Between State and society: Decentralization in Indonesia

In order to understand local people’s changing opportunities in Indonesia, an explanation is needed of how the spectacular upheavals of Indonesia’s decentralization and democracy reforms enabled local society to assert increased influence over the previously highly autocratic, coercive state and its iron grip over forests. The work of Joel Migdal, Atul Kohli,Vivienne Shue and others (1994) provides a framework for the analysis of these changing relationships.This chapter will take an in-depth look at Indonesia’s history of centralization and decentralization, and the legal framework defining decentralization during the reform period between 1998 and 2003.