An Empirical Analysis of the Quality of Democracy in Asia: Indonesia Case

By: Willy Purna Samadhi

Paper presented at the International Symposium on Democratisation and Social Movements in Asia: What Kinds of Change and Differentiation Have Social Movements Experienced?, Seoul, South Korea, 25-26 September 2008.

In January 2002, a conference on the democracy movement assigned a taskforce to carry out an academically sound nationwide survey that would facilitate the discussion of a fresh agenda for democratisation. The taskforce appointed a team of researchers and constituted Demos to support the research and follow up the results.

The survey has been carried out in two rounds, in 2003 and 2004, and is based on a pioneering framework for the assessment of democracy from below. It combines the theories and experiences drawn from studies of rights and institutions and social and political movements. Extensive interviews were held out with around 800 experienced and reflective campaigners in all the provinces. These are not statistically selected respondents but carefully selected expert-informants. This would not have been possible without, first, close co-operation with pillars of the democracy movement and hundreds of experienced activists; second, support from Norwegian and Swedish public donors, the University of Oslo as well as the Ford and TIFA Foundations, TEMPO Magazine, the European Commission and others who have shared our concern and consistently respected the intellectual integrity of the team. 

Some eight hundred experienced and reflective democracy activists within fourteen issue-areas in thirty-two provinces have spent between four to six hours each answering three-hundred and thirty-three questions on thirteen key-variables of problems and options of meaningful HR-based democracy. The approach is new, and the result is the most comprehensive body of research-based information available on the topic thus far. Data analysis has generated four major conclusions and twenty-two proposals for further discussion and action. 

I. Democratic Deficit of Rights and Institutions 

Indonesia's democracy is not well under way nor 'irreversible'. There are basic freedoms but there is a severe deficit of the other instruments that are supposed to favour democracy. 

(1) Do not blame democracy for not solving the country's problems! The real problem is that the essential instruments of democracy are defunct.

(2) Stop talking about democracy in general! The few instruments that are doing well must be defended and improved, not belittled or used to overshadow the main problems. 

(3) Acknowledge that the Indonesian 'demos' is no longer unified by a nation state project, but also that it is equally true that the new democracy is not balkanised – a potential basis for unity. 

(4) Defend independence not by upholding statist control of people but by fighting a democracy that severely limits economic choices as practiced under neo-liberal globalisation. 

(5) Accept that the fostering of democracy through elitist crafting of 'good' institutions has not worked and focus on the roots of that problem. 

II. Elections but not Representation 

The defunct instruments of democracy include the rule of law and 'good governance' but the most serious problem is that the free and fair elections are limited to unrepresentative and unresponsive political parties and politicians. Indonesia's fledgling democracy can not be improved in a democratic way as long as good and dynamic representation of people's ideas and interests is missing. 

(6) Give top priority to the problem of political representation by promoting:

• Democratic, accountable and responsive political parties and interest organisations 
• Democratic forms of direct participation

(7) Demand that parliament commences a public and scholarly review of existing and potential rules and regulations for the promotion of democratic, representative and responsive political parties and unions. If this is not done, committed politicians, intellectuals and activists should initiate a similar study. 

(8) Identify and foster:

• The best type of elections to promote representation, including through political parties 
• Rules and regulations that may stimulate less abuse of political parties, parliament etc. 
• Measures that can support those fighting the monopolisation of democracy. 

III Oligarchic-Democracy
It is well understood that new democracies around the world suffer from persistent dominance of the elite. The problem in Indonesia is not that the elite bypasses the democratic ‘game’ but rather that it monopolises it, bending and abusing the rules of the game as it does so.

(9) Set aside the elitist transition-paradigm. New institutions have been crafted and the elite play the game, but most instruments of democracy remain defunct.

(10) Give priority to breaking up the monopoly of democracy. Accept that the vested interests of dominant actors in the monopolisation of democracy prevents improvements and calls for countervailing measures and actors.

(11) Do not try to fight the monopolisation of democracy by liberal or statist politics! Both are part of the monopoly-breeding nexus between state and business, with deep roots since colonialism. Explore instead the options of a social pact for democratically regulated de-monopolisation between growth-oriented business, professional oriented middle classes in state and private sectors, and organised labouring people in formal as well as informal sectors, in return for improved standard of living! (This if followed up in proposal 16 and 17.)

(12) Focus on renewed agenda-setting and organisation beyond top-driven parties, personality-oriented elections and scattered civil society activism! The dominant actors' monopoly on democracy is not fortified at the top but socially and politically well anchored and cannot be encircled from civil society.


IV Floating and Marginalised Agents of Change – with New Ambitions
The agents of change that brought democracy to Indonesia are still critical as civic activists and pressure groups, but remain ‘floating’ in the margins of the fledgling democratic system and are thus unable to make a real impact.

(13) Strengthen the ambitions of the movement by going beyond the promotion of democracy through supplementary, corrective, lobbying and pressurising groups only and in addition offering more comprehensive alternatives. There is a shortage of a genuinely democratic political elite to correct, supplement and lobby.

(14) Broaden the currently mainly knowledge-based sources of power, and the ways of gaining influence that focus mainly on discursive activity, by relating to and servicing emerging popular organisations and movements.

(15) Include women and their perspectives in leading organisations and critical programmes – if necessary by way of a quota policy – to promote gender perspectives and thus swiftly broadening the base and capacity of the movement.

(16) Expand the basis of the movement to the neglected spaces of the political landscape that relate to business, the workplace and public administration – and link these to the already existing strongholds in self-managed units and the public sphere.

(17) Institutionalise public forums on various levels in order to facilitate the politicisation and transformation of concrete issues and interests amongst emerging movements into governance agendas, drawing on the reputation of being principled, transparent, accountable, humanistic and non-sectarian. Keep in mind the potential for a green 'left of centre' agenda and the need for a social pact between growth oriented business, liberal middle classes and labouring people against the roots of monopolisation. If the democracy movement cannot fight the crisis of representation it will become irrelevant.

(18) Move beyond traditional top-down and populist incorporation of people into politics by building or reforming local political organisations on the basis of local governance agendas that combine direct democracy and representation. The movement will not make a difference by relying only on direct democracy in civil society.

(19) Develop the movement's potential to combine local and central action. Separate local and central initiatives are unlikely, for instance, to make a difference in any elections. Do not replace the old centralism by new localism.

(20) Avoid unitarian models by exploring federative frameworks. These may be both easier to develop from existing networks and serve as inspiring counter-examples to the predominant practices of decentralisation and authoritarian measures against popular resentment e.g. in Aceh and Papua.

(21) Prioritise training and knowledge on practical politics, beyond the realm of fine ideas only. To make a difference, one must not avoid 'dirty' mainstream politics but strengthen internal democracy and basic principles, to keep clean in the mud. 

In short, the cornerstones of the movements' agenda to de-monopolise and resurrect democracy may thus be to widen the social base of local civic capacities, transform concrete issues and interests among emerging movements into governance agendas, federate associated political formations and foster combined forms of direct democracy in civil society and representative democracy via political institutions. 

Democracy Assessment: What and How? 
Indonesia is not unique. The problem of representation is common in many countries where there have been attempts at shortcuts to democracy through elite-negotiations and top-down crafting of institutions. This is increasingly well recognised, not least by those who once promoted these ‘instant’ methods. The emerging trend now is rather one of promoting representation by strengthening parties, party systems and civic education. (Cf. Törnquist 2005a) In the Indonesian context, for instance, the Dutch Institute for Multi Party Democracy has launched an extensive programme to this end. No matter how welcome it is, however, there are good reasons to be critical. Parties are important, but most of the existing formations are part of the problem of (the lack of) representation. The major questions, therefore, are rather how to reform or alter them and in what ways ordinary people and especially pro-democrats can be integrated into politics and to improve and use democracy.

How to define and assess meaningful human rights-based democracy?

Fortunately there already exists widespread agreement amongst committed actors (such as the pro-democrats who entrusted us to carry out this research and the donors who sponsor it) that the continuous aim is 'meaningful human rights-based democracy'. The major challenge is instead to define and make analytical sense of this concept. What are the core elements of such a democracy and what would be the minimum requirements for generating it? If we cannot identify the contours of the intrinsic factors involved, how might we then be able to distinguish the key parameters and collect information about them?

In other words, what is the basis for our assessment of the problems and options of meaningful human rights-based democracy in Indonesia? What is the framework and method for this study?

The most usual understanding of 'meaningful' is functional: the instruments of human rights-based democracy may not be perfect, but citizens at large must at the very least find that the concrete instruments that are available in their own contexts are relevant to their efforts to control and influence what they deem to be matters of common concern.

What are the aims and means of democracy? According to Beetham (1999) and Beetham et.al (2002), scholars tend to agree that the aim of democracy is popular control of public affairs on the basis of political equality. This, according to the same authors, requires a set of general principles: everybody’s right and ability to participate, the authorisation of representatives and officials, their representation of main currents of poplar opinion and the social composition of people – in addition to being continuously responsive to the opinions and interests of the people and accountable (directly or indirectly) to the citizens for what they have done; which in turn requires transparency. Finally, while equality applies implicitly to all these principles, solidarity among the citizens and others who fight for democracy is just as fundamental. Thus most, if not all, of these general principles also call for the additional principles of human rights.

Aside from the fact that there must be basic correspondence between the officially delineated demos and how people identify themselves in public matters, those fundamental principles call for a set of semi-universal instruments on different levels in a given polity that are supposed to promote:

• Equal citizenship, rule of law, justice, civil and political rights, and socio-economic rights in terms of basic needs;
• Democratic elections, representation, and responsive and accountable government and public administration; 
• Free and democratically oriented media, art, academia, civil society and other forms of additional popular participation.

Note: Beetham et. al. (2002) identifies some 85 semi-universal instruments. We have revised these and cut them down to 40 – see box 1!

Box 1. The 40 instruments of democracy

Rights and institutions to promote:
I : Citizenship, Law and Rights1. Equal citizenship
2. The rights of minorities, migrants and refugees
3. Reconciliation of horizontal conflicts
4. Government support and respect for international law and UN human rights treaties
5. Subordination of the government and public officials to the rule of law
6. Equal and secure access to justice
7. The integrity and independence of the judiciary
8. Freedom from physical violence and the fear of it
9. Freedom of speech, assembly and organisation
10. Freedom to carry out trade union activity
11. Freedom of religion and belief
12. Freedom of language and culture
13. Gender equality and emancipation
14. The rights of children
15. The right to employment, social security and other basic needs
16. The right to basic education, including citizen’s rights and duties
17. Good corporate governance and business regulations in the public interest

II: Representative and accountable government18. Free and fair general elections at central, regional, and local levels
19. Free and fair separate elections of e.g. governors, mayors and village heads
20. Freedom to form parties, recruit members, and campaign for office
21. Reflection of vital issues and interests among people by political parties
22. Abstention from abusing religious or ethnic sentiments, symbols and doctrines by political parties
23. Independence of money politics and powerful vested interests by political parties
24. Membership-based control of parties, and responsiveness and accountability of parties to their constituencies
25. Parties ability to form and run government
26. The transparency and accountability of elected government, at all levels
27. The transparency and accountability of the executive/public civil servants, at all levels
28. Democratic decentralisation of government on the basis of the subsidiarity principle
29. The transparency and accountability of the military and police to elected government and the public
30. The capacity of the government to combat paramilitary groups, hoodlums and organised crime
31. The independence of the government from foreign intervention (except UN conventions and applicable international law)
32. Government’s independence from strong interest groups and capacity to eliminate corruption and abuse of power

III: Democratically oriented civil society and direct participation33. Freedom of the press, art and academic world
34. Public access to and the reflection of different views within media, art and the academic world
35. Citizens’ participation in extensive independent civic associations
36. Transparency, accountability and democracy within civic organisations
37. All social groups’ – including women’s – extensive access to and participation in public life
38. Peoples’ direct contact with the public services and servants
39. Peoples’ direct contact with their political representatives
40. Government’s consultation of people and when possible facilitation of direct participation in policymaking and the execution of public decisions.

NB! Those 40 instruments were measured in the 2nd round of the survey. In the 1st round, however, only 35 were applied. The consolidated data, therefore relates to those 35 instruments only. In the list above, the instruments being combined in the consolidated data are underlined.

To be meaningful, these instruments must not merely exist; they must also perform well. This is not to evaluate whether the instruments are producing policies to our liking or not – only the extent to which each instrument fulfils its purpose of contributing to the democratic infrastructure. For instance, to what extent are the institutions that are supposed to uphold equal citizenship really doing that? The reasons for poor performance may be lack of will, resources and capacities or a combination thereof, but that is another matter.

In addition, studies and experience that focus less on institutions and more on movements and actors indicate that two other factors are also necessary for a democracy to be defined as meaningful. First, since institutions that perform well may be limited whilst a meaningful democracy calls for rights and institutions that have a reasonable scope, we must also inquire to what extent the instruments are geographically well spread and cover the issues that most people consider to be of public concern.

Second, since rights and institutions do not emerge and act by themselves, we need to know the extent to which citizens at large (and not only the elite) are willing and capable of promoting and using them. This is how we try to analyse the dynamics of democratisation and democracy beyond the rigid mapping of the state of affairs that characterises many mainstream assessments of democracy. Citizens’ democratic capacity is primarily about effective presence in various spheres and arenas of the political landscape, effective politicisation of issues and interests, effective mobilisation and effective strategies for the promotion and use of the instruments of democracy. This in turn implies that the actors are well informed about power relations and other conditions – though not necessarily that the conditions as such are ideal. In short, a meaningful democracy must be a substantial democracy.

Extreme rightist and leftists oppose this position. They argue that while some human rights may be omitted, certain pre-conditions and outcomes in terms of power relations are inseparable elements of democracy. The radical rightists say, for instance, that free markets and private ownership are essential. Thus it is argued that the scope of democracy must be limited, that different ideologies are undemocratic and that therefore they must to be fought and opposed by all means, irrespective of human rights. The radical left on the other hand tend to argue that democracy will be limited to the bourgeoisie unless citizens are not only politically but also socially and economically equal. Thus it is argued that the scope of democracy must be expanded to include some kind of socialism, and that those who object to this are undemocratic and should not be protected against popular sovereignty by certain human rights.

Both these tendencies are rejected as they tend to undermine a meaningful, or substantial, democracy. 'Real' powers are crucial conditions for what can be done; and are indeed also crucial to what we use democracy for. Personally, for instance, we may like to use it to foster social and economic equality. But to widen the concept of democracy to include conditions that are not absolutely necessary even for a substantial democracy, or how we wish to change or alter those conditions, would not just be unproductive in scholarly terms with respect to the unclear delimitations of the dependent and independent variables. One would also compromise human rights and prevent alliances with others who agree on the fundamental importance of meaningful human rights-based democracy but do not subscribe to politics of socio-economic equality.

This has all too often been the case. In the fifties for instance, both rightists and leftists gave priority to rival positions in the cold war rather than to upholding of the democracy that they themselves had introduced in a liberation struggle and then institutionalised. The importance of the core instruments of substantial human rights-based democracy must not be negated. That means to neglect the beauty of democracy in terms of its potential to limit the use of raw power and even enable the powerless to increase their political capacity to thus alter their conditions in life. The politics of democratisation is to enhance that potential.

In conclusion, we deem the thirteen questions in Box 2 to capture the essence of the variables that concerned scholars would agree there is a need to collect information about in order to assess the problems and options of meaningful human rights-based democracy. We combine a descriptive and explanatory approach. On the one hand we collect empirical information with regard to each of the thirteen variables for straight-forward descriptive purposes, thus mapping the state of democracy. On the other hand we also contribute to explaining the state of affairs and to generate policy relevant proposals. This is done by reformulating vital academic as well as more popular arguments and theses inside and outside Indonesia with regard to democratisation into hypotheses – which are then brought to test by being confronted by the empirical information about the various variables.


Box 2.
The 13 major questions used to assess meaningful Human Rights-based democracy from below
Intrinsic factors● political identity/demos 1. How do people identify themselves in public matters (as Indonesians or members of districts – or as members of a local or religious or ethnic community)?
● performance of instruments 2. What is the performance of the 40 major instruments of democracy, and has performance improved or deteriorated since the 1999 elections?
● scope of instruments 3. What is the geographical and issue related scope of the 40 instruments of democracy, and has it has improved or deteriorated since the 1999 elections?
● actors' relation to instruments 4. How do vital actors relate to the 40 instruments of democracy (promote and use, use only, sometimes use, bypass/abuse), and in relation to what instruments are they strong or weak? 5. What do pro-democracy actors deem to be the pros and cons of working with the 40 instruments of democracy?
● actors' capacity to promote 6. In what spheres of the widely defined political landscape are the actors present? and use or abuse instruments 7. In what way do the actors politicise issues, interests and ideas? 8. In what ways do the actors mobilise popular support/involve people in politics? 9. What strategies do the actors apply in making their way through or avoiding the political system?

Link to non-intrinsic conditions● actors' capacity to read, 10. What are the structural political opportunities for the actors?
adjust to and make use of? 11. What sources of power do the actors rely on?
structural and other 12. How do the actors attempts to transform those powers into authority, legitimacy and thus conditions political influence? 13. What kind of values, ideas and experiences are the actors consciously or unconsciously guided by in their public activities?


Assessment from belowWhat would the best sources be in order to answer the thirteen main questions in our framework? Given that our aim is the best possible general analysis within a short period of time and with limited resources, not close contextual case studies, a fundamental problem is the poor availability and standard of data-banks and the limitations of previous research. A quick look at the recommendations on data collection in IDEA’s assessment handbook for instance (Beetham et.al. 2002) made us realise that most of the (limited number of) sources available would either be too general, not entirely relevant or reliable. Bluntly speaking, recommendations like those made in IDEA’s handbook make very little sense in a developing country like Indonesia. Given the lack of existing sources and the need therefore to rely primarily on interviews, our next priority was to formulate questions and assemble information in such a way that we could reach beyond the usual metropolitan and elite oriented surveys and instead obtain information about the experiences and efforts of ordinary people in local contexts.

The method of approaching ‘ordinary people’ via opinion polls was therefore not an option. We had to focus on how to gain access to the experts’ knowledge of complicated processes, not just opinions. Of course, people’s perceptions matter, but realities do exist beyond post-modern interpretations. Having to make priorities, moreover, we were simply not in command of what various opinion-poll-institutes seem to take for granted: sufficient knowledge of various contexts to formulate contextualised questions that ordinary people would be able to make sense of.

We turned instead to discussions on how to find a good alternative to the limited perspectives of the ‘air conditioned’ metropolitan experts that are usually consulted. In contrast to the other extreme, the so-called participatory appraisals among local people, our solution was the realistic compromise of holding on to our theoretically structured assessment scheme and to the consultation of experts – but to identify the experts among reflective and thoroughly grounded local activists with extensive experience gained from their efforts at promoting democracy in the fourteen main issue-areas of pro-democratic activity around the country that we had identified in previous studies.

These informants would then be asked questions concerning the standard of the instruments of democracy, as well as the will and capacity of both pro-democracy and dominant actors to relate to these instruments. In the first case the informants would be instructed to answer with regard to democracy-actors they know of; in the second case they would be requested to identify and analyse the three most powerful actors (i.e. dominant actors) in the informants' contexts. Each informant would chose to reply with regard to either their own context or the country as a whole, but having done so, they would have to be consistent throughout the questionnaire.

Moreover, all the interviews would be conducted by trained local assistants capable of relating the general questions to local conditions. Finally, the interviews would be conducted in two rounds, thus allowing for a trial and error process that would both help us to improve on the questions and to introduce generally well known examples in relation to most of them.

The ideal equation would thus be two informants (independent of each other) within each of the fourteen issue areas in thirty-two provinces, or a total of 896 informants. Meanwhile, our assessment framework had generated a questionnaire with more than 300 questions and our tests indicated that each interview might take as long as four to six hours – quite a challenge. But thanks to close co-operation with the democracy movement the outcome was satisfactory. Informants with tight schedules showed remarkable understanding and patience with the long questionnaire and time-consuming interviews for instance. Due to security problems in some provinces, time constraints, various misunderstandings and a few unreliable local assistants we did not in the final count obtain 896 valid questionnaires – but we did get about 800.

The identification of the informants – our main sources of information – was thus critical. The first step was the selection of the main issue-areas of pro-democracy work in Indonesia. This was done on the basis of our earlier survey as well as case studies made on the post-Soeharto democracy movement in addition to previous comparative research (Prasetyo, Priyono and Törnquist 2003 and e.g. Törnquist 2002 and Harriss et.al. 2004)

The main issue-areas within which we identified experts-informants for the first round survey were the rights, interests and capacity related to:

1. The control of land
2. Labour
3. Urban poor
4. Human rights
5. The struggle against corruption in favour of ‘good governance’
6. The attempts to democratise the party system, and
7. The promotion of pluralism and religious and ethnic reconciliation.

During the second round, expert-informants have been consulted within the following issue-areas:

1. (8) The improvement and democratisation of education
2. (9) The promotion of professionalism as part of good governance in public and private sectors
3. (10) The freedom, independence and quality of media
4. (11) The promotion of gender equality and feminist perspectives
5. (12) The improvement of alternative representation on the local level
6. (13) The attempts to form popular rooted political parties and
7. (14) The attempts to promote interest-based mass organisations.

The second step was the identification and mobilisation of representatives-cum-key-informants among DEMOS´ associates in the thirty-two provinces of the country. These representatives have played an important role in supplementing our knowledge and contacts from previous research. They have helped us to identify strategic processes in the provinces that relate to the various issue-areas and they have suggested and assisted us in approaching, within these contexts, informants for the interviews. Since the representatives must be accountable for their work, their identities are known to our quality-auditors, but the informants remain anonymous. The local representatives have also helped us in the selection, training and supervision of the some 100 local assistants who have carried out the interviews. The role of these assistants has been crucial since they had to understand and be able to clarify each question, preferably by giving additional contextual examples.

In spite of all this, much of the inevitable weaknesses of working with mass data and relying on informants remain and must be kept in mind: we are not able to make full contextual case studies, and the background, personal opinions and other biases of the experts may have influenced their statements and estimates. This may be partly handled by comparisons within the material, including between information from experts related to different issue-areas, regions and gender. We shall come back to the details in the full report. In any case, mass data based analysis is necessary as a supplement to case-studies in order to reach general conclusions. And our grounded informants are possibly the most knowledgeable experts of the problems of democracy.

Supplementary information and quality-checks are also made available through national and regional assessment councils with senior scholars and reflective activists. This is where the team present the results and tentative analysis. Input given at various meetings held with interested organisations is also important. Finally, in conjunction with the second round of the survey, we have added a series of semi-structured and open ended interviews with particularly experienced informants in three of the issue areas that stood out as strategically important based on the results of the first round survey, namely alternative local representation, party building, and attempts to broaden interest-based mass organisations. In the process of disseminating and discussing the emerging combined results from the first and second rounds of the survey, we shall also carry out a mini-re-survey amongst a limited number of informants to try to glean some preliminary ideas of changes over time. In November this year, the concluding report of the survey will be presented and discussed at a conference that will be held to discuss the drafting of a new agenda for meaningful human rights-based democracy. In conjunction with the conference there will also be a graduate course for students and scholars who wish to follow up the results and further Indonesian studies on the problems of democracy.


Main Results and Conclusions
Given the highly contested nature of several of the issue-areas within which we identified informants for the first round of the survey, one may suspect that we initially received particularly critical responses. Interestingly, the informants from the second round of less ‘hot’ issue areas tend to confirm our previous general conclusions. Importantly, the combined results from the 1st and 2nd round of the survey also add critical qualifications and specifications with regard to the various instruments of democracy, the capacity of the actors to use and improve them as well as differences between issue-areas and regions.

While the executive report from the first round of the survey spoke of a hijacked democracy with important freedoms but bad tools and representation in addition to marginalised citizens and pro-democrats – this second report based on the survey as a whole both substantiates the rather negative conclusions of first assessment as well as identifying options for moving forward.

The survey may well comprise the most comprehensive and systematic information that is currently available on the problems of and options for human rights-based democracy in Indonesia. Of course the team may have set aside some crucial questions, and the local experts from around the country may sometimes be mistaken in their assessment. But we have striven to include the thirteen key variables and the some three-hundred and thirty questions that concerned scholars ought to be able to agree on. In addition, eight hundred or so experts on the promotion of democracy within fourteen issue areas in most provinces of the country that have spent between four to six hours each to answer our questions can hardly be ignored. Interestingly, almost all the informants chose to answer the questions in relation to their local contexts rather than the country as a whole, thus possibly increasing the quality of their information. So long as nobody is able to mobilise theoretically convincing arguments and more solid data to suggest that critical aspects have been set aside, that the informants are generally mistaken or that the team has made faulty calculations and poor analysis, one may thus hope that the results of the survey will form the point of departure for both improvements and discussion on a more efficient agenda for meaningful human rights-based democracy.

Generally speaking, the combined results from the survey point to four major conclusions concerning the problems and options for how to promote human rights-based democracy in Indonesia:

• There are critical basic freedoms, but a severe democratic deficit of other rights and institutions, including people’s identification with the national and regional demos.
• There are free and fair elections, but only of unrepresentative and unresponsive parties and politicians.
• The dominant members of elite tend to adjust to the new game of democracy but monopolises it, bending and abusing the rules of the game as they go.
• The agents of change that brought democracy to Indonesia are still critical as civic activists and pressure groups but are ‘floating’ in the margins of the fledgling democratic system, thus being unable to make a real impact.

* * *

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