Elite friendship ties and their political - organizational functions; the case of Indonesia

Indonesia is a bureaucratic polity whose government under the Old Order has generally been described as divided, venal and inept. (For an analysis of Indonesia as a bureaucratic polity, see Jackson in Jackson and Pye 1978: 3-22.) Indonesia's government was characterized as a prime example of a soft state whose bureaucrats lacked the discipline needed to administer their state adequately. ( See Washington Star News, January 13, 1974; Emmerson in Jackson and Pye 1978: 89.) Further, it was described as one whose institutional capacities had decayed (Huntington 1968). Indonesia's institutional capacity for modernization was also said to have broken down (Eisenstadt 1966). In the New Order, since 1965, Indonesia has made impressive progress in developing its bureaucratic institutional capacities for modernization (Emmerson in Jackson and Pye 1978: 82-136; Sundhausen in Jackson and Pye 1978: 45-81). Despite such progress in institutional develop ment, analysts have continued to describe the Indonesian bureaucratic polity: as still divided or as lacking much capacity for sustained inte