Indonesia's Quiet Revolution

Lex Rieffel

From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2004

Summary:  Beyond headlines dominated by terrorist cells and separatist insurgencies, the world's largest majority-Muslim country has undergone a profound transformation in recent years. Reformers have quietly but brilliantly overhauled the country's long-intractable political system. The government that takes office in October will be the people's choice more than ever before-and will have an unprecedented opportunity to set Indonesia on the road to good governance and economic prosperity.

Lex Rieffel is a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Thanks to the brilliance of the recent political restructuring, the odds are good that Indonesia's transformation will proceed smoothly. It is worth bearing in mind, however, that Indonesia's first experiment with constitutional democracy failed in 1957, after seven years of bickering among politicians and escalating protests in the streets. The current experiment is now six years old, and it has a better record. But if the next government is unable to deliver more employment opportunities and to reduce corruption and senseless violence, Indonesia's political transition could stall and slip into reverse-a prospect that should be equally troubling to Indonesia's people and to the rest of the world.