Democratisation and Ethnic Minorities: Chinese Indonesians in Post-Suharto Indonesia

Abstract

This study examines the complex situation of ethnic Chinese Indonesians in post-Suharto Indonesia. Due to the absence of an effective, genuinely reformist political force, predatory politico-business interests nurtured under the New Order managed to capture the new political and economic regimes in post-Suharto Indonesia. Consequently, corruption and internal mismanagement continue to plague the bureaucracy in the country. As targets of extortion and corruption by bureaucratic officials and youth/crime organisations, the Chinese are not merely passive bystanders of the democratisation process in Indonesia nor powerless victims of corrupt practices. By focusing on the important interconnected aspects of the role Chinese play in post-Suharto Indonesia, via business, politics and civil society, I argue, through a combination of Anthony Giddens?s structure-agency theory and Pierre Bourdieu?s notion of habitus and field, that although the Chinese are constrained by various conditions, they also have played an active role in shaping these conditions.