During the 32 years of Soeharto's New Order regime (1966–98), observers of Indonesian politics and society became accustomed to continuity. The pace of political change was glacial, despite rapid economic growth and modernisation. Soeharto faced serious challenges from time to time, but succeeded for the most part in co-opting or suppressing his opponents. Between 1973 (when Indonesia's political parties were forced into debilitating amalgamation) and 1998, no major reform of the political structure took place. By contrast, Soeharto's fall in May 1998 triggered a dramatic, and at times chaotic, transformation. Old certainties have been overturned or contested in almost every sphere: restrictions on political parties have been lifted and democratic elections held, the army has been forced to make a significant withdrawal from political life, cultural expression has flowered, and the formal separation of Islam and the state has been challenged by fundamentalist groups, to name just a few obvious examples.

One area where change has been very rapid has been in relations between Jakarta and the regions. World attention has focused on the most dramatic cases where secessionist movements have struggled for independence, successfully in the case of East Timor. At the same time, a somewhat less tumultuous, but equally profound, transformation has been proceeding in every region of Indonesia. Driven by the parallel processes of democratisation and decentralisation, a dramatic reworking of the country's political landscape is under way. Extensive powers have been devolved to regional governments, new struggles for political and economic power have erupted at the local level, novel forms of politics based on local identity are emerging, and there has been a flourishing of grassroots civil society. This book represents a preliminary attempt to come to grips with this profound transformation and the manifold ways in which the rise of the local has affected virtually every aspect of Indonesia's politics, economy and society.

The structuring of centre–region relations in Indonesia changed little between the late 1950s and the late 1990s. Sukarno's ‘Guided Democracy’ (1959–66) and Soeharto's New Order were centralised, authoritarian regimes in which the authorities saw regionalism as a major threat to Indonesia's survival as a unitary state. The New Order in particular built an extensive edifice of state surveillance and control to ensure that central government policies and directions were enforced right down to the village level.