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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/216544 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Turner, Barry John, barry.turner@rmit.edu.au |
| Publisher | Swinburne University of Technology. |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://www.swin.edu.au/), Copyright Barry John Turner |
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