Indonesia clearly fits into the “Official Moghuls” of Michael
Johnston’s four syndromes of corruption. Indonesia is a country where “powerful
political figures and their favourites holds the cards” as Johnston puts it. In
Official Moghuls, both officials and politicians enrich themselves through
corruption by converting whole state agencies to profit-seeking enterprises.
Indonesia faces the same issues of the weakened public institutions. Thus, it
is important to consider the social and political contexts of a county to
understand the corruption practices.
Looking into the social context of corruption what we can see
in the case of Indonesia is that of a lack of social capital; the ability of
people to work together for common purposes in groups and organisations. For
Fukuyama social capital consists of “familistic association” and “voluntary
association”. During Suharto’s New order regime, there were huge charity funds
and organisations set ups, headed by Suharto’s close relatives, in the name of
social welfare schemes but its sole purpose was to loot money from state owned
banks and taxes. What we can see here is that of high levels of trust among the
kin and a low level or ultimate lack of trust among non-kin relations. (High
particularised trust and low generalised trust. In other words, the system that
prevails in Indonesia is that of Nepotism and Cronyism.
Coming to the political corruption of Indonesia, the major
issues are that of bribery, nepotism, cronyism, embezzlement, graft etc and
this was highly prevalent during Suharto’s New Order regime. It is estimated that
today Suharto alone is worth at least $15 billion and the cumulative wealth of
his family is about $30 billion (Schwarz: 144).
One important thing to note here is that even with this
corruption happening around, Indonesia did go through a high economic
development. This is mainly due to the fact that, Suharto’s regime focused on
the development of the economy and ensured that these illegal corruption
activities lies in the limit and doesn’t disrupt the economic development.
There weren’t measures to curb corruption, but were checks on it. Due to this,
corruption, widespread along almost all sections of the government like
ministers, bureaucrats and even judiciary, the public institutions were very
weak. This weak public institutions are one among the reasons, Indonesia wasn’t
able to withstand the Asian Financial Crisis.
An important feature of the Indonesian corruption which needs
the most attention is also this weakening of institutions. Another aspect of
Indonesian corruption which should be addressed is the huge impact it has on
the culture of the country. It becomes a norm right now that any dealings
between citizens and government officials have to be sealed with payment of
bribes (Robertson and Fiona: 2000). Many social commentators have concluded
that Indonesia has a culture that tolerates corruption (budaya korupsi), in
which social behavior and cultural norms have become so ingrained and so
tolerating of corrupt behaviour that it is virtually impossible to fight it
(The Jakarta Post: 2000). Corruption also has destroyed confidence among citizens toward government
officials and bureaucrats, which has reduced their authority among citizens.
This could lead into major social problems such as increase in crime rates,
decline in social solidarity, and increasing use of violence as a means to
solve problems, since official legal recourse is impossible to obtain due to
the prevalence of corruption within the Indonesian legal system (Lindsey: 2000)
Tools to Combat Corruption in Indonesia
Komisi Pemberantasan
Korupsi, popularly
known as KPK is the Corruption Eradication Commission of Indonesia. Though KPK
has successfully dealt with few of the high profile cases after its
implementation in 2003, its reach in numbers have been less due to the lack of
enough man power, other resources and mainly political will
Another important tools that should be taken up in fighting
corruption is that of strengthening the judicial system and reformation of
civil services. The weak public institutions, especially the judicial system
completely eliminated the trust citizens had on the government. Disclosure of
assets and liabilities by public officials can be another effective tool in the
particular case of Indonesia. It will increase the transparency with incomes
and assets and a public shaming might deter the officials in engaging corrupt
practices.
References
1. Grey,
Kenneth R, Book Review (1997) “Trust: The social virtues and the creation of
prosperity by Francis Fukuyama.
International Journal on World Peace Vol. 14, pp. 84-87
2.
Robertson, Snape and Fiona (1999)
“Corruption, Collusion, and Nepotism in Indonesia.” Third World Quarterly. June, Vol.20, No.3: 589-602.
3.
Schwarz, Adam. 2000. “A Nation in Waiting:
Indonesia’s Search for Stability. Boulder” Westview
Press.
4.
Lindsey, Tim (2000) “Black Letter, Black
Market and Bad Faith: Corruption and the Failure of Law Reform.” ed Chris
Manning and Peter van Diermen, “Indonesia in Transition: Social Aspects of Reformasi
and Crisis” London: Zed Books: 278-292.
Online
Articles
1. The
Jakarta Post (2000) “Corruption: A Cultural Indicator”, Accessed on April 30. http://www.thejakartapost.com
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