This thesis argues that General Abdul Haris Nasution, the most influential military strategist that Indonesia has produced, developed an elective affinity between his strategies for 'people�s resistance' and an organicist vision of the proper relations between the state (including the military) and society that led to the Indonesian Army�s formulation of a unique, pervasive and highly durable means of military intervention in politics, the economy and society. Organicism is a stream of political thinking that views state and society as a single organic unity. Corporatist / functional modes of interest representation are often associated with organicist thinking. Nasution�s 'people�s resistance' strategies emerged during the armed struggle for national independence (from the Dutch) in the second half of the 1940s. The thesis argues that unlike the 'people�s war' strategies that emanated from the political left at roughly the same time, Nasution�s concepts were designed to uphold organic 'traditional' authority structures and depoliticise the national struggle. Associated with these strategies was a system of territorial commands that shadowed and supervised the aristocratically led civilian administration. The form of military intervention that grew out of this elective affinity reached its peak during the New Order regime of former President Suharto (1966 � 1998), when the army used its 'people�s resistance' doctrines and their associated territorial commands to control the population and the regime championed state-sanctioned corporatist / functional modes of interest representation. The identification of this elective affinity is a major point of departure from previous political biographies of Nasution. Another is the emphasis placed on Nasution�s family and personal life, particularly in the early chapters. This thesis explains how personal and family influences encouraged Nasution towards organicist thinking. It identifies how, in the early 1950s, Nasution idealised his 'people�s resistance' strategies and the support given to him during the armed struggle by organic 'traditional' authority figures. It shows how Nasution�s elective affinity between organicist thinking and 'people�s resistance' infused the interventionist doctrines that the army began to develop in the mid-to-late 1950s. In recent years the Indonesian Army has distanced itself from corporatist / functional forms of interest representation and has largely retreated from an active involvement in politics. Nevertheless, the thesis identifies a continuing adherence within the Army leadership to Nasution�s system of territorial commands and concepts of 'people�s resistance' that cannot readily be reconciled with democratic processes.