CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

Official Moguls 179
(King, 2000; Cole, 2001: 15; Makarim, 2001: 6–7; MacIntyre, 2003:
12). Bureaucrats were kept on board through job-based patronage and
compulsory membership in an official organization of civil servants
(Robertson-Snape, 1999: 592; Cole, 2001, 15); military officers found
it easy and lucrative to go into business. In the absence of an autonomous,
effective state framework (never a Suharto goal in any event) this personal
political network became the key institution of the New Order regime
(Liddle, 1985: 70, 71).
Like Elite Cartel cases real power in Suharto’s Indonesia was exercised
through corrupt networks rather than official public institutions. But –
critically – unlike Elite Cartel cases those networks were not coalitions of
elites with diverse power bases pursuing a common interest in staving off
increasing competition. They were the only game in town: hierarchical,
tightly controlled, dispensing benefits available nowhere else, and centralizing
power in the hands of one man. At the peak of the pyramid, the
President, his family, and select associates took the largest share of the
spoils. But for others seeking economic opportunity in Indonesia there
was much to gain from falling in with this system, and everything to lose
by opposing it. For those in more traditional and remote segments of
society, patronage and the growth it helped sustain not only delivered at
least fragmentary benefits; it also reinforced hierarchical and deferential
traditions dating from the Dutch colonial era and also, perhaps, back to
the days of Javanese kings (Robertson-Snape, 1999: 597–600).
Corruption, Suharto style
The New Order enabled Suharto to impose structure and order upon
corruption. Bureaucrats, military leaders, and Golkar figures could divert
public resources, go into business, or extract bribes and rents, but their
dealings were not allowed to disrupt economic development or political
order. A network of military officers or retirees reporting to Suharto
served as Inspectors General in all public bureaucracies, enforcing that
discipline (Liddle, 1985: 78; MacIntyre, 2003: 9). Those who stepped
across the invisible line were fired, punished, or held up to public ridicule –
the more so after 1973, when particularly egregious scandals touched off
unrest. In 1985, for example, excessive corruption in the customs service
resulted in its handover, for a time, to a private Swiss firm. Top cottonimporting
officials were fired the following year when their take began to
harm the broader textile industry; and in 1996 a transport minister who
threatened to become a political problem was publicly shamed
(MacIntyre, 2003: 11). Some of those moves – most prominently, the
temporary privatization of customs – could usefully be advertised as