131-037 Military and State in Indonesia

Note

Credit Points

HECS Band

Coordinator

Prerequisites

Usually 25 points of first year history, see Prerequisites.

Semester

Subject Description

This subject focuses on the increasingly important role of the military in Indonesia since the proclamation of independence, in the light of theories about the role of the military in politics. On completion of the subject students should be able to test theories of comparative politics about the political role of the military in the Indonesian historical experience of the 20th century; question whether a political system in which an army plays a prominent part is an aberration from an assumed norm; reflect upon whether justifications of certain practices in Indonesia in the name of culture or tradition might be rationalisations of the interests of those in power; reflect upon whether Australian criticisms of the role of the military in Indonesia in the name of universal human values might be ethnocentric or projections of Australian feelings of guilt or fear.