Monthly Discussion. Reform from Within: The Pathways to Change?

Monthly Discussion

Reform from Within: The Pathways to Change?

Monday, 30 July 2018

17.15pm-19.30pm

PAR-Arts West North Wing-353 (Interactive Cinema Space)

University of Melbourne

All welcome, please register here.

Abstract

The discussion explores the challenges of bringing about a more substantive reform in democratising Indonesia from the view of academic-cum-politician, Mayor Bima Arya of Bogor municipality, West Java. Specifically, it deals with some critical issues: What are the challenges to the reforms in current Indonesia? How to navigate between the reform agenda and the deep-vested interests of the dominant coalition of power, especially when cross-cutting movements for the reform itself are relatively weak? With the prominence of identity politics and exclusionary political practices for electoral mobilisation, how these will affect the democratic reforms, political representation of the parties, and state-society relations in general.

Short Bio

Mayor Arya Bima Sugiarto has been mayor of Bogor, West Java, since 2014 and has just won the recent 2018 local election to be elected for a second term (according to prominent quick count surveys). Prior to his career as a politician from the National Mandate Party (PAN), he was a lecturer of political sciences at Parahyangan Catholic University (Bandung) and Paramadina University (Jakarta). He obtained a doctorate from the Australian National University with the thesis “Beyond Formal Politics: Party Factionalism and Leadership in Post-Soeharto” (2006).