| The concept of political legitimacy is examined within the context of access to higher education in Indonesia in 1984. Several hypotheses are tested using survey data of public university applicants gathered by the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture in 1984, and interviews with key Ministry officials in 1990. The dissertation examined access to higher education in 1984 based on two theoretical concepts.;The first concept, developed by Kahane (1973), stated that Indonesia was a transitional society, referring to the hypothesized mixed bases of political legitimacy in developing nations. As lesser developed societies modernize, the social, cultural, and political bases of governmental legitimacy gradually shift from traditional to modern referents. Kahane argued that in the transitional phase, political legitimacy cannot be based entirely on one or the other form, but must be mixed, corresponding to the mixed nature of the polity.;The second concept, developed by Rubinson (1974), stated that the greater the degree of governmental control over the educational system, the greater the impact of educational policies on political legitimacy. The Indonesian government has a high degree of control over its public and private educational systems, therefore, those systems are hypothesized to have a strong influence on the government's legitimacy.;1984 was the first year of a nationwide, computer tabulated university entrance examination. The Indonesian government claimed that with the new examination, access would be determined by score alone. Based on this claim, the theoretical concepts outlined above, and the historical practices of access to higher education in Indonesia, Hypothesis 1 predicted that elite family background characteristics would predict access to elite public universities when score was relatively low. The newly instituted nationwide examination stipulating access by computer tabulated score represented the "modern" referent for the government's legitimacy (i.e. achievement), while elite family background characteristics represented the "traditional" legitimacy referent (i.e. political or bureaucratic ascription). Hypothesis 2, based on a government determined formula in which admission was by highest score and available seats in any given department, predicted that access to elite public universities in 1984 would not be influenced by elite family background characteristics.;Hypothesis 1 was supported and Hypothesis 2 was not. The dissertation tentatively concluded that in 1984 some access to elite public universities may have been determined by political factors. However, that was only one possible explanation among many. |
