Keith Bettinger, PhD

Since the fall of long-time strongman Suharto and his authoritarian ‘New Order’ government
in 1998, Indonesia has embarked upon a series of decentralisation and democratisation
reforms. This new era of decentralised politics has come to be known as Reformasi and has
significantly altered the political landscape of the archipelago as national and subnational levels of
administration continue to contest the balance of power. Indonesia’s national parks, which remain
under the… Show more

Since the fall of long-time strongman Suharto and his authoritarian ‘New Order’ government
in 1998, Indonesia has embarked upon a series of decentralisation and democratisation
reforms. This new era of decentralised politics has come to be known as Reformasi and has
significantly altered the political landscape of the archipelago as national and subnational levels of
administration continue to contest the balance of power. Indonesia’s national parks, which remain
under the authority of the national government, have become arenas for negotiated encounters
between local resource users, aspiring district elites and the national government. This essay explores
three legacies of incomplete and unfinished decentralisation as they related to national park-based
conservation, using Sumatra’s Kerinci Seblat National Park as a case study. Show less

Since the fall of the authoritarian Suharto regime in Indonesia, the role of local communities in managing forest resources has been the subject of intense debate. Though the State has long asserted its authority over the country's forest estate, local communities contend that they are the rightful owners of millions of hectares of forests, which they say have been for centuries according to the customary rules of use, or adat. This article describes the evolution of the concept of adat… Show more

Since the fall of the authoritarian Suharto regime in Indonesia, the role of local communities in managing forest resources has been the subject of intense debate. Though the State has long asserted its authority over the country's forest estate, local communities contend that they are the rightful owners of millions of hectares of forests, which they say have been for centuries according to the customary rules of use, or adat. This article describes the evolution of the concept of adat beginning in the colonial era and continuing through to the present day, describing how adat has been manipulated by centralizing forces to facilitate central government control over natural resources. This discussion takes place in the context of Kerinci Seblat National Park, a large protected area on the island of Sumatra, and describes the various systems of adat found in the communities surrounding the park. The article describes how these systems have been affected by various centralizing regimes, as well as how the central government has attempted to impose resource management policies and priorities on local communities. The interaction between the central government and adat communities has in many cases led to increased environmental degradation. Show less

Kerinci Seblat National Park is a 1.4 million hectare protected area on Sumatra in Indonesia. The park covers parts of 15 districts and administrative municipalities. Since the onset of decentralization reforms in 2001, these political units have become much more powerful compared to the centrally-dominating Suharto regime. In order to spur on economic development, many of these districts have proposed the construction of roads through the park, which until now represents a significant… Show more

Kerinci Seblat National Park is a 1.4 million hectare protected area on Sumatra in Indonesia. The park covers parts of 15 districts and administrative municipalities. Since the onset of decentralization reforms in 2001, these political units have become much more powerful compared to the centrally-dominating Suharto regime. In order to spur on economic development, many of these districts have proposed the construction of roads through the park, which until now represents a significant barrier to commerce in central Sumatra. Park officials and conservationists worry that these roads will degrade the environment and will open the door for illegal activities such as poaching and logging. Newly-empowered local officials and elites argue that the park is an unfair imposition that limits their development options. This paper examines the new politics of road construction in and around the park, describing three strategies local elites use to marshal support for road construction projects. Show less

Previous scholarship has shown that proposals for new provinces in Indonesia generally revolve around identity politics or territorial coalitions. I describe in this essay the territorial coalition supporting Puncak Andalas province while arguing that there is another important factor: the existence of a coherent formal or functional regional identity. The proposed Puncak Andalas province differs from other cases in that there is no ethnic or religious marginalization, nor has the area ever… Show more

Previous scholarship has shown that proposals for new provinces in Indonesia generally revolve around identity politics or territorial coalitions. I describe in this essay the territorial coalition supporting Puncak Andalas province while arguing that there is another important factor: the existence of a coherent formal or functional regional identity. The proposed Puncak Andalas province differs from other cases in that there is no ethnic or religious marginalization, nor has the area ever been united as a discrete political, cultural, or economic region. Therefore the territorial coalition must create a regional identity. Moreover, every other province created since the fall of Suharto, as well as all of the potential provinces currently being deliberated by the Ministry of Home Affairs have been or would be formed from a single "mother province"​. Thus the case of Puncak Andalas reveals a novel strategy for provincial formation. Although this new strategy faces unique challenges, if successful Puncak Andalas province could serve as a template for a flood of new proposals to carve provinces out of hitherto unconnected corners of existing provinces. This paper describes an incremental long term strategy utilized by local elites to mobilize support for intervening goals, each of which is easier to achieve than the formation of a new province, but each of which makes the goal of provincial formation more realistic. This chain of events has unwittingly been set in motion by Indonesia's decentralization and democratization reforms. However, while local elites pursue this strategy to increase their prestige and rent-seeking opportunities, they reify and thus render intractable the marginalization of already peripheral groups through the formation of relatively poor administrative regions. Now that the moratorium on new districts and provinces has apparently lapsed, initiatives to establish new regions will undoubtedly gain renewed momentum. Show less