Research On Indonesian Political Democratization After World War Ⅱ

The research on political democratization has been an important aspect in the area of political field. Indonesia, an important member of ASEAN, has turned into a democratic country from an extreme authoritarian country, which attracts the attention of many scholars. Now, there are many papers about the process of Indonesian democratization, but the systematic dissertations which concern the new trend of democratic reform are still few. That's why the research is important. This paper describes the history and status quo of Indonesian democratization, trying to analyze the political democratization in the round.Sukarno is the first president of the Republic of Indonesia and there are two phases during his governance: parliament democracy and "guided democracy". Indonesia started the transition from democracy to authoritarian regime during the Sukarno's governance. When Soharto assumed the reins of government, Indonesia is famous for the political power combination of the "president, army and Golkar". There are three main reasons accounting for the transition from democracy to authoritarian regime: the democratic forces in Indonesia are still weak; the army's contribution; the authoritarian tradition of political culture.Since 1998, when Soharto dropped the rein of government, Indonesia began the process of political democratic reform in all aspects. This paper makes a thorough analysis on Indonesian reform of political democratization, which includes the constitutional reform, the reform on party system, the reform on military democratization and the reform on decentralization. Of all, the constitutional reform is the most important aspect of Indonesian political democratization. Up to now, the reform has made a lot of achievements. Meanwhile, many unavoidable issues arise.The reform proceeds fiercely since the burst of the financial crisis in Southeast Asia. But the crisis is not the main reason why the reform started. This paper tries to find the main reasons of the Indonesian political democratization from three aspects: the enhancement of democratic force, the influence of the international situation, as well as the crisis of the rein of Soharto. There has been almost 10 years since the Indonesian political democratization started. As to the results, the academics have many arguments and can't reach consensus. Indonesia is a country that is multi-ethnics, multi-religions, multi-culture and multi-languages. So, Indonesia has many "contextual problems" which is expressed by Samuel Phillips Huntington. The reform won't be successful without the solution of these problems. Susilo , who used to be a general , was voted to be the president of Indonesia in 2004, which explains that the people want a strong government. During the governance of Susilo, the process of political democratization is more efficient than before. The consolidation of democracy depends on the formation of democratic political culture. It will take a long time for Indonesia to cultivate the democratic culture.