Muhammad A.S. Hikam describes constitutional and governance reforms and efforts to build a civil society in Indonesia since 1998. A member of the Hanura (People’s Conscience) political party, a former member of the Indonesian Parliament, and a former state minister for research and technology, he explains that prior to Indonesia’s financial crisis in 1988 and the collapse of the Suharto government, civil society in Indonesia was “corporatist”; that is, that except for the Nahdlatul Ulama (Islamic Scholars Awakening) Party, all civil society organizations and political parties were controlled by the state. In 1998, it was recognized that a strengthened civil society was the only avenue to challenge the overwhelming power of the state. The result was a flowering of as many as 100,000 civil society organizations and 38 political parties. However, nearly all came into being without the capacity or understanding to pursue their roles effectively. Many were based on ethnic or identity interests and did not know how to relate to the political life of the country. The challenge was to train civil and political society to find synergies between interests and needs. Without that, governmental reform has been, and will continue to be, a patchwork, he says. He discusses the successes and shortcomings of reforms in four principal areas: changing the constitution to reduce state domination, opening the political process to opposition parties, removing the military from politics and placing civilian control over the police and armed forces, and decentralizing government and ceding some autonomy to the regions. These efforts have proceeded without regard for capacity building, he says. As a result, poorer regions simply establish regional governments funded by the central government without developing their own capabilities. Hikam stresses that economic development is essential if regional autonomy is to work.    

Thun Saray describes, from the point of view of a human-rights activist, reforms needed to achieve social stability and economic progress in Cambodia. He says that, even though Cambodia has enjoyed some of the highest economic growth rates in its region and made progress on several fronts, direct foreign investment and general economic development has been deterred by failures to implement the constitution and the many laws. He suggests that a key problem was corruption and unfairness in the court system, a result of low salaries and political party control. He argues that many farmers were dislocated from their land as part of concessions to domestic and foreign investors. He asserts that military corruption and military-owned businesses contributed to widespread deforestation and that the military still acted in its own right without adequate civilian control. He adds that social stability and broadly-based economic development could be achieved only if the income gap between the powerful and powerless was closed and government became more accountable.