Indonesian Autonomies: Explaining Divergent Self-Government Outcomes in Aceh and Papua

Shane Joshua Barter and Hipolitus Ringgi Wangge

Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 2022, vol. 52, issue 1, 55-81

Abstract: A form of power-sharing, territorial autonomy is essential for managing separatism. Indonesia provides two non-Western cases to illuminate what makes autonomy work. In Aceh, autonomy helped to overcome conflict and can be regarded as successful, while in Papua, autonomy has failed, evident in continued unrest. Within the same country, the same institutional response to violent separatism has generated divergent self-government outcomes. Why has autonomy succeeded in Aceh, but failed in Papua? Utilizing within-case and temporal comparisons, we suggest that the content of autonomy may be less important than the process through which it unfolds. The powers granted to Aceh and Papua are similar, although how self-government was negotiated and whom it empowered varied. Early in Aceh and in Papua, autonomy was essentially imposed, empowering corrupt leaders, and sidelining dissidents. Aceh’s ultimately successful autonomy was negotiated and saw popular former rebels take the reins of self-government.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/publius/pjab009 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:oup:publus:v:52:y:2022:i:1:p:55-81.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Publius: The Journal of Federalism is currently edited by Paul Nolette and Philip Rocco

More articles in Publius: The Journal of Federalism from CSF Associates Inc. Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().