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UP CIDS DISCUSSION PAPER 18-002

Indonesia’s New Populist Order and Diffused Progressives in Comparative Perspective

Author : Olle Törnquist

Program : Program on Alternative Development

                   Program on Social and Political Change

Abstract : Neoliberal oriented growth and elitist democratization has bred in Indonesia a new populist order, with former local businessperson, mayor, governor, and now president Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, in the forefront. In this context, perhaps partly as in the Philippines, there has been some space for progressives, but also for right-wingers. What are the prospects for popular politics?