State of Disorder: Privatised Violence and the State in Indonesia.

• Author: Jahroni, Jajang

State of Disorder: Privatised Violence and the State in Indonesia. By Abdil Mughus Mudhoffir. Singapore: Springer/Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. Hardcover: 276pp.

There have been numerous studies examining Indonesia in the aftermath of the fall of President Suharto's New Order. The conventional wisdom was that the country would quickly transition to a full and peaceful democracy following the collapse of Suharto's three-decade authoritarian regime. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. In the years that followed, the violence that was commonplace during the Suharto era has endured. For example, ethnic violence between the Dayaks and the Madurese broke out in West Kalimantan and religious conflict between Christian and Muslim groups erupted in Moluccas Islands.

One of the explanations that scholars have utilized to account for violence in states undergoing democratic transition is the fragmentation of authority. For example, in Latin American states such as Mexico and Colombia, the military, police and politicians work hand in hand with crime syndicates and landowners to control and distribute resources. Contestations over the control of resources between rival factions have resulted in outbreaks of violence. While the idea of fragmented authority has its merits, it does not fully account for the violence in Indonesia.

To explain why outbreaks of violence have become rampant after Reformasi in Indonesia, the book employs a critical political economy approach which focuses on how both political and economic forces work together to mould the state and its various institutions. The book asserts that violence in Indonesia has been a byproduct of the predatory state and capital accumulation among the elite, who often forge alliances with privatized violence providers to protect access to resources. According to the author, "The existence of privatised violence organisations is an outcome of the way the state organises coercive institution in its evolution, along with particular kinds of capitalist development" (p. 3). The idea of the predatory state is mentioned throughout the book and refers to the way elites often employ coercive means to accumulate and exploit the country's resources to advance their own interests. This predatory state behaviour accounts for phenomena such as massive deforestation in Kalimantan, land grabs in North Sumatra and demonstrations by the local population against plans for andesite mining in Wadas, Central...