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What was Suharto's New Order, and how did it transform Indonesian politics, economy, and society between 1967 and 1998?

Suharto's New Order 1967 to 1998, including dwifungsi, GOLKAR, Pancasila as sole foundation (asas tunggal), the Berkeley Mafia and economic development, and the limits of pembangunan

A focused answer to the HSC Modern History National Study dot point on Suharto's New Order. Covers dwifungsi, GOLKAR electoral hegemony, the Berkeley Mafia, Pancasila as asas tunggal, the oil boom, transmigration, the family business empire, and the limits of pembangunan.

Generated by Claude Opus 4.810 min answerUpdated 2026-06-27

Reviewed by: AI editorial process; not yet individually human-reviewed

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What this dot point is asking

NESA expects you to explain the political and economic system that Suharto built between 1967 and 1998, the ideological framework (dwifungsi, Pancasila as asas tunggal), the electoral hegemony of GOLKAR, the technocrat-led economic transformation, and the corruption and repression that ran alongside. Strong answers integrate political, economic and social changes and weigh the development achievements against authoritarian costs.

In plain English

For 31 years one man, Suharto, ran Indonesia as a kind of family company. Think of a country run like a single corporation: the army is the security department that also sits on the board (that is what dwifungsi means - soldiers having both a "defend the country" job and a "run the country" job at the same time). There is only one party that is allowed to really win elections, GOLKAR, and every government worker is told to vote for it or lose their job. Everyone has to swear loyalty to the same official state values (Pancasila), like a compulsory company mission statement.

The clever part was that the company actually made money. Suharto hired a team of foreign-trained economists - nicknamed the "Berkeley Mafia" after the US university - who fixed runaway inflation and grew the economy fast, helped by a lucky oil boom. Real things got better: far fewer people were poor, almost every kid went to school, fewer babies died. That was "pembangunan," development, and it was the regime's main sales pitch: put up with the lack of freedom, because look how much richer you are getting.

The catch was that the boss's family quietly took a cut of everything - the clove trade, the toll roads, the TV stations, a car company that paid no tax - while anyone who protested could be shot, jailed without trial, or simply disappear. So it was growth and looting and fear all bundled together. When a financial crash hit Asia in 1997, the whole thing fell apart at once.

The must-know spine

Suharto was formally President from 27 March 1968 to May 1998. The political system rested on three pillars: dwifungsi (the army's dual defence/socio-political role, formalised under Panggabean in 1969), GOLKAR (the electoral machine that won every poll 1971-1997 with 62-74 per cent, backed by monoloyalitas from 1975 and the 1973 forced merger of opposition into PPP and PDI), and Pancasila as asas tunggal (the 1985 Mass Organisations Law making the state ideology the sole foundation of every organisation). The economy was run by the Berkeley Mafia technocrats (Widjojo, Wardhana, Salim, Sadli) under the Repelita plans; GDP per capita rose roughly twenty-fold (around $50 in 1967 to around $1,100 in 1996) and poverty fell from about 60 to about 11 per cent. The limits of pembangunan were the Suharto family KKN (corruption, collusion, nepotism) and repression - Petrus (1983-1985, around 5,000 dead), Tanjung Priok (1984), Talangsari (1989) and the 1997-1998 activist kidnappings.

The answer

Dwifungsi

The "dual function" of the armed forces was the founding political doctrine. ABRI (Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia, the Indonesian Armed Forces) had simultaneous defence and "sociopolitical" roles. The doctrine was formalised at the army's first seminar in Bandung (April 1965) and adopted across ABRI under General Maraden Panggabean in 1969.

In practice this meant active and retired officers held one-fifth of DPR seats (100 of 500 until 1999), governorships of most provinces (typically over half), and senior posts across the bureaucracy and state enterprises. Officers were rotated through territorial commands (KODAM, KOREM, KODIM, KORAMIL) that paralleled the civil hierarchy down to the village.

GOLKAR and the captive electorate

Suharto inherited GOLKAR (Sekber-GOLKAR, founded 1964) as an anti-Communist coalition of "functional groups." Under the New Order it became the regime's electoral machine. The 1971 election (the first under Suharto) gave GOLKAR 62.8 per cent of the vote against ten contesting parties.

The party system was then forcibly simplified. In 1973 the nine opposition parties were compelled to merge into two: the Islamic PPP and the nationalist/Christian PDI. Civil servants were placed under "monoloyalitas" doctrine (1975) obliging them to support GOLKAR. The KOPKAMTIB security command intervened in opposition campaigns.

GOLKAR won every election: 62.1 per cent (1977), 64.3 per cent (1982), 73.2 per cent (1987), 68.1 per cent (1992), 74.5 per cent (1997). The MPR (People's Consultative Assembly), composed of DPR members and appointees, "elected" Suharto unopposed every five years.

Pancasila as asas tunggal

The ideological framework was Pancasila, but reformulated as the sole permitted foundation. The 1985 Mass Organisations Law (UU 8/1985) required all political parties, mass organisations, religious bodies, and civil society groups to adopt Pancasila as their asas tunggal (sole foundation). Islamic organisations that resisted were banned.

The P4 indoctrination programme (Pedoman Penghayatan dan Pengamalan Pancasila, instituted 1978) gave compulsory courses on Pancasila to civil servants, students, and members of mass organisations. The MPR's "broad guidelines of state policy" (GBHN) governed five-year plans (Repelita I to VI from 1969).

Economic policy and the Berkeley Mafia

Suharto's economic policy reversed Sukarno's autarky. The technocrats around Widjojo Nitisastro, Ali Wardhana, Emil Salim and Mohammad Sadli (all trained at the University of California, Berkeley, hence the "Berkeley Mafia") were given control of finance, planning (BAPPENAS) and economic ministries.

Hyperinflation was broken by 1968 through a balanced budget rule. The Foreign Investment Law (PMA, 1 January 1967) and the Domestic Investment Law (PMDN, 1968) opened the economy. IGGI (Inter-Governmental Group on Indonesia, chaired by the Netherlands from 1967, later CGI) coordinated Western aid.

The oil boom of 1973 to 1974 (price quadrupled after the Yom Kippur War) and the second oil shock of 1979 to 1980 transformed state finances. Pertamina, the state oil company under General Ibnu Sutowo, both fed and embarrassed the regime; its near-collapse in 1975 to 1976 required a $10 billion bailout.

Indonesia adopted the "trickle-down" growth model. GDP per capita rose from around $50 in 1967 to around$ 1,100 in 1996. Poverty headcount fell from around 60 per cent in 1970 to around 11 per cent in 1996 (World Bank measure). Rice self-sufficiency was achieved in 1984 through "Bimas" green-revolution programmes. Manufactured exports rose from below 5 per cent of total in 1980 to over 50 per cent by 1995.

Pembangunan and its costs

Pembangunan (development) was the New Order's signature word and its central legitimating claim. It produced real gains: primary school enrolment near-universal by 1990; infant mortality fell from 132 per 1,000 births (1970) to 50 (1995); life expectancy rose from 47 (1970) to 65 (1996).

The costs were equally real. The Transmigrasi programme moved around 2.5 million people from Java to the Outer Islands between 1969 and 1989, often onto disputed land in West Papua, Kalimantan, and Sulawesi, generating sustained conflict. Forest concessions to military-linked conglomerates devastated the rainforests of Kalimantan and Sumatra.

The Suharto family business empire

The President's children built one of Asia's largest informal business empires. Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana ("Tutut") controlled toll roads and television (TPI). Bambang Trihatmodjo controlled Bimantara Group (electronics, media). Hutomo Mandala Putra ("Tommy") controlled the national clove monopoly (BPPC) and a national car project (Timor 1996) given tax exemptions.

Bob Hasan ran Apkindo (the plywood marketing board); Liem Sioe Liong's Salim Group owned BCA (Bank Central Asia), Indofood, and around 500 other companies. Transparency International rated Indonesia among the most corrupt economies in the world; Time magazine estimated the family fortune at $15 billion in 1999.

Repression and human rights

The system rested on coercion. The KOPKAMTIB security command and later BAKORSTANAS ran extra-judicial detentions. The Petrus campaign of 1983 to 1985 (Penembakan Misterius, "mysterious shootings") executed an estimated 5,000 alleged criminals; Suharto later claimed authorship in his 1989 autobiography.

The Tanjung Priok massacre (12 September 1984) killed an unknown number of Islamic protestors (army figure 18; activist estimates several hundred) when troops fired on a crowd at a port mosque in Jakarta. The Lampung killings (Talangsari, 7 February 1989) killed an estimated 130 to 246 Islamic villagers.

The 27 July 1996 attack on PDI headquarters, organised by Suharto's son-in-law General Prabowo's faction to remove Megawati Sukarnoputri as PDI chair, triggered riots in Jakarta. From 1997 to early 1998 around 23 student activists were kidnapped by Kopassus Team Mawar; many were later released, around 13 remain missing.

Timeline

Date	Event	Significance
27 March 1968	Suharto President	New Order founded
1967-1968	PMA, PMDN Laws	Open economy
1971	First Suharto election	GOLKAR 63 per cent
1973	Parties merged into three	PPP, PDI, GOLKAR
1973-1974	Oil boom	Pembangunan funded
1975-1976	Pertamina crisis	Limits of state enterprise
1984	Rice self-sufficiency	Green Revolution payoff
1985	Asas tunggal law	Pancasila compulsory
1996	Poverty headcount 11 per cent	Development peak
27 July 1996	PDI headquarters attack	Regime overreach

Historiography

Michael Vatikiotis (Indonesian Politics under Suharto, 1993) is the standard political account. He emphasises the dwifungsi-GOLKAR-Pancasila triad as a self-reinforcing political technology.

Hal Hill (The Indonesian Economy since 1966, 1996) is the canonical economic analysis. He treats the Berkeley Mafia as effective stabilisers and the family business empire as a corrupting overlay that distorted but did not destroy the development model.

Edward Aspinall (Opposing Suharto, 2005) traces the slow rebuilding of civil society from the late 1980s through the rise of an Islamic middle class, environmental NGOs, and student activism.

Geoffrey Robinson (The Killing Season, 2018) places the New Order in continuity with the 1965 to 1966 killings: founded on impunity for mass political violence.

Adrian Vickers (A History of Modern Indonesia, 2013) emphasises the human rights record and the Suharto family corruption as inseparable from the development model.

How to read a source on this topic

First, distinguish New Order achievement claims from independent evidence. Rice self-sufficiency, poverty reduction, and education gains are documented by World Bank, UNDP and FAO data and are real. Election results and ideological harmony are state-engineered and not.

Second, weigh dwifungsi and GOLKAR as a single system. Officers held parliamentary seats. GOLKAR votes were policed by territorial commands. Civil servants were under monoloyalitas. The civil-military distinction had little operational meaning.

Third, note the shift around 1990. As the Cold War ended and Suharto sought a softer image, he made the haj (1991), patronised Islamic groups (ICMI under Habibie, founded 1990), and tolerated more press freedom. The 1993 to 1996 period was the regime's most open. The 1996 PDI raid signalled retrenchment.

Model exam responses

A. Short-answer (4 marks). Explain how dwifungsi and GOLKAR together gave the New Order political control.

Dwifungsi and GOLKAR were two halves of a single mechanism. Dwifungsi, the army's "dual function" formalised in 1969, placed active and retired officers in about a fifth of DPR seats, most provincial governorships and senior bureaucratic posts, while territorial commands (KODAM down to KORAMIL) shadowed the civil administration to the village. GOLKAR then converted that reach into votes: the regime's electoral machine won every poll from 1971 to 1997 with 62 to 74 per cent, helped by the 1973 forced merger of the opposition into a tame PPP and PDI and by monoloyalitas (1975), which obliged every civil servant to support it. The army supplied the coercive skeleton and GOLKAR the electoral flesh, so that the MPR could re-elect Suharto unopposed every five years.

Marker's note: a top 4-mark answer links the two institutions causally rather than describing them separately, and anchors the claim in concrete detail (the DPR share, the 1973 merger, monoloyalitas, the 62-74 per cent range).

B. Source response (5 marks). Source: an official 1993 New Order government booklet celebrating "pembangunan," listing falling poverty, rice self-sufficiency and rising school enrolment. Assess its usefulness for a historian studying the New Order.

The booklet is regime self-promotion from 1993, produced by the government whose record it celebrates, so its purpose is to legitimise authoritarian rule through the development record rather than to give a balanced account. That makes it highly useful as evidence of the regime's own legitimating strategy - pembangunan as the justification for control - and the specific claims it makes are largely corroborated by independent World Bank, UNDP and FAO data: poverty did fall from around 60 to around 11 per cent, rice self-sufficiency was reached in 1984, and primary enrolment was near-universal by 1990. It is far less useful, indeed silent, on the costs that ran alongside: the KKN family business empire, the Petrus killings (around 5,000 dead, 1983-1985), Tanjung Priok (1984) and the captive electorate. Read critically, it is strong evidence for how the regime sold itself and for the reality of the gains, but it conceals the repression and corruption that were the limits of pembangunan.

Marker's note: a top response states origin and purpose, separates what the source is useful FOR (the legitimating strategy, and gains that external data confirm) from what it omits (KKN and repression), and ends in a judgement rather than summarising the booklet.

C. Essay paragraph (from a 25-mark response on whether economic success justified the regime's authoritarianism).

The New Order's defenders point to a development record that was real rather than rhetorical. Under the Berkeley Mafia technocrats - Widjojo Nitisastro, Ali Wardhana, Emil Salim and Mohammad Sadli - hyperinflation of over 600 per cent in 1965 was tamed to single figures by 1971, a balanced-budget rule restored confidence, and the PMA and PMDN laws reopened the economy to investment. Funded by the oil windfall of 1973-1974 and channelled through the Repelita plans, growth averaged around 7 per cent through the 1980s; GDP per capita rose roughly twenty-fold, rice self-sufficiency was achieved in 1984, and the poverty headcount fell from about 60 per cent in 1970 to about 11 per cent in 1996 on the World Bank's own measure. As Hal Hill argues, these were the achievements of genuinely competent technocrats, not a propaganda mirage. The difficulty for the "it was justified" thesis is that the same regime that delivered the growth also looted it: as Adrian Vickers insists, the KKN of the Suharto family was constitutive of the model, not incidental to it, so the development that legitimised the authoritarianism cannot be cleanly separated from the corruption that authoritarianism protected.

Marker's note: the paragraph argues one proposition (the gains were real but inseparable from the corruption), supports it with dated specifics, and sets Hill against Vickers in genuine tension rather than name-dropping them. Sustained argument plus historiography is what lifts a paragraph into Band 6.

Command words and weaving historiography

Read the verb first. "Assess" and "Evaluate" want a JUDGEMENT defending a thesis, not a story; "To what extent" wants the factors RANKED; "Explain" wants a causal chain; "Assess the usefulness/reliability" of a source wants ORIGIN, MOTIVE and PERSPECTIVE, then a verdict. For source questions run O-M-P-U: Origin, Motive, Perspective, then Usefulness - and with New Order sources always ask whether you are reading regime self-justification (election results, pembangunan booklets) or independently verified fact (World Bank poverty data, declassified cables). Weave historians as a clash, not a list: pit corruption-as-overlay (Hal Hill - the development model was sound, the family graft a distorting layer) against corruption-as-constitutive (Adrian Vickers - the looting and the growth were one system), then say which carries more weight and why. One historian used in genuine tension beats five name-dropped.

Examples in context

Example 1. The Berkeley Mafia and pembangunan. Widjojo Nitisastro and the US-trained economists set fiscal and trade policy from 1967. Inflation fell from over 600 per cent (1965) to 9 per cent (1971). Adrian Vickers (A History of Modern Indonesia, 2005, revised 2013) and Hal Hill (The Indonesian Economy, 2nd ed. 2000) document GDP growth averaging around 7 per cent through the 1980s. The oil-price windfall of 1973 to 1981 funded the development state.

Example 2. Dwifungsi and GOLKAR. The military's dual function (defence and socio-political) was institutionalised through the regional commands (KODAM) and party-state GOLKAR. R.E. Elson (Suharto: A Political Biography, 2001) draws on military and party archives to document the cooptation of civilian elites. Pancasila as asas tunggal (1985) required all organisations to adopt the state ideology.

Exam-style practice questions

Practice questions written in the style of NESA exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.

Practice (NESA)10 marksAssess the political and economic features of Suharto's New Order between 1967 and 1998.

Show worked answer →

A 10-mark "assess" needs a judgement and four developed features with named historians.

Thesis: The New Order was a developmental authoritarian state: army-led politics under dwifungsi, electoral hegemony through GOLKAR, ideological compulsion through Pancasila as asas tunggal, and a Western-aligned market economy run by technocrats and disciplined by the army. It produced three decades of growth and an entrenched corruption network that the 1997 crisis destroyed.
Dwifungsi: The "dual function" doctrine (formalised 1969) gave the armed forces simultaneous security and socio-political roles. Active and retired officers held seats in DPR, provincial assemblies, and around half of senior civilian government posts.
GOLKAR: Suharto's electoral machine. Civil servants were compelled to vote for it under "monoloyalitas." GOLKAR won every election 1971 to 1997 with 62 to 74 per cent. Opposition was reduced to PPP and PDI.
Asas tunggal: From 1985 all mass organisations had to adopt Pancasila as sole foundation. Islamic and Communist alternatives were outlawed.
Economic policy: The Berkeley Mafia (Widjojo, Wardhana) stabilised the budget, opened to foreign investment (PMA Law 1967), and used oil revenues to fund pembangunan. GDP per capita rose from around $\$50$ in 1967 to $\$1100$ in 1996. Poverty fell from 60 per cent (1970) to 11 per cent (1996).
Family corruption: The Suharto family business empire (Tommy, Tutut, Bambang, Bob Hasan) became a parallel state.
Repression: The Petrus killings (1983 to 1985, around 5,000 dead), the Tanjung Priok massacre (12 September 1984), and the 1997 to 1998 activist kidnappings showed the limits.
Historiography: Vatikiotis (1993) on politics; Hill (1996) on the economy; Aspinall (2005) on civil society.

Practice questions

Original practice questions graded from foundation to exam level, each with a full worked solution. Try them before revealing the solution.

foundation3 marksOutline what is meant by dwifungsi and explain how it shaped the New Order political system.

Show worked solution →

A 3-mark "outline ... and explain" wants the definition plus how it operated.

Definition: Dwifungsi ("dual function") held that the armed forces had two simultaneous roles - national defence AND a socio-political role in governing the country. It was adopted across ABRI under Panggabean in 1969.
How it operated: Active and retired officers held about one-fifth of DPR seats (100 of 500), most provincial governorships, and senior bureaucratic and state-enterprise posts. Territorial commands (KODAM down to KORAMIL) paralleled the civil administration to the village.
Effect: The army was not a force outside politics but the load-bearing pillar of the regime, fusing military and civilian authority.
Marking criteria: 1 mark for a correct definition of dwifungsi; 1 mark for concrete institutional detail (DPR seats / governorships / territorial commands); 1 mark for the point that it fused military and civilian power.

foundation4 marksExplain how GOLKAR and the 1973 party mergers gave the New Order electoral hegemony.

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A 4-mark "explain" needs a cause-and-effect chain with specific detail.

GOLKAR as the regime vehicle: Suharto turned Sekber-GOLKAR (1964) into the state's electoral machine; in 1971 it won 62.8 per cent against ten parties.
The 1973 simplification: The nine opposition parties were forced to merge into just two - the Islamic PPP and the nationalist/Christian PDI - removing competition and fragmenting the opposition.
The captive vote: From 1975 monoloyalitas obliged all civil servants to back GOLKAR; KOPKAMTIB policed opposition campaigns.
The effect: GOLKAR won every election 1971-1997 with 62 to 74 per cent, and the MPR re-"elected" Suharto unopposed every five years - electoral hegemony without the risk of losing.
Marking criteria: 1 mark for GOLKAR's role/1971 result; 1 mark for the 1973 merger into PPP and PDI; 1 mark for monoloyalitas or KOPKAMTIB as enforcement; 1 mark for linking these to sustained electoral dominance.

core5 marksSource A (paraphrased, owned): A 1996 World Bank assessment praised Indonesia for cutting the share of its people living in poverty from roughly three in five in 1970 to about one in ten, and for near-universal primary schooling, while noting that the gains depended heavily on state-directed programmes. Using Source A and your own knowledge, explain the achievements of pembangunan under the New Order. [5 marks]

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A 5-mark "explain ... using the source" wants the source decoded, then linked to own knowledge.

Decode the source: Source A is an external (World Bank) endorsement, so it corroborates the development record independently of regime propaganda: a poverty headcount falling from about 60 per cent (1970) to about 11 per cent (1996) and near-universal primary enrolment by 1990.
Own knowledge: GDP per capita rose roughly twenty-fold (around $50 to around $1,100); rice self-sufficiency was reached in 1984 through the Bimas green-revolution programmes; infant mortality fell from 132 to 50 per 1,000; manufactured exports rose from under 5 per cent of the total (1980) to over half (1995). The Berkeley Mafia stabilised the budget and oil revenues funded the Repelita plans.
The source's caveat: Source A flags that the gains were "state-directed," which is the key qualifier - these were achievements of a developmental state, not a free market, and the same direction enabled the rent-capture critiqued elsewhere.
Marking criteria: 1 mark for reading the source as independent (non-regime) corroboration; 1-2 marks for own-knowledge achievements (GDP, rice 1984, mortality, exports); 1 mark for naming the mechanism (Berkeley Mafia / Repelita / oil); 1 mark for using the source's "state-directed" caveat.

core6 marksSource B (paraphrased, owned): A historian writing in 2013 argues that the corruption of Suharto's family and cronies was not a flaw at the edges of the development model but built into its core - the same patronage that funded growth also looted it, so the New Order's prosperity and its rot were one system, not two. Assess the usefulness of Source B for understanding the limits of pembangunan. [6 marks]

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A 6-mark "assess the usefulness" question rewards origin/perspective plus own knowledge, ending in a judgement.

Perspective: Source B is a historian's structural argument (the position associated with Adrian Vickers) that corruption was constitutive, not incidental - useful because it refuses the New Order's own defence that growth and graft were separable.
Corroboration from own knowledge: It fits the record: the family empire (Tommy's BPPC clove monopoly and the tax-exempt 1996 Timor car; Tutut's toll roads and TPI; Bambang's Bimantara) operated as a parallel state, Bob Hasan's Apkindo plywood board and the Salim Group's roughly 500 companies fused political access with profit, and Time estimated the family fortune at $15 billion (1999). KKN (korupsi, kolusi, nepotisme) became the Reformasi rallying cry precisely because the rot was systemic.
Limitation: By stressing that prosperity and rot were "one system," Source B can understate the genuine, independently verified gains (World Bank poverty data, rice self-sufficiency) and the real competence of the Berkeley Mafia, which Hal Hill treats as effective stabilisers distorted, but not destroyed, by the patronage overlay.
Judgement: Highly useful for explaining why the model could not reform itself - the patronage that bought loyalty was the patronage that looted the economy, which is why the 1997 crisis was fatal - but it must be read alongside Hill's evidence that the development achievements were real, not merely a facade.
Marking criteria: 1 mark for identifying the structural/perspective claim; 1-2 marks for own knowledge corroborating systemic corruption (named family businesses, KKN, Time figure); 1 mark for a limitation (the real, externally verified gains / Hill); 1-2 marks for a judgement on usefulness.

exam25 marksEvaluate the extent to which the New Order's economic achievements justified its authoritarianism between 1967 and 1998.

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This is an extended-response/essay. Markers reward a sustained, evidence-based argument that addresses the "extent" judgement directly and weaves in historiography - not a narrative.

Band-6 PLAN

Thesis. The New Order delivered real, externally verified development - a twenty-fold rise in GDP per capita and a poverty headcount cut from 60 to 11 per cent - but the authoritarian system was not the price of that growth so much as the mechanism of its capture: the same dwifungsi-GOLKAR-Pancasila apparatus that disciplined the economy also entrenched the impunity and KKN that the 1997 crisis exposed as fatal. The achievements were genuine; the claim that they "justified" the repression collapses once the costs (mass killing, East Timor, systemic corruption) and the regime's inability to reform are weighed.
Argument 1 - The achievements were real (the strongest case for the regime). Berkeley Mafia stabilisation, the Repelita plans and oil revenues produced around 7 per cent average growth, rice self-sufficiency (1984), near-universal primary schooling and infant mortality falling from 132 to 50 per 1,000. Hal Hill treats the technocrats as effective stabilisers. Evidence: World Bank poverty data; manufactured exports rising from under 5 to over 50 per cent of the total.
Argument 2 - The political costs were severe and structural. The development state rested on dwifungsi militarisation, a captive electorate (monoloyalitas, GOLKAR 62-74 per cent), asas tunggal ideological compulsion, and coercion: the Petrus killings (around 5,000), Tanjung Priok (1984), the Talangsari/Lampung killings (1989) and the activist kidnappings of 1997-1998. The regime's foundation in the 1965-1966 massacres makes the impunity constitutive, not incidental.
Argument 3 - The growth and the rot were one system (why the trade-off fails). The patronage that bought elite loyalty also looted the economy: the family empire (Tommy, Tutut, Bambang), Bob Hasan and the Salim Group, a roughly $15 billion family fortune, and KKN as the Reformasi indictment. Because the corruption was structural, the regime could not reform when the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis hit - growth and authoritarian rent-capture stood or fell together.
Historiography. Hal Hill (1996) reads the family corruption as a distorting overlay on a sound development model; Adrian Vickers (2013) treats the corruption and human-rights record as inseparable from that model; Michael Vatikiotis (1993) analyses the dwifungsi-GOLKAR-Pancasila triad as a self-reinforcing political technology; Geoffrey Robinson (2018) roots the whole order in the impunity of 1965-1966.
Judgement. Set Hill (corruption as overlay - growth largely justified the system) against Vickers (corruption as constitutive - the system was rotten at its core). The development was real and lifted tens of millions out of poverty, but because the authoritarianism was the vehicle of capture rather than merely its guardian, it cannot be said to have been "justified" by the growth it simultaneously plundered. To a limited extent the achievements mitigate the verdict; they do not redeem it.

MODEL PARAGRAPH (Argument 3)

The deepest reason the development cannot simply justify the repression is that the New Order's growth and its corruption were not two systems but one. The patronage that secured the loyalty of the army, GOLKAR and the bureaucracy was the same patronage that handed the President's children a parallel economy: Tommy's BPPC clove monopoly and his tax-exempt Timor "national car," Tutut's toll roads and television, Bambang's Bimantara conglomerate, Bob Hasan's plywood cartel and Liem Sioe Liong's Salim Group of some five hundred firms, with the family fortune estimated by Time at around $15 billion. As Adrian Vickers argues, this KKN was constitutive of the model rather than incidental to it, which is precisely why the regime could not reform when the Asian Financial Crisis struck in 1997 - to dismantle the corruption was to dismantle the coalition that held power. Hal Hill is right that the Berkeley Mafia were genuinely effective and the poverty reduction genuinely real, but the growth and the rot rose and fell together, and when one collapsed so did the other.

Marker's note. A band-6 response keeps "to what extent ... justified" in view throughout - weighing achievements against costs rather than narrating the regime - anchors every claim in dated specifics (poverty 60 to 11 per cent, rice 1984, Petrus, the $15 billion estimate), sets at least two historians in genuine tension (Hill's overlay vs Vickers's constitutive corruption), and reaches a graded judgement. Listing achievements and abuses without ranking them caps the response in the middle bands.

exam25 marksTo what extent was the New Order a military regime rather than a civilian developmental state between 1967 and 1998?

Show worked solution →

This is an extended-response/essay. Markers reward a sustained, evidence-based argument that addresses the question directly and weaves in historiography - not a narrative.

Band-6 PLAN

Thesis. The New Order was neither purely a military regime nor a neutral developmental state but a developmental state BUILT ON a military foundation: dwifungsi made the army the load-bearing pillar of politics, while technocrats ran the economy under army protection. The civilian and military elements were fused, so the dichotomy in the question is partly false - but if forced to rank, the military character was primary, because the technocrats served at the army's (and Suharto's) pleasure.
Argument 1 - The case for "military regime." Dwifungsi gave officers about a fifth of DPR seats, most governorships and senior bureaucratic posts; territorial commands (KODAM to KORAMIL) shadowed the civil state to the village; KOPKAMTIB and BAKORSTANAS ran extra-judicial coercion; the order was founded in the army's 1965-1966 destruction of the PKI. Evidence: Petrus, Tanjung Priok, the 1996 PDI raid by Prabowo's faction.
Argument 2 - The case for "civilian developmental state." The economy was run by civilian technocrats (the Berkeley Mafia) through BAPPENAS and the Repelita plans, producing real growth, rice self-sufficiency (1984) and poverty reduction; legitimacy rested on pembangunan and the civilian ideology of Pancasila, not on naked force. GOLKAR and the bureaucracy gave the regime a civilian electoral face.
Argument 3 - The fusion (why the dichotomy is partly false). The two were interdependent: technocratic growth funded the army and bought legitimacy; army coercion protected the technocrats' market reforms by suppressing labour costs and opposition. Monoloyalitas placed civilian bureaucrats under regime discipline; asas tunggal (1985) used a civilian-sounding ideology to enforce political control. Civil and military authority had little operational distinction.
Historiography. Michael Vatikiotis (1993) reads the dwifungsi-GOLKAR-Pancasila triad as a single self-reinforcing technology of control; Hal Hill (1996) foregrounds the genuine competence of the civilian technocrats; R.E. Elson (2001) documents the army's cooptation of civilian elites; Geoffrey Robinson (2018) roots the regime's military character in the impunity of 1965-1966.
Judgement. Weigh Vatikiotis (fusion - one integrated system) against Hill (the developmental, technocratic achievement). The regime was a developmental state, but a military-founded and military-guaranteed one; to a large extent its military character was primary, because the developmental project existed by the army's leave and ended when the army withdrew its support in May 1998.

MODEL PARAGRAPH (Argument 3)

The cleanest way to resolve the question is to see that the New Order's military and civilian faces were not rivals but partners in a single machine. The Berkeley Mafia's market reforms required precisely the political stability that dwifungsi delivered: army-policed labour discipline (a minimum wage near $1 a day in 1990s Java) kept Indonesia attractive to the foreign investors the PMA Law had courted, while oil-funded growth, in turn, financed the territorial commands and bought the legitimacy that made the coercion tolerable. Monoloyalitas folded the civilian bureaucracy into the regime's vote bank, and the 1985 asas tunggal law used the civilian-sounding language of Pancasila to enforce thoroughly political control. As Michael Vatikiotis argues, dwifungsi, GOLKAR and Pancasila formed one self-reinforcing technology rather than three separate institutions, so to ask whether the New Order was "military" or "civilian" is to mistake a fusion for a choice - though, as the events of May 1998 showed, when the generals finally withdrew their backing the civilian developmental project collapsed with them.

Marker's note. A band-6 response resists the binary, argues that the elements were fused, and then still reaches a graded judgement on which was primary; it anchors claims in dated institutional detail (dwifungsi DPR share, KODAM, monoloyalitas, asas tunggal 1985) and sets historians in tension (Vatikiotis's integrated control vs Hill's technocratic achievement). Simply describing the army's roles OR the economy without weighing the relationship caps the response in the middle bands.