Abstract
This article describes and analyzes the interaction between the student movement and the regime in Indonesia, with particular reference to the 1970s, which saw the institutionalization of the post-populist authoritarian regime and the advance of peripheral capitalism based upon the oil bonanza. To clarify the political context, I give a brief account of the genealogy of the authoritarian regime in the first section. I point out six major factors which boosted this : 1) the political culture, 2) the bureaucratic state apparatus inherited from the Dutch colonial era, 3) the decolonization (independence) process, 4) the process of state formation (centralization of power through suppression of armed rebellions and reorganization of armed forces), 5) the reorganization of the structure of power through destruction of peasant radicalism (communism), and 6) the dynamics of bureaucratic authoritarianism.
Next I examine the student movement during the initial period (1970-1974) of the institutionalization of the authoritarian regime. I also point out several features of the changing socio-economic structure during the early 1970s : the expansion of the patronage system, the emergence of a new middle class, and manifest economic inequality. In this context, the student movement emerged again in 1977-78, triggered by the ‘expanding structure of political opportunity’.
In the third section. I first chronicle the short history of the student movement during the period 1977-78. I then examine the perceptions of the student movement leaders as they appears in records of their defense speeches in court.
The results of analysis can be summarized as follows. Political opportunities expanded and student organization was strengthened in mid-1977. Following a chain of events, the student movement became more active by cooperating with the anti-Suharto faction of the military elite. In this current of events, we notice the relation between the liberal political culture of youth on campus and the institutionalization of the authoritarian regime.
The students' search for identity produced a critical movement, which came in contact with the institutionalization of the authoritarian regime and the operation of a patrimonial monopoly capitalist system based upon the oil bonanza. In other words, the students tried to enter into political discourse against the politics of authoritarianism, which was becoming a self-evident feature of everyday life. Although the student movement had several shortcomings and finally collapsed under suppression, it played an pivotal role in changing the type of ‘accumulation regime’ during the 1970s. Its function in the political process of the Indonesian authoritarian regime cannot be ignored, particularly in terms of democratization.
