Towards a political economy of human rights violations in post-new order Indonesia

Abstract

This article reviews the literature on human rights violations in Indonesia during the post-New Order period, evaluates the explanations it provides, and suggests avenues for future inquiry drawing on insights from Richard Robison's Indonesia: The Rise of Capital and his subsequent book with Vedi Hadiz, Reorganising Power in Indonesia: The Politics of Oligarchy in an Age of Markets. It is argued that this literature either gives insufficient attention to the nature of the Indonesian state or does so in a way that obscures the interests of the country's powerful politico-business oligarchy. Future research thus needs to examine the role of these factors, taking into account the way in which the oligarchy's interests vis-à-vis human rights are mediated by the type of right and the structure of the economy.