‘Shadow State’?: Business and politics in the province of Banten

Abstract

The quotations above indicate how few comprehensive studies there are on local politics. Observers tend to focus on the national level. Yet in the Indonesian context, local power relations cannot be understood simply through a formal approach, as they also involve informal networks, including relations between power holders and business. Therefore, a fuller understanding requires an approach that can simultaneously comprehend the formal and informal relations. Motivated by a desire to understand more fully the power relations in the conduct of local governance in Indonesia, especially in the post-Suharto era, I decided to undertake this research, with the theme ‘Business