Indonesia: Democratic consolidation and stagnation under Yudhoyono, 2004–2014

Even before Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono left office in October 2014 after ten years as Indonesia’s president, discussions about the nature and weight of his political legacy had been well under way. For some, Yudhoyono’s presidency had brought stability, economic growth, the decline of communal conflict and terrorism, and the consolidation of democracy (Wolfowitz 2009; Sheridan 2011). Indeed, Indonesia’s high ratings in international democracy indexes seemed to confirm this assessment, with Freedom House ranking the country as Southeast Asia’s most free and democratic between 2006 and 2013 (Freedom House 2013). Significantly, Indonesia appeared as a rock-solid model of a Muslim democracy-a category that remains preciously small, especially after the Egyptian generals brought the Arab Spring to a brutal end in August 2013. In short, Yudhoyono was praised as the guarantor of Indonesia’s long-term stabilization, turning the country from an institutionally weak and conflict-ridden polity into a haven of predictability in Southeast Asia and beyond. Others, however, were not so kind in their evaluation of Yudhoyono’s performance. In their view, Yudhoyono’s “regal incumbency” (Fealy 2011) had delivered political stagnation, widespread apathy among ordinary citizens, and inaction on Indonesia’s economic challenges (Tomsa 2010; Mietzner 2012a, 2012b). From this perspective, thestabilityYudhoyonohadleftbehindmaskedthefactthatthepresidenthadfailed to launch a single institutional reform project in his decade as the country’s top official. Thus, the critics argued, Yudhoyono administered Indonesia rather than ruling it, and the absence of political conflict under his presidency was more a sign of his lack of courage to initiate groundbreaking reform projects than of genuine collective satisfaction with the status quo.