Francis Fukuyama’s concept of social
capital and trust makes it easier in analysing the corruption in Indonesia
through a social perspective. According to Fukuyama “social capital is the
ability of people to work together for common purposes in groups and organisations.”
He divides this social capital into two; ‘familistic’ associations and
‘voluntary’ associations. The first set of social capital is the trust that
exists between the family members and the latter is the trust between
non-kinship relations, i.e. outside the family; with strangers. People placing
their trust on others, generally depends on the values and moral standards of
the society they belong to. Their environment should convince them that they
can afford to rely and trust others. It shows that trust mainly comes out of a
sense of social solidarity, that they believe different groups in society have
a shared fate, and that there is a responsibility on them to provide
possibilities for those with fewer resources.
Consider these major corruption
cases in Indonesia;
1.
Suharto corruption case: Suharto
during his presidency established different charity organisations such as
Supersemar, Dana Sejahtera Mandiri, Trikora etc. The income of all these
charities came from mostly state owned banks and tax money. These organisations
turned out to be channels for Suharto’s money embezzlement. In 2004,
Transparency International’s corrupt politicians list was topped by Mr.
Suharto, estimating that he and his family allegedly embezzled $15 to $35
billion during his 32-year long presidency.
2.
Hambalang Corruption Case: Choel Mallarangeng,
Fox News Consultant and Andi Mallarangeng, former Indonesian Sports Minister,
were proclaimed suspects in a multi-million dollar corruption case. Both
accused are brothers of the Indonesian socialite, Rizal Mallarangeng.
Mallarangeng was found guilty of accepting bribes (IDR 4 billion and USD
$550,000) from contractor Global Daya Manunggal. Mallarangeng was bribed in
order to manipulate the procurement and budgeting process of the Hambalang
sports complex (constructed in the context of the 2011 SEA Games). Part of the
money that Mallarangeng received was used to fund his campaign in the
Democratic Party chair election.
In
the cases above we can observe that there lacks the second social capital
Fukuyama talks about; ‘voluntary associations’. This lack of trust or we can
say there is only particularised trust, i.e. loyalty is only inside the group
or family. They do not give significance to the sense of shared fate. It is not
the generalised trust which is extended to the whole of the society or other
groups. In all three cases family/close relatives are engaged in the
corruption. That is, the shared fate and the sense of sharing the fewer
resources is only among the kin- relations. In Indonesia, we can say,
corruption is based upon loyalty to the in-group and not to the larger society.
This may be due to the fact that Indonesia is a democratic state with
a feudalistic political culture.
References
1. Rothstein, Bo and Uslaner, Eric M. “All for All:
Equality, Corruption, and Social Trust” World Politics, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Oct., 2005), pp. 41-72
2. Grey, Kenneth R, Book Review “Trust: The social virtues and
the creation of prosperity by Francis Fukuyama. International
Journal on World Peace Vol. 14, No. 1 (MARCH 1997), pp. 84-87
3. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/world/asia/28iht-suharto.1.9542684.html?_r=0
http://www.globalindonesianvoices.com/10165/high-profile-corruption-cases-in-indonesia/
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