International Relations Faculty

This book is about the politics of senior generals in Indonesian presidential election 2009. It examines the reasons why senior generals-in this work represented by Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Wiranto, and Prabowo were still dominant in political arena even after 10 years post democratic reform. This book elucidates how they played in Indonesian election 2009, coalition games between civil and military figures, and how senior generals responded the result of presidential election 2009. Our discussions clearly show that the reason of general's domination was a more complex than what is widely believed. In contrast with general assumptions, the target of senior generals in election 2009 was not merely presidency, instead it was shaped through many combination personal political targets.

This article examines the development of the Democrat Party (Partai Demokrat, PD), which won the 2009 legislative elections in Indonesia. PD has received little scrutiny from observers of Indonesian politics, largely because of a commonly shared view that the party is nothing but a political vehicle for Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the country's President since 2004. A closer look at the internal dynamics of PD, however, challenges this conventional view, reveals the diversity of political orientations and interests among party elites, and elucidates the emerging new patterns of party politics in the age of democracy. This article illustrates these internal dynamics and discusses the party's prospects for the post-Yudhoyono era.

Indonesia remains the country with the largest number of Covid-19 fatalities in Southeast Asia Observers have focused on the political impact of President Joko Widodo's crisis management Many argue that the pandemic has exposed the country's democratic decline This article focuses on the military and analyzes how the army has instrumentalized the coronavirus crisis to boost its agenda We look into four cases of active army lobbying aimed to expand its missions beyond national defense, arguing that the army has skillfully exploited the Covid-19 crisis to reverse some key post-Suharto military reforms

Press. 472 pages. ISBN-13: 978-9814722049. Paperback, $34.00. Edward Aspinall and Mada Sukmajati (eds.). 2016. "Unity in diversity" "from Sabang to Merauke"-if the two slogans that represent Indonesia's heterogeneity and geographical reach have become clich es, forgive me for combining the two to describe the fascinating edited volume Electoral Dynamics in Indonesia: Money Politics, Patronage and Clientism at the Grassroots by Edward Aspinall and Mada Sukmajati. The volume certainly comes very close to covering Indonesia's geographic expanse, although Eastern Indonesia gets short shrift as Sumatra and Java comprise the bulk of the cases, but the first slogan is certainly manifest in Electoral Dynamics. It is an exploration of two aspects of patronage in the Indonesian electoral system-the diversity of its implementation throughout the archipelago as well as its "unity," so to speak, in its persistence among victors and losers alike. Toward this end, several research teams examined 22 legislative elections in 2014 with an eye to studying patron-client ties. After a description of the volume's research goals and a discussion of the Indonesian party system, varieties of patronage and descriptions of mobilization networks, the case studies begin. Since the onset of democratization and the messiness that comes with it, Indonesian voters have many different parties to choose from (although among these parties there is little ideological diversity) and many opportunities for patronage windfalls at election time. "Success teams" are tasked with distributing patronage, and, as the book points out, voters are savvy enough to occasionally take the goods or benefit from broader patronage programs such as assistance to sports clubs and other community projects, or promises of development, without delivering a vote-in short, free riding. At the same time, authors argue that cultural norms of reciprocity or obligation may factor into a party's success as it is bolstered by kinship or ethnic relations, a common village heritage, or religious ties. Mostly absent from the analysis are connections to structural, institutional, or cultural approaches to the study of democracy and democratization. Francis Fukuyama receives a nod in the discussion of culture, but the examples are predominantly straightforward narratives of the campaigns and results. The volume, nevertheless, provides ample case studies for others to dissect, with an eye on these theoretical approaches. Lest one think that Indonesian politics is simply about delivering cash, goods or other benefits to (potential) constituents, the volume describes the strategies

"The potential of the camera framing, or shot-size, semiotic resource to encode meanings related to social distance has been recognised for some time. This study seeks to bring this resource into the remit of objective analysis.
Data is taken from screen measurements of portrayals of social actors in news programming produced by two national broadcasters NHK in Japan and the BBC in the UK. Results for these two media outlets are compared and an attempt made to place the results in a meaningful cultural context. Analysis focusses on NHK’s images and the less familiar Japanese media system."

The switch to digital terrestrial broadcasting on 24 July 2011 marked a watershed for the broadcasting industry in Japan. Digitalisation is the single largest industry-­‐wide event since the advent of alternative distribution technologies, satellite and cable, in the 1980s. Preparation for the switch to digital, known as chideji-­‐ka, has put existing business arrangements under pressure and has led to a renewed focus on of the future shape of the industry. There is increasing acknowledgement that change, especially in the relationship between central and local broadcasters, is inevitable. This paper summarises the position of the industry at the beginning of its digital age, arguing for a new view of broadcasting in Japan that recognises the two-­‐tier reality behind industry rhetoric. It also summarises the major options open to the industry as it looks to redefine itself in a much-­‐changed media environment.

Directional preferences in moving images are primarily theorized as deriving from 'cultural' factors, principally the dominant language's reading/writing direction. This study examines the origins of this notion and positions it within recent analytical thinking. In order to expand the context of analysis it draws in research from neurology and practical knowledge of typical production tools. Two manifestations of directionality-camera panning movements (pans) and soundbite gaze direction-are compared, data is drawn from two countries, Japan and the UK, where directional conventions may differ. Results suggest there is a limited degree of support for the hypothesis that reading/writing direction is linked to directional preferences in television news image creation, but the processes involved may be subconscious rather than conscious and analysts should therefore be wary of attibuting semiotic significance to these variations, of 'over-reading' manifestations of directionality in news images.