Democracy for Sale: Elections, Clientelism and the State in Indonesia.

AuthorNegara, Siwage Dharma

Democracy for Sale: Elections, Clientelism and the State in Indonesia. By Edward Aspinall and Ward Berenschot. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2019). Softcover: 308pp.

Since the end of President Soeharto's New Order regime, transactional politics has become prevalent in Indonesia, Politicians try to win elections using community brokers and bargain over cash or other material rewards in exchange for electoral votes. These practices occur not only within "formal" institutions, i.e. political parties, but increasingly outside parties through informal, ad hoc or freewheeling deals. While these clientelistic practices have become more common and entrenched, the authors of this book note that this practice, especially its determinants and variations, remains relatively understudied. Democracy for Sale tries to fill this literature gap by examining how clientelistic exchanges are organized in practice and how they vary in nature and intensity across Indonesia's large and diverse political landscape.

Placing informal or clientelistic politics at the centre of its analysis, the book looks at how such practices play out in Indonesia in comparison with other large democracies such as India and Argentina. Its main argument is that the informal politics of clientelism and patronage is critical in explaining why democratization in Indonesia has failed to eradicate widespread corruption (p. 250). The authors describe how election campaigns have become very expensive for aspiring and incumbent politicians due to pervasive clientelistic practices. As a consequence, when they are elected as state officials, they tend to act corruptly, thus undermining the institutions of the state (p. 250). Elections, therefore, are deemed as a sale of state power, in which whoever has money and privileged access to state resources stands a greater chance of winning. This is why clientelistic politics (or informal politics) worsen social inequality (pp. 250-51). It might also be responsible for many developmental challenges in Indonesia, such as environmental degradation, poor spatial planning and inadequate public services (p. 13). As such, uncovering the workings of clientelistic politics is important for the remediation of governance challenges in Indonesia.

The book employs an innovative method of analysis by combining extensive ethnographic research with quantitative methods. The authors draw on a lengthy period of fieldwork during 2013-14 and an expert...

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