Political Change and the Business Elite in Indonesia

Anders Johansson

No 2014-34, Stockholm School of Economics Asia Working Paper Series from Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm China Economic Research Institute

Abstract: As Suharto’s authoritarian regime came to an end in 1998, the country’s business elite faced new challenges. While rent seeking had previously primarily taken place through direct relationships with and concessions from Suharto, the business elite in contemporary Indonesia operates in a setting with a higher degree of fluidity and uncertainty. This study sheds light on how the changes to the political landscape in Indonesia have affected the business elite. This is done by tracing the relationship between business and politics throughout history from the colonial period up to contemporary Indonesia. It also discusses how these changes have made the analysis of political connections and the value of political capital more complicated and highlights some of the factors believed to be important when analyzing the economics behind business-political relationships in Indonesia.

Keywords: Indonesia; political change; rent seeking; political connections; patronage; patrimonialism; elite; oligarchy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 G30 G38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2014-12-17
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-pol and nep-sea
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://swopec.hhs.se/hascer/papers/hascer2014-034.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:hascer:2014-034

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Stockholm School of Economics Asia Working Paper Series from Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm China Economic Research Institute Stockholm China Economic Research Institute, Stockholm School of Economics, P.O. Box 6501, 113 83 Stockholm, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by NanHee Lee (nanhee.lee@hhs.se).