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"This book explores a number of major institutions which have helped to shape recent events in the largest country in Southeast Asia. Traditional conceptions of power and the roles of religion, political parties, the military, the bureaucracy, and the pres are treated in some depth by scholars who have had recent and extensive field experience in the country. . . .A uniformly high standard of analysis and of expression is maintained throughout the book. It is one of the best works on Indonesia to appear in English in recent years, and it should become a standard text for both the specialist and the informed general reader." --Library Journal
"The military role, bureaucratic impact, political influence, mass media and economic development are carefully and extensively researched in this examination of Indonesia's current development. Several authors provide a wide range of ideas, but the dominant theme reveals a government with a highly organized political system of official elite who are seldom influenced by outside individuals and events." --Asia Mail
"A splendid set of essays on Indonesia . . . They are organized into three sections: a survey of the culture of politics, a consideration of major social and political institutions and an analysis of aspects of communication. The oerall quality of the volume is such that it is invidious to mention only some of the contributors." --International Affairs
"The core of the theme is contemporary Indonesia as a bureaucratic polity, defined by Jackson, to paraphrase slightly, as a political system in which power and national decision making are shared almost exclusively by the employees of the state, and especially the topmost levels of the officer corps and civilian bureaucracy, including the technocrats. As such, the exciting pluralism of an earlier Indonesia has been replaced by a much more staid animal. . . .The authors as a group have postulated, explored and begun to argue about a model of the Indonesian political system that other may accept, modify or reject, but not ignore." --American Political Science Review
"The editors have rendered a valuable contribution to the science of political power and communications with particular reference to [Indonesia]." --Law Books in Review
"From these essays specialists and nonspecialists alike can learn a great deal . . . about Indonesian politics." --Journal of Asian Studies
About the author
Karl D. Jackson is President and Director, US Thailand Business Council. Lucian W. Pye was Professor of Political Science at M.I.T.
