Epistemic Community and Military Reform in Indonesia

DOI

10.2991/icsps-17.2018.68How to use a DOI?

Keywords

epistemic community in defense studies, military reform, democratization, Indonesia post-Suharto

Abstract

Following the fall of Suharto in 1998, Indonesia engaged in a democratization process and as part of it, the Indonesian military (currently known as Tentara Nasional Indonesia, TNI) which during Suharto era played omnipresent roles in public affairs was forced to adopt reform agendas to disengage itself from politics. Nearly two decades since the military reform was initiated; it has been, to certain degree, successful in establishing civilian control over the military, despite of several leftovers that need to be seriously addressed. Previous studies on military reform in Indonesia have pointed out the role of the armed forces and their interests in enabling and in directing the reform. Others focus on the role of civilian groups, such as the parliament, political parties, or non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Limited attention is given to the role of academics or epistemic community in the reform. This paper argues that epistemic community plays an influential role in both processes, especially in establishing the required regulations to ensure civilian control over the military. It has capable of maintaining their alliance with NGOs to put pressures on the implementation of reform project while at the same time enhancing their links to defense establishment, government, and the parliament to influence the making of the policy. The main problem in acknowledging their role lays in the difficulty in identifying who are the members of this community actually are. This paper explores not only who can be defined as epistemic community in defense studies in Indonesia but also how this group manages to steer the direction of the reform.

Copyright

© 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Broto Wardoyo
PY  - 2017/11
DA  - 2017/11
TI  - Epistemic Community and Military Reform in Indonesia
BT  - Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Social and Political Sciences (ICSPS 2017)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 325
EP  - 328
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/icsps-17.2018.68
DO  - 10.2991/icsps-17.2018.68
ID  - Wardoyo2017/11
ER  -