Sarwono Kusumaatmadja describes the tactics he employed to accomplish political change and governance reform in the many positions he held in Indonesia’s government. In the first part of the interview, he provides frank and revealing insights into the political tactics he used to reduce military influence and achieve party change as secretary-general of the dominant Golkar party before the fall of the Suharto government in 1998. In the second section, he reports on eight priorities he adopted as state minister for administrative reform in the new government: improvement of public services, merit-based appointments, analysis of civil service positions, functional rather than structural job assignments and professionalization of career paths, improved compensation, increased training, manuals for each position, and decentralization (regional autonomy). He describes the political tactics he used to achieve results, particularly in the Civil Service Administration Agency, the Civil Service Training Agency, and the Ministry of Education. In the third part of the interview he reports on the practical tactics and politics he used as minister of the environment to crack down on pollution by businesses with close ties to the president and other political leaders. He describes how he used NGOs, international financial institutions, and pressure from Indonesian clients (including the military) to achieve results. In the fourth section, he describes his role in ending the Suharto government and describes his brief tenure as minister for marine and fisheries. He provides practical and frank accounts of his approach to hiring and firing personnel, as well as his personal views on ethics for public officials.

 

Case Study:  Against the Odds: Attempting Reform in Suharto's Indonesia, 1967-1998

Kim Sedara comments on international donors who try to import reforms and models of governance into Cambodia without understanding the need to take context into account. He suggests that the task is not to build a system from scratch, but to fix and cure the problems of existing institutions. Referring to the challenges of institution building in his home country, he notes that Cambodia “is still very much in a post-conflict stage.” From the early 1970s to 2009, Cambodia went through at least six major political regimes, leading to numerous “institutional interruptions,” making it very difficult for the state to be responsive and accountable to its citizens, he says. The first challenge was to provide security; the second, food; the third, re-integration of formerly warring factions. He states that a major problem had been a shortage of professional talent, and an educational system poorly designed to correct it. He believes that the rule of law can be achieved only if it is internalized by the population, and that takes time. Sedara says corruption cannot be controlled until people are able to feed themselves and their families from their legitimate earnings. He suggests targeting four major reform areas: courts, the military, administration and public finance. Decentralization and de-concentration are part of administrative reform. Citing a World Bank report, Sedara says that 45 percent of post-conflict societies fall back into civil war within five years of emerging from conflict. Cambodia avoided this fate, and Sedara says he is hopeful for the future.