Why Democratization and Decentralization in Indonesia Have Mixed Results on the Ground: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

ABSTRACT Indonesia has been subject to democratization and decentralization since Suharto's resignation in 1998. Whilst these two institutional reforms have attracted the attention of many scholars, no one has provided an overview explaining their mixed results. To address this gap, we conduct a systematic review of democratization and decentralization literature in Indonesia, exploring how democratization and decentralization relate and identifying moderators (constraining or supporting contextual factors) of the effects of the two institutional reforms. Our first finding is that the actual processes of democratization and decentralization may undermine each other. Our second finding is that clientelistic informal state institutions together with capture by old predatory elites in the context of legal fragmentation negatively affect outcomes of democratization and decentralization processes, whereas citizen collective action and reform‐oriented leadership positively affect them. Based on our findings, we present an advanced framework and three lessons for future studies on democratization and decentralization.

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