Contentious politics in a remote area of the Moluccan Archipelago, Indonesia

SUMMARY The changes in Indonesia’s political administration from centralized to decentralized government administration have heightened the tension over power between the central government and regional governments. These dynamics of contention have attracted plenty of attention from scholars studying what is happening. Various studies have been conducted: about state and communal violence, about decentralization and the practice of good governance, the role of the middle class and the use of identity in local politics factors behind the consolidation of centre-periphery relations in Indonesia; the development of regional government since 1970s that have focused on the central – regional political and economic relations in Indonesia post-2001; the contested and dynamic relations between adat (customary law), religious law (that is, Islamic law), state law and authority. All of these studies deal with how the relationship between institutionalized politics as part of the Indonesian political system and the everyday politics of ordinary people shapes and reshapes over time. Studies on decentralization do not concentrate exclusively on the results of the decentralization agenda. The possibility to execute government affairs free from the tutelage of the provinces and central government and the prospect of controlling the budget of Otonomi Daerah have also incentivized local actors to become involved in local government administration. On a theoretical level, McAdam (1982) has coined the concept of political opportunity structure for this incentive that encourages a collection of political actors to obtain more power by creating new political territory. In fact, many studies about the effects of decentralization policy show that the Regional Autonomy Law has provided local elites with opportunities to promote and consolidate power by influencing their constituencies on the local level. Two studies, one by Gerry van Klinken (2007) and one by Marcus Mietzner (2014), show that decentralization has unleashed intense competitive dynamics on the lower levels of the state. It is possible that decentralization has enriched the dynamics of local democracy because local actors are able to participate in sub-provincial governance. So far, all of these studies have been conducted in areas in a large island where an objective such as an economic benefit is easy to identify. These studies beg the question what happens in remote complex areas like those composed of small islands? Can the same or a different objective be identified? Scant attention has been paid to analysing the dynamics of institutional politics and the popular politics in a specified remote area in distant island regions. The need to understand these dynamics is obvious because pemekaran wilayah (the splitting of administrative regions) is still a reality in Indonesia, even on small islands remote from the central island of Java. The intertwined processes of decentralization, democratization and pemekaran form the background to my study. The process of pemekaran wilayah can be observed in many places in Indonesia, but I shall focus on pemekaran in Maluku Barat Daya (MBD). My aim in this dissertation is to observe and record the current political struggle to split MBD and to understand how the previous movements achieved their goals and how these movements exercise power. How does power work for actors and how do they exercise power? In this thesis I have described them as movements of civilians and politicians who put claims on the design of governmental territories. I found connection with the concept of contentious politics, that is helpful in studying of among others movements and mobilization directed to political claims. With this in mind, the major question of this thesis is: How has contentious politics developed in Maluku Barat Daya?