Democratization is troubled by teleology. No one denies that the democratization of post-authoritarian regimes is a messy affair characterized by reversals, but most begin with the assumption that it is a process with an ultimate end, and concern themselves with how to complete the transition. In a field dominated by such deductivism, Vedi Hadiz writes from the ground up, drawing upon cases that involve struggles over institutional reform, decentralization, and local politics in North Sumatra and East Java. Few observers exhibit so intimate a knowledge of these. Through a close study of the social bases of winners and losers of fundamental institutional changes since the end of Suharto's authoritarian regime, Hadiz critiques the triumphalism of scholarly and technocratic proponents of democratization and decentralization in post-authoritarian regimes. He observes, “Old oligarchic and predatory interests were not overcome by [reform] but [reinvented] themselves as democrats [presiding] over [new] institutions,” and he rejects any neo-liberal apology. Such an outcome should be seen not as “growing pains” or “characteristic of any transitional stage to an idealized democratic form,” but rather in terms of “the logic of an (illiberal) type of democracy” (pp. 42–43).

Hadiz thus reviews and advances an emerging critique of “transitology.” Detailed case studies demonstrate the obvious fact that reality rarely conforms to this model. Hadiz also calls attention to ways in which neo-liberal theorists, technocratic practitioners in international agencies and the national bureaucracy, and progressive reformers in civil society organizations have all uncritically accepted that institutional reform and decentralization necessarily produce a more participatory and tolerant form of democracy, empower the grassroots, and result in responsive policymaking in the public interest. In doing so they may have unwittingly conspired to provide a “lifeline” to the old elite with “little regard for upholding ‘good governance’ principles,” and thereby allowed them to “hijack” the democratization and decentralization agenda by appropriating its language (27).

Though Hadiz devotes ample space to this consensus and its unexpected consequences, he might have gone further by elaborating on what he calls the “disingenuousness” of the transition paradigm (42). If the instrumentality of the rhetoric of local politicians is to be understood in the context of concrete power struggles, should not the interests of scholars of democratization and the technocrats and activists who take their cues be similarly examined? Given the unsustainability of autocratic clientalism and the need to maintain relative stability in the global political economy, perhaps providing the lofty language of democracy and decentralization to discredited and would-be autocrats was part of the neo-liberal agenda in the first instance.

Considering the degree to which his argument and his case evidence all underscore post-authoritarian continuities despite apparently significant institutional change, it is curious that Hadiz retains notions such as “capture” or “usurpation” of political institutions by “predatory elites.” This conception draws from Joe Migdal's (Reference Migdal1988) understanding of the success of strongmen in terms of strong societies overcoming weak states. But as Sidel (Reference Sidel, Harriss, Stokke and Törnquist2004) has argued, and as Hadiz's own evidence clearly shows, Indonesian strongmen have more often been the beneficiaries of office or state allegiances, and have tended to rely on them as their ultimate source of power. Thus, (regular old) elites do not capture, let alone prey upon the state or its (new) institutions; rather, they compete and struggle to maintain their footholds on shifting terrain and use their prior experience to expertly adapt to new conditions.

The book supports the broader critique of transitology by providing such convincing case studies. The lively and often bizarre specificity of Hadiz's material highlights how messy post-authoritarian politics are and how far they are from constituting a process towards anything other than the provisional consolidation of a new language of politics. Hadiz draws upon his own obviously extensive interviews in addition to published sources, and discusses a wide variety of struggles over proposed electoral and administrative laws. He focuses particularly on laws related to changing jurisdictions of decentralization, and situates startlingly shifting allegiances within the context of what is actually at stake. Hadiz compares across his two local cases the fates of a range of old and rising elites, including former politicians, bureaucrats, thugs, “official” student activists, and entrepreneurs. Had these figures been allowed to speak more in their own voices, expressing this new language, however awkwardly, their struggles with change and amongst themselves would have been even more palpable.

Among Hadiz's many interesting findings are that the old regime's thugs in East Java have fared less well in their “forays into local politics” than have their counterparts in North Sumatra (116). Another is that anti-corruption charges brought against former national-level politicians who have opted, by way of selective atavism (75), to try their luck at local-level politics, have had more to do with re-centralization than transparency (176). The book leaves us to wonder why, given the considerable risk of corruption charges, enormous sums are spent securing party nominations or offices. Though Hadiz details these expenditures, he tells us little about either the payoffs or the calculations of risk.

The book will interest both Southeast Asianists and comparativists. Without the benefit of a glossary, non-specialists may find the array of party and organization acronyms bewildering, but their continued salience in “democratic” Indonesia further evidences continuities in the bureaucratic, authoritarian political culture within which they have proliferated.