Reform era in Indonesia

So the way that we look at it is that oligarchy does not actually contradict democracy in any way whatsoever, but that it can actually utilize democracy in such a way that it could advance its interests just as well as an authoritarian regime used it.

And the new title of your book includes the term, The End of Reformasi.

That's the big change to the title.

And then you've got a whole new part about, say, the last of 10 plus years of Indonesian political history.

Can you explain to people what is or what was Reformasi and why you think it's ending?

Okay, well, we always understood reformatie in a different way than most people did, I think, in the early 2000s.

Just say what reformatie means.

And therefore, between 2004, let's say, till about 2016 or so, the story of reformacy for us was not about the expansion of liberal democracy or free markets or whatever, but the main story was really about the development of a new oligarchic social order, which was more decentralized than under the new order.