| dc.description.abstract | Politically, 2004 was an important year for Indonesia, the world s third largest, at least nominal, democracy. Faced with elections for the national Peoples Representative Assembly (DPR), the national Regional Representative Council (DPD), the Provincial and Regency/City Peoples Representative Assemblies (DPRDs), as well as two rounds of direct presidential elections, the country has in many ways shown political maturity. They have accomplished these challenges and avoided some of the pitfalls one could expect from an electoral process in a newly democratized country. That is not to say that there were no problems. Certainly, many challenges were faced, both practical and profound. However, the fact that the elections were undertaken in a free and peaceful manner must be seen as a battle won, in the fight for deeper democratization in Indonesia. On the other hand, this should not be interpreted as a sign of a consolidated democracy. One of the problems with the Indonesian democracy is not the technical electoral arrangements, but rather the lack of popular control of parties and party leaders.
A closer look at the Indonesian electoral campaign reveals several interesting phenomenon. One of these is the lack of ideological base on which the parties form their policies, something which results in an extreme focus on single political issues. In this situation the different parties and party leaders compete in order to present the best plans for the Indonesian future. Obviously their ambitious policy plans will be difficult to apply.
By following Indonesian politics over the last couple of years it has however been evident that some policy fields have been neglected in this situation of single issue politics . One of these neglected issues is environmentalism, and it is to this I now turn my focus.
The environmental degradation taking place all over the Indonesian archipelago today is immense, and will if it goes uncontested, make the country s future prospects look bleak. Decades of uncontrolled exploitation have resulted in massive deforestation, with recent rates close to 2, 4 million hectares a year. Additional problems of air and sea pollution, mining-related pollution, destruction of biodiversity along with other environmentally related problems, add to the picture. We know that the poor are usually hit hardest by environmental degradation, as they are vulnerable to water contamination, deforestation, air pollution, land degradation and climate change. In the five-year developmental plan of the newly-elected president Yudhoyono, achieving a poverty level of 8, 7% as opposed to that of 17, 54% in 2003, is a main goal.Environmental issues are of vital importance to Indonesia s poor, most of whom are heavily dependent on ecosystems that provide food and water supplies. If these ecosystems are not maintained properly, these people are not likely to experience the reduction in poverty indicated by Yudhoyono. In the light of this, the lack of political environmental focus becomes something of a paradox.
In the recent election campaigns the silence regarding environmental issues has been almost absolute. One month before Indonesia s 2004 April parliamentary election, the Indonesian Centre for Environmental law (ICEL) issued the results of a survey of the political parties platforms on environmental and sustainable development, which found that only half of the twenty-four political parties had any strategies regarding the environment or sustainable development. Of these twenty-four parties, only two had something to say under the three categories listed by ICEL: environmental/natural resources, sustainable development and good sustainable development governance. No political party had any break-through proposals on how to deal with the urgent problems of drought, landslide, flooding, illegal logging and forest fires. Although there is a lack of environmental focus among the traditional political parties in Indonesia, there exist several well-organized and vital environmental groups in the country. Over the last few years, leading newspapers and magazines have also given increasing attention to environmentally-related problems.The results from a study undertaken by DEMOS , indicate the existence of a potential for a left-of-centre agenda, where environmentalists can link up with groups and people who follow corresponding issues, adding to the impression that there is change taking place within the Indonesian society when it comes to attitudes towards environmental consciousness. At the moment, however, these new environmental voices of Indonesia have a problem being heard within the political community. On the one hand, there seem to be few political entry points for the environmentalists in Indonesia today. On the other hand, at present, the entry points which actually exist are not explored by the environmentalists. Additionally; none of the existing political parties are willing to front their cases.
In the light of the environmental problems, the existence of vital environmental groups and a possible rise in environmental awareness among Indonesians, I find it interesting to begin the search for new potential access points for environmentalism into Indonesian politics.
In several other Asian countries, there now exist Environmental or Green parties. I am thinking specifically of the Philippine Greens, the Mongolian Green Party, the Thai Green Working Group, the Green Party Nepal and Fundacao Haburas Timor Lorosa`e of East Timor.Despite their somewhat marginal political role, these Asian Green parties bring environmental issues into the political debate in their respective countries. At present, as already pointed out, there exists no such party in Indonesia. At a certain stage, however, environmentalism should become a higher priority also within Indonesian politics, at least when the general environmental conditions become unbearable and the living conditions, as a result of pollution and environmental degradation, become even worse than they are today.
There is no certainty that the deterioration of living conditions triggers a process of increased environmental action and awareness. However, the present environmental situation in Indonesia calls for a new approach and strategy in environmental problem solving. We do have some indications that this process might take place sooner, rather than too late. One of the conclusions in the Executive Report from the 1st round study of The Problems and Options of Indonesian Democratization, conducted by DEMOS in cooperation with the Local Politics and Democratization Network University of Oslo, Institute for the Studies on Free Flow of Information , The Commission for Disappearances and Victims of Violence and the Institute for Interfaith Dialogue in Indonesia , is that there might exist a basis for a common green, left-of-centre agenda in Indonesia. The findings in this study serve as the main background to my research.
RESEARCH QUESTION:
What are the prospects for the emergence of an Indonesian Green political party?
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK.
There has been extensive written coverage of political party formation and party development over the years. This has also been the case for Green political party formation. However there exist no well-established general theories regarding Green Party establishment in developing countries , despite the important roles these parties play when it comes to environmental awareness rising in their respective countries.
Due to the lack of theory regarding Green Party formation in the developing world, I have in this thesis chosen to lean on Green theories of western origin. Although these theories confine themselves to a western context, constructed in order to understand Green Party establishment in industrial and post-industrial societies, I do in the outset believe they provide valuable insight which can be adapted to the Indonesian case. A prediction as to the potential for Green Party formation must also to a large extent be based on a general assessment of the social and political context in the country. Such an assessment, together with interviews with leading activists, scholars and politicians within the field, make up the information base from where I draw my conclusions in this thesis.
The theory put forth by Dick Richardson in The Green Challenge- The development of Green Parties in Europe (1995) serve as a point of departure for the discussions in this thesis. The theories of Herbert Kitschelt presented in The Transition of European Social Democracy (1994), and The Logics of Party Formation (1989), Ronald Inglehart s theories presented in Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society and Modernization and Postmodernization (1997) do also serve as a backdrop to the discussion.
Through a contextual approach, and by relating to five main varaibles extracted from theories on European Green emergence processes, I go on to discuss the prospects for the emergecne of an Indoensian Green political party. | nor |