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<![CDATA[Introducing the Power, Conflict, and Democracy Programme ]]>
<![CDATA[Törnquist, Olle]]>
<![CDATA[ PCD Journal Vol 1, No 1-2 (2009): Approaching Conflict and Democracy in South and Southeast Asia ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Universitas Gadjah Mada ]]>
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DOI: 10.22146/pcd.25672
<![CDATA[The state of democracy in the Global South is marked by a striking paradox: while liberal democracy has attained an ideologically hegemonic position through two so-called waves of democracy, the qualities of such democracies is increasingly called into question. The "old" democracies in the global South like Sri Lanka are weakened. Democracy deficits have emerged within constitutional and institutional arrangements as well as in political practices. Further, the "third wave of democracy" is over. "New" democracies like Indonesia have fostered freedoms, privatisation and decentralisation but continue to suffer from poor governance, representation, and participation. Hence there are general signs of decline. Vulnerable people are frustrated with lack of actual influence and sustained elitism. Politicians winning elections often need to foster ethnic and religious loyalties, clientelism and the abuse of public resources. Powerful groups and middle classes with poor ability to win elections tend to opt for privatisation and return partially to authoritarian governance.Critical questions are therefore asked about the feasibility of democracy in developing country contexts. Some observers say it is only a problem of better crafting of institutions. Others contend that "full" democratisation was premature in the first place and that necessary preconditions need to be created beforehand. This article argues that both positions are based on a narrow and static understanding of democracy. While the core elements of democracy are universal, real world democracies develop (or decline) over time and through contextual dynamics; in processes and contexts of actors, institutions and relations of power. Therefore, the crucial task is to analyse the problems and options of expanding the historically "early" freedoms and deficient elements of democracy that fortunately exist in spite of poor socio-economic and political conditions in countries such as Sri Lanka and Indonesia rather than giving up on these freedoms until the other conditions have somehow improved. This is to advance towards the universally accepted aim of democracy in terms of popular control of public affairs on the basis of political equality; and to be able to use democracy to handle conflicts and alter unequal and unsustainable development.]]>
<![CDATA[Putting Democracy Under An Ethnographic-lens: Understanding of 'Democracy' and Popular Politics of JHU in Sri Lanka ]]>
<![CDATA[Silva, Premakumara De]]>
<![CDATA[ PCD Journal Vol 1, No 1-2 (2009): Approaching Conflict and Democracy in South and Southeast Asia ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Universitas Gadjah Mada ]]>
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DOI: 10.22146/pcd.25705
<![CDATA[My main premise is that for anthropologists of post-colonial societies (but not only), 'democracy' should be regarded as one of many traditional ethnographic topics (such as kinship, religion, Caste, etc.) which ethnographers study to unpack the socio-cultural institutions and practices of the societies under investigation. The hypothesis behind this approach is that the moment democracy enters a particular historical and socio-cultural setting it becomes what Michelutti calls "vernacularized", and through vernacularisation it produces new social relations and values which in turn shape political rhetoric and political culture (2007). The process of vernacularisation of democratic politics, she means the ways in which values and practices of democracy become embedded in particular cultural and social practices, and in the process become entrenched in the consciousness of ordinary people (2007: 639-40). Democratic practices associated with popular politics often base their strength and legitimacy on the principle of popular sovereignty versus the more conventional notions of liberal democracy. These popular forms of political participation are often accompanied by a polarisation of opinions and political practices between the so-called 'ordinary people' and the elites. Looking at democratisation processes through the prism of vernacularisation will therefore help to understand how and why democracy grounds itself in everyday life and becomes part of conceptual worlds that are often far removed from theories of liberal democracy.]]>
<![CDATA[A Decade of Reformasi: Unsteady Democratisation ]]>
<![CDATA[Samadhi, Willy Purna]]>;
<![CDATA[Warouw, Nicolaas]]>
<![CDATA[ PCD Journal Vol 1, No 1-2 (2009): Approaching Conflict and Democracy in South and Southeast Asia ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Universitas Gadjah Mada ]]>
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DOI: 10.22146/pcd.25674
<![CDATA[This article is based on two surveys on the state of democracy in Indonesia in order to assess the progress made by actors of democracy following the reformasi, bringing the authoritarian rule under Soeharto to an end after almost three decades in power. The efforts were a response to a conference in January 2002 on the democracy movement from which a recommendation assigned a task force to carry out an academically sound nationwide survey that would facilitate the discussion of a fresh agenda for democratisation. The task force appointed a team of researchers and constituted Demos, a research group, to support the research and follow up the results. The first survey had been carried out in two rounds, in 2003 and 2004, while the second was conducted in 2007. The report of the first survey has now been published as Making Democracy Meaningful: Problems and Options in Indonesia (Priyono et.al. 2007) suggesting a deficit in Indonesia's democracy Indonesia through the widening gap between, on the one hand, comparatively remarkable civil-political freedoms and, on the other, by the poor condition of operational instruments.]]>
<![CDATA[Power, Conflict and Democracy: The Analytical Framework ]]>
<![CDATA[Törnquist, Olle]]>
<![CDATA[ PCD Journal Vol 1, No 1-2 (2009): Approaching Conflict and Democracy in South and Southeast Asia ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Universitas Gadjah Mada ]]>
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DOI: 10.22146/pcd.25673
<![CDATA[The point of departure for the Power, Conflict and Democracy Programme (PCD) is the critique of the two conventional explanations for the problems of democratisation in the global South for being empirically mistaken and based on narrow and static theory. We argue that the root causes for the crisis of democratisation are neither poor application of the mainstream model (emphasising elitist pacts and institution-building in return for more privatisation and self management), nor that democracy is premature due the lack of sufficient preconditions. Rather, the more fundamental dilemma is the depoliticisation of democracy and the fact that the paradigms are unable to conceptualise the problems and options involved. This inability is because the proponents of both the dominant arguments agree on a narrow definition of democracy in terms of freedoms and fair election - and then either neglect the basic conditions or say they have to be created beforehand by other means. The result is that both paradigms exlude by definition approaches that focus less on democratic rules of the game in themselves and more on how these institutions may be used and expanded in favour of improved social, economic, and other condition. Given that such social democratic oriented paths have been quite important, especially in the transition of the previously poor Scandinavian countries into welfare states and that adapted versions are now gaining ground in paradigmatic cases such as Brazil, there is an obvious need to widen the perspective.]]>
<![CDATA[State of Democracy in Sri Lanka: A Preliminary Report ]]>
<![CDATA[Uyangoda, Jayadeva]]>;
<![CDATA[Peiris, Pradeep]]>
<![CDATA[ PCD Journal Vol 1, No 1-2 (2009): Approaching Conflict and Democracy in South and Southeast Asia ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Universitas Gadjah Mada ]]>
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DOI: 10.22146/pcd.25676
<![CDATA[This paper is a preliminary report on citizens understanding and perceptions of democracy in Sri Lanka, as reflected in a survey carried out in 2004-2005. The survey was a part of a South Asian study covering Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka on the theme "State of Democracy and Human Security in South Asia." The report of the overall study has now been published as State of Democracy in South Asia: A Report (2008).In terms of methodology, the study had four methodological 'pathways'. They are (i) case studies, (ii) dialogues, (iii) qualitative assessments, and (iv) cross-section surveys. The cross section survey carried out in each country was the principal instrument of data collection for the study. It sought to elicit broad trends of people's opinions, attitudes and behaviour in relation to democracy. The other three pathways provided qualitative assessments and dimensions that were not captured in the cross-section survey. The pathway of 'Dialogues' was chosen in order to recognise and retrieve bodies and voices of critical knowledge that are available among different social and political constituencies. Under the component 'Qualitative Assessments', scholars active in social science research were asked to 'assess' the experience of democracy in a non-partisan basis. The qualitative assessments addressed questions formulated around five key themes: (i) the promise of democracy, (ii) design of democracy, (iii) working of democracy, (iv) democracy's outcomes, and (v) democracy's futures.]]>
<![CDATA[Reorienting the Study of Citizenship in Sri Lanka ]]>
<![CDATA[Wickramasinghe, Nira]]>
<![CDATA[ PCD Journal Vol 1, No 1-2 (2009): Approaching Conflict and Democracy in South and Southeast Asia ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Universitas Gadjah Mada ]]>
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DOI: 10.22146/pcd.25686
<![CDATA[In Sri Lankan scholarship the second component, namely 'citizenship' is virtually absent from the public discourse. The obvious reason for the elusive presence of citizenship is, as previously mentioned, the inevitable invasion in every sphere of peoples lives of issues of nationalism, subnationalism and conflict in the past thirty years owing to the Tamil insurrection in the North and East of the island. In the 1980s and 1990s while the world was embroiled in debates over cosmopolitan and multicultural citizenship Sri Lankan studies were concerned with issues of power and democracy and remained locked in outdated analytical frameworks of nation, ethnicity, and community. For historical reasons citizenship has not had in the Sri Lankan scholarly field the seminal and near obsessive presence that nation and state have occupied. Another reason may be that liberal and radical scholars - defenders of minority rights - have been suspicious of majoritarian appeals to some ideal of 'good citizenship' where minorities will eventually be expected to play by majority rules. Although by the 1990s the terms had become a buzzword amongst thinkers in the North, citizenship remained in fact one of the least theorized notions in Sri Lankan studies where a generally instrumental understanding of the term that includes common defense of personal freedom, establishment of basic conditions of social justice and maintenance of civil peace prevails. In Sri Lanka, the tie between citizenship and nationhood, however, can never be wholly deconstructed or ignored. In this light, this paper will proposes future possible areas of study.]]>
<![CDATA[State and Civil Society Relationships in Indonesia: A society-oriented Reading in Search for Democratic Space ]]>
<![CDATA[Mundayat, Aris Arif]]>;
<![CDATA[Narendra, Pitra]]>;
<![CDATA[Irawanto, Budi]]>
<![CDATA[ PCD Journal Vol 1, No 1-2 (2009): Approaching Conflict and Democracy in South and Southeast Asia ]]>
Publisher : <![CDATA[Universitas Gadjah Mada ]]>
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DOI: 10.22146/pcd.25678
<![CDATA[This paper has shown how the relationship between state and civil society in Indonesia is part of the problem of building democratic government. The problems in Indonesian society is the polycentric nature, by which civil society organisations or popular organisations are being fragmanted and often unorganised. This has made it increasingly difficult to transform various conflicts into more political through democratic institution. At least there are four major problems:The first problem is when a strong civil society faces an ineffective state tactic of governmentality. This tends to stimulate civil society resistance and conflict; or it fosters coexistence through alternative governmentality techniques where the relationship between the state and society is in conflict. The second problem is when a weak civil society faces and effective state. This tends to trigger practices of money politics which are embedded in patronage and clientelism. The third problem can be found in the situation where weak civil society faces an ineffective state which tends to stimulate the emergence of extralegal governmentality practiced by thugs, militia, vigilantes, and paramilitaries. The fourth problem is reflected in the situation where a strong civil society faces an effective state.]]>
<![CDATA[Conflict Resolution and Democratisation in the Aftermath of the 2004 Tsunami: A Comparative Study of Aceh and Sri Lanka ]]>
<![CDATA[Stokke, Kristian]]>;
<![CDATA[Törnquist, Olle]]>;
<![CDATA[Sindre, Gyda Marås]]>
<![CDATA[ PCD Journal Vol 1, No 1-2 (2009): Approaching Conflict and Democracy in South and Southeast Asia ]]>
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DOI: 10.22146/pcd.25670
<![CDATA[The earthquake off the west coast of Sumatra on 26 December 2004 unleashed a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that affected more than a dozen countries throughout South and Southeast Asia and stretched as far as the northeastern coast of Africa. The two worst affected areas - North-East Sri Lanka and the Aceh region in Indonesia - have both been marked by protracted intra-state armed conflicts. In the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, international journalists and humanitarian actors argued that the disaster could actually constitute and opportunity for conflict resolution, as the scale and urgency of humanitarian needs should bring the protagonists together in joint efforts for relief, reconstruction and conflict resolution. In contrast, research on the impacts of natural disasters often concludes that disasters tend to deepen rather than resolve conflicts. Four years after the tsunami it can be observed that Aceh and North-East Sri Lanka have followed highly divergent trajectories. In Aceh, a Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of Indonesia and Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM) was signed shortly after the tsunami and has been followed by peace and a process od political integration into Indonesian democracy. In Sri Lanka, the tsunami created a humanitarian pause from the gradual escalation of hostilities and an attempt to create a joint mechanism between the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for handling humanitarian aid, but Sri Lanka has since the returned to full-scale warfare between the GOSL and LTTE. This brief article, which is based on work in progress, will highlight some key lessons and preliminary conclusions for each of these research quetions: (1) How and to what extent has reconstruction/development been linked to processes of conflict resolution and rights based democratization?; (2) How and to what extent has a process of rights based democratization been related to the parallel processes of revonstruction/development and conflict resolution?; (3) How and to what extent have the parallel processes of reconstruction/development, conflict resolution and democratization generated political transformations of the armed insurgency movements?]]>
<![CDATA[Sri Lanka: State of Research on Democracy ]]>
<![CDATA[Uyangoda, Jayadeva]]>
<![CDATA[ PCD Journal Vol 1, No 1-2 (2009): Approaching Conflict and Democracy in South and Southeast Asia ]]>
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DOI: 10.22146/pcd.25680
<![CDATA[In Sri Lanka's political science research, the body of work directly on the theme of democracy is somewhat thin. The survey and studies on the 'State of Democracy and Human Security', carried out by the Social Scientists Association (SSA) in 2004-2005 is the main research effort made directly in the field of democracy studies. This was a part of a larger South Asian study. The report on the State of Democracy in South Asia is now published by the Oxford University Press, India. Nevertheless, in the wide body of scholarly literature on political and social change in the post-colonial Sri Lanka written by political scientists, historians, sociologists and anthropologists, themes with direct relevance to democracy studies have constituted a subject of continuing interest.This paper has two main parts. In the first part, it presents a survey of the major themes that have constitued the broadly social science research that are useful to place the problematic of democracy in a new research agenda. In the second, the paper suggests a few possible areas of new research on the theme of democracy.]]>
