This article assesses some of the major premises of neo-institutionalist explanations of decentralization policy and practices, but focuses especially on the relationship between decentralization and democracy, in the context of the recent and ongoing Indonesian experience with decentralization. In the last two decades 'decentralization' has become, along with 'civil society', 'social capital' and 'good governance', an integral part of the contemporary neoinstitutionalist lexicon, especially that part which is intended to draw greater attention to 'social' development. The concern of this article is to demystify how, as a policy objective, decentralization has come to embody a barely acknowledged political, not just theoretical, agenda. It also suggests alternative ways of understanding why decentralization has often failed to achieve its stated aims in terms of promoting democracy, 'good governance', and the like. What is offered is an understanding of decentralization processes that more fully incorporates the factors of power, struggle and interests, which tend to be overlooked by neoinstitutionalist perspectives. The current Indonesian experience clearly illustrates the way in which institutions can be hijacked by a wide range of interests that may sideline those that champion the worldview of 'technocratic rationality'.

In a novel approach to the field of Islamic politics, this provocative new study compares the evolution of Islamic populism in Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, to the Middle East. Utilising approaches from historical sociology and political economy, Vedi R. Hadiz argues that competing strands of Islamic politics can be understood as the product of contemporary struggles over power, material resources and the result of conflict across a variety of social and historical contexts. Drawing from detailed case studies across the Middle East and Southeast Asia, the book engages with broader theoretical questions about political change in the context of socio-economic transformations and presents an innovative, comparative framework to shed new light on the diverse trajectories of Islamic politics in the modern world.

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Populist politics have become more prominent in Indonesia. On the one hand, this is indicated by the presidential elections of 2014, when two rival candidates brandished somewhat different nationalist populist ideas. On the other hand, historically rooted secular nationalist and Islamic-oriented forms of populism have become entangled within elite conflicts. The context is discontent about perceived systemic injustices unaddressed in nearly two decades of decentralised democracy after a prior three decades of centralised authoritarian rule. In the absence of liberal and Leftist challenges to the entrenched oligarchy, politics is becoming characterised by competition between different populisms. But rather than being transformative, these populisms are harnessed to the maintenance of oligarchic domination.