History and Social Structure in the Study of Contemporary Indonesia

Bibliographic Data

ID7296685
AuthorsDavid Levine (0000-0001-6712-5367, corresponding author)
Year1969
Volume7
Pages5-5
Publication date1969-04-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueIndonesia (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0019-7289 • E-ISSN: 2164-8654
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/3350800
OpenAlexW2318348595
LanguageEN
Citations received6

Harry Benda has characterized theorizing about post-independence Indonesia as essentially presenting us highly sophisticated and persuasive answers to an intrinsically mistaken, or irrelevant, question.I Although, as we shall see, his own analysis shares the same basic failings found in those he criticizes, his complaint is well taken. Those who have attempted solutions to the problem of making sense of the last twenty years of Indonesian history have failed, by and large, to see beyond the surface phenomena. They find themselves so absorbed by the intricacies of parliamentary politics that most of their time is spent in the sorting out of month-to-month maneuvers in cabinet and parliament. This failure to penetrate to the essentials of a problem, it must be emphasized, cannot be attributed to lack of intelligence, integrity, or scholarship. Rather the source of the difficulty must be located in the basic perspective from which such analysts operate. The specific approach which a theorist adopts defines not only the character of his analysis but the questions which he poses and, equally, the questions he does not pose. If the questions are posed incorrectly, the analysis will be incapable of explaining the phenomena under study

Asian Studies and History · History

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