Stories of Corruption: The Anatomy and Afterlife of Developmental Nationalism in Indonesia

Joshua Barker,

Dept. of Anthropology,

Univ. of Toronto

This paper examines the anatomy and afterlife of developmental nationalism in Indonesia using case material from the history of satellite and television broadcasting. It argues that during the period of the New Order (1966-98), developmental nationalism combined with a depoliticized cultural nationalism to form a powerful discourse that associated the people’s interests with the national interest, and the national interest with state interests. At the same time, these nationalist discourses often functioned as ideologies that domestic capitalists could manipulate for their own economic ends. The paper then goes on to argue that the demise of New Order developmental nationalism has not been followed by the rise of any sort of widespread politicized cultural nationalism. On the contrary, what one finds in the Indonesian case is a nostalgia for developmental nationalism expressed through stories about a crisis of endemic state corruption and a corresponding social decay.