by the armed forces could very easily lead to entrenched civilian penetration to military internal affairs which indicates a subjective control. In addition, under such a situation, the armed forces usually are a solid entity with strong political position and hence it requires a strong state to be able to fully control them. Hence, creating a democratic governance of the armed forces is a good and viable option to be taken instead of simply creating civilian control. While both ends of spectrum of military’s involvement in politics can be relatively easy to define, the role in between those two ends is highly contested.
2.1.2. Indicators of military’s withdrawal from politics
How to draw the boundaries between those roles is the next question needs to be addressed. Degree of subordination can be used to set the boundaries. For example, in military domination, the armed forces are nowhere subordinated to their civilian counterparts, while on the second and third roles there are degrees of military subordination. The problem with such a way of categorizing the roles is how to clearly differentiate partnership role from pawn-ship role. Welch and Smith (1974) and Welch (in Welch, 1976) categorized the role of the armed forces in politics according to the relative power between the armed forces and civilian institutions in three areas: the enunciation, the development, and the implementation of policies. Welch and Smith
20 Janowitz (1964) differentiated civilian domination into two different types: authoritarian personal and authoritarian mass party. Interestingly, he defined a sort of democratic control within the in-between area, what he termed as democratic-competitive type of civil-military relations.
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(1974) divided the role of the armed forces in politics into influencer, intervener, and controller, while Welch (in Welch 1976) latter extended this categorization by dividing the role of controller into two types—with and without partners—and changes the term intervener into participant.21
Hence, with regard to the first role, military influence, three preconditions exist in their influencing role, i.e. significant degree of influence remain limited to those holding ranking positions, clear and integral boundaries exist between military and political roles, with officers shying away from the latter, and it takes place within regularized and accepted channels. The second role, military participation, differs from the first role in term of degree. In military participation, the armed forces are very likely to have veto power to certain policies. Military participation in politics is more likely when there is a split within civilian group and some of them turn to the armed forces for backing. Such a situation can lead to military control with partners when the armed forces operate behind the scene while allowing their civilian partners to rule.
Alternatively, the armed forces can govern by themselves and hence creates a sort of military junta.
Working on the TNI, Rinakit (2005) used similar indicator to develop his own typology of the roles of the armed forces in politics—in addition to relative benefits gained by the armed forces as the second measurement—which include spoiler, critical supporter, and political tool. His definition of spoiler is when the armed forces oppose civilian leadership’s policies when they consider those policies would bring disadvantages to the brass. Under such a situation, the armed forces would rely on rejection and strong-arm tactics to influence civilian leadership’s decisions. The role of critical supporter takes place when the armed forces provide inputs and propose policies to civilian leadership while also cautiously offer criticism in the politest way. Finally, the role of political tool takes place when the armed forces simply become the tool of civilian leadership. Laksmana (2008) extended Rinakit’s typology by adding the role of uncritical supporter in between critical supporter and political tool. This role can be identified when the armed forces give their unchallenged loyalty and support to civilian leadership in exchange for autonomy in their internal affairs. In addition, he slightly disagrees with Rinakit in identifying a subtle way to show disagreement with civilian
21 It should be noted that this framework does not discuss civilian domination whatsoever.
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leadership—the strong-arm tactics—within the category of spoiler and tends to argue that it falls within the area in between spoiler and critical supporter.
The abovementioned identifications, however, suffered from one particular weakness. While they do mention relative powers and relative benefits as indicators to measure military’s role in politics, the categorization of low-medium-high is rather fuzzy. They do provide examples, but how exactly can we judge the different between those roles is rather arbitrary. To overcome this weakness, division of areas of work between the armed forces and civilian can serve as good indicators. Other words, to clearly measure military’s withdrawal, one can take a look at the areas in which the armed forces are playing. Scholars have suggested the division between the so-called civilian areas, areas within politics which supposedly dominated by civilian, from the military-related areas (Welch & Smith, 1974; Colton, 1979; Trinkunas, 1999, 2000;
Croissant, 2011; Croissant, et.al, 2013; Kuehn, et.al, 2016). These areas are elite recruitment, public policy, and internal security matters, external defense and military organization.22 An absolute civilian domination takes place when civilian leadership enjoys high degree of uncontested decision in those five areas.
The area of elite recruitment has two dimensions, i.e. competition for public office and political participation. The former dimension has two indicators, i.e. whether there is a reserved representation for military personnel and whether the armed forces have influence on the rules of political competition. With regard to the first indicator, when there are no formal or informal guarantees for military representation in political bodies, the degree of civilian control can be said as high and, on the contrary, when there are the armed forces have majority of political positions reserved for them then the degree of civilian control is minimal. In between, the degree of civilian control can be said as medium when the armed forces are granted some privileged access to political office. With regard to the second indicator, the degree of civilian control is low when the armed forces dominate rule-setting, process as well as outcomes of elite selection and the degree is high when such domination is absent. It can be said that the degree of civilian control is medium when the armed forces to certain degree still have authority to those three aspects of elite selection. On the meanwhile, the second dimension of elite
22 Croissant, et.al (2013, 26-36) provided a detail explanation on assessing the degree of civilian control using this framework. Hence, explanation on this issue in the next few paragraphs will be taken from this work.
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recruitment concerns with two indicators, i.e. eligibility of active officers for political office and possession of veto power over formation and dissolution of governments.
The degree of civilian control, with regard to the first indicator, is low when military officers are eligible to occupy political office or, despite the fact that regulations to forbid such eligibility are existing, they are simply ignored. On the other hand, it can be said that the degree of civilian control is high when active duty officers are forbidden from taking any political office and medium when they are still allowed to sit in political office on few individual cases. Concerning the second indicator, the degree of civilian control is low when there is formal regulations to grant the armed forces with veto power and high when the armed forces have no power whatsoever on the making and breaking of governments and medium when the armed forces occasionally have a de facto influence.
The area of public policy also has two dimensions, i.e. policy making and policy implementation. With regard to the former dimension, two indicators can be identified, i.e. military influence on state budget and military influence on public policy making.
When the armed forces dominate over budgetary process the degree of civilian control can be said as low. The same condition can be said when there is systematic exclusion of civilians from at least one policy field in its policy making. On the contrary, the degree of civilian control is high when the armed forces have no participation in the allocation of state expenditures or they have no institutional prerogatives or even informal interventions in the making of any public policy. In between, the degree of civilian control is medium when the armed forces remain equipped with institutional prerogatives or de facto managed to capture some budget items and, with regard to influence on public policy making, the armed forces possess some isolated participation.
When policy implementation of public policy is concerned, the degree of civilian
When policy implementation of public policy is concerned, the degree of civilian