The Path to Preemption: The Politics of Indonesian Student Movements During The Regime Transition (1998-99)

Fajar, Muhammad

doi:https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-h69m-5156

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The Path to Preemption: The Politics of Indonesian Student Movements During The Regime Transition (1998-99)

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This study aims to explain variations in student movement successes and failures during regime transitions. Examining the 1998–99 Indonesian student movement that helped ending the Suharto regime, this study argues that the degree of state repression influences the degree of coordination and assistance from opposition groups and actors to students, which then determines the nature and extent of student movement success. This study argues that apart from complete failure (collapse), there are three forms of student movement success: preemption, cooptation, and full response. The 1998–99 student movement is an example of preemption, which refers to the adoption of some of the student demands by the Habibie’s government without the inclusion of students themselves into the Indonesian state. This limited form of success was achieved because the students’ capacity to achieve greater change was weakened because of the heavy state repression of their movement partners, opposition groups, and actors. Students should be understood as the initiators of change rather than societal transformers. They are most effective when testing regime strength, revealing weaknesses, and damaging legitimacy and defenses. To achieve maximum levels of success, students are highly dependent on opposition groups and actors to increase their impact during transitions. Such strong coordination and assistance from the regime’s political opponents were not forthcoming in the Indonesian case, with the result that only preemption was achieved. This study compares the experience of Indonesia to the student movements in the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the 1944 Guatemalan Revolution. The Iranian students followed the cooptation path (like preemption, a partial form of success), while the Guatemalan students followed the more successful full response path.

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