Update Conference 2002: Local Power and Politics
27-28 September 2002
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Organised by the Indonesia Project, Division of Economics,
and Department of Political and Social Change, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian
National University
Coombs Lecture Theatre
H C Coombs Building (Building No 9)
Cnr Fellows Rd & Garran Rd
The
Australian National University
Canberra ACT
0200
The 2002 Indonesia Update conference will examine the historic shift in political and economic power
in Indonesia from the centre to the local level.This shift began with the downfall of the Soeharto government
and accelerated rapidly during 2001 as a result of political and financial devolution. Under the Megawati
Sukarnoputri presidency, however, the autonomy package is under review and there are early signs of
recentralisation. Speakers at the conference are leading academics and policy makers from Indonesia,
Australia and beyond. They include:
- Professor Ryaas Rasyid, former minister for regional autonomy, and a chief author of Indonesia's
decentralisation laws: An evaluation of decentralisation:the background,and the score sheet so far
- Cornelis Lay, political scientist from Gadjah Mada University and adviser to President Megawati
Sukarnoputri: The politics of regional autonomy under the Megawati Presidency
- Hans Antlov, Program Officer, Ford Foundation, Jakarta: Not enough politics? Regional autonomy
and the democratic polity
Other topics include:
- Political and economic updates
- Focused studies of the military at the local level; decentralisation and the bureaucracy;
the role of civil society groups in monitoring local administrations and legislatures;
and the impact of decentralisation on women
- Six provincial and district case studies of how regional autonomy and fiscal decentralisation
are working at the local level, and how local politicians, bureaucrats, business people and others
have responded.