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The relationship between the role of the military and political changes in Indonesia

Since the independence of Indonesia in 1945, Indonesia has experienced several changes during the last sixty years and is now moving towards democratization. Of these political changes, Indonesia's civil-military relationship has always played a key role. During the era of Cold War, Indonesia¡¦s military were fighting against colonial power and facing the ideological confrontation. As political changes are going on, the military is asked to get out of political system in Indonesia.
During the war of Independence, Indonesia¡¦s military played a role to save the country, they fought against the Dutch under the belief of nationalism. Indonesia's parliamentary democracy in the 1950s caused political disorder. Sukarno¡¦s leftist ideology has also caused the military unrest. With both internal and external factors, military coup happened in September 1965, which result in the region of authoritarian rule of Suharto.
During the Suharto era, Indonesia's military penetrated in political, economic and social areas in Indonesia. The military became the supreme power that controlled the country. Indonesia's economic growth was claimed to be as a source of legitimacy for Suharto¡¦s regime. Indonesia¡¦s economy was almost collapsed of the financial crisis in 1997. As Mr.Suharto is losing his ruling legitimacy in Indonesia, it¡¦s made Suharto step down in May 1998. Indonesia¡¦s military then began to change. Indonesia has experienced four presidential elections, and regarded as a democratic state. But, if Indonesia wants to achieve a true civilian control over the military still, further military professionalism has to be done.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0119112-233729
Date19 January 2012
CreatorsWang, Xie-fan
ContributorsWang-pin Tai, Wen-chen Lin, Samuel C.Y.Ku
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0119112-233729
Rightsuser_define, Copyright information available at source archive

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