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"This article examines the relationships between the changes and continuities of Indonesian local politics and Chinese Indonesian business practices in the post-Suharto era, focusing on Chinese Indonesian businesses in two of the largest Indonesian cities, Medan and Surabaya. The fall of Suharto in May 1998 led to the opening up of a democratic and liberal space as well as the removal of many discriminatory measures against the Chinese minority. However, due to the absence of an effective, genuinely reformist party or political coalition, predatory political-business interests nurtured under Suharto’s New Order managed to capture the new political and economic regimes. As a result, corruption and internal mismanagement continue to plague the bureaucracy in the country and devolve from the central to the local governments. This article argues that this is due partially to the role some Chinese businesspeople have played in perpetuating corrupt business practices. As targets of extortion and corruption by bureaucratic officials and youth/crime organizations, Chinese businesspeople are not merely passive and powerless victims of corrupt practices. This article argues, through a combination of Anthony Giddens’s structure-agency theory as well as Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of habitus and field, that although Chinese businesspeople are constrained by the muddy and corrupt business environment, they have also played an active role in shaping such a business environment. They have thus played an active role in shaping local politics, which is infused with corruption and institutionalized gangsterism, as well as perpetuating their increasingly ambivalent position."

"AbstrakAround 1980 the Indonesian government launched a program of oil palm plantation development led by state owned plantation enterprises with some project finance. The program was named Nucleus Estates and Smallholders (NES) Projects and was funded by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank. In the early 1980s some state-owned enterprises constructed several oil palm estates in West Kalimantan Province under the NES scheme, almost all of which were located in Sanggau Regency. These estates are currently facing replanting problems, since the oil palm trees there are 25 to 30 years old and inevitably less productive. In the estates owned by smallholders, plasma farmers who have their estates near the nucleus estates owned by plantation companies, the replanting problems are more serious than company owned plantations because of smallholders difficulty with financing.In this paper, the author aims to introduce the results of field research regarding the replanting problems on plasma estates owned by smallholders by focusing on one stateowned oil palm estate in Sanggau Regency. For some years after 2007, the Revitalization Program of Estates was implemented in those estates. The program aimed to subsidize a part of the interest imposed on plasma farmers on loans for the revitalization of their old or damaged estates. The implementation of the program, however, was not smooth. The program was not a success because of the inefficiency of the so called United Management System as a way to manage plasma smallholders estates after replanting, and because the loan program for replanting did not take account of the estate owners financial capacity. Alternatives to the Revitalization Program would be possible if those factors were improved."

"Southeast Asia has been a showcase for democratic transitions in the past 30 years. This paper proposes a conceptual lens for studying political shifts in the Southeast Asian region. The argumentative storyline follows two fundamental propositions about democratic transitions. My first proposition is that during democratic transitions, human phenomena arise on nested analytical layers namely the global arena, the state, prodemocracy movements, and individuals. Each layer is conventionally studied by international relations, political science, sociology, and psychology respectively. I propose a multidisciplinary lens that transverses all these analytical layers. A second proposition is that during political shifts, social conditions are historically-situated. Historicity is anchored on stages of democratization, namely the authoritarian regime, toppling the regime, power shift, state building, and nation building. This paper describes a 4 x 5 matrix (analytical layer x historical stage) that may guide a regional agenda on the empirical study of democratic transitions in the Southeast Asian region. It likewise gives examples of research findings in Philippine-based studies that have already begun to provide empirical data about segments of this research matrix."

"Addresses the rise of China and its impacts on Southeast Asia's economies and businesses, especially on those of ethnic Chinese. Also discusses Southeast Asian government policies, particularly their economic and business policies, towards local Chinese, and Southeast Asian Chinese businesses, both conglomerates and SMEs, in an era of globalization."