42
that the lack of anti-corruption laws has not facilitated corruption, but the ability to
enforce these rules.
99
Administrations after Suharto have not effectively raised the costs of corruption, and the
capacity of officials to seize rents has increased to match their interests as set by informal
social norms.
The Role of Government Decentralization in Causing Corruption
Legislation in Indonesia under Suharto was passed in a hierarchal way, with Suharto as a
final veto point. Under this system, individual fiefdoms were created in different
bureaucracies for Suharto’s family and associates. At the top of the hierarchy, Suharto
used the legal power of the Presidential Decision to obtain monopolies on the distribution
and import of major commodities for family members.
100
At the ministerial level, as
economic growth continued, a rapid increase in the strength of the state and
bureaucratization occurred, which created more opportunities for rent seizing. This was
because the bureaucracy was a site of concentrated power, both implementing and
supervising developmental projects without strong institutional mechanism to check
corruption.
101
The concentration of power and discretion in the hands of the central
government created capacity for officials to seize state assets.
Some analysts argue that corruption has increased steadily since Suharto’s ouster due to
the lessening of state coercive power, which enabled the growth of officials’ incentives
and capabilities.
102
Although Suharto enabled rent seizing, he also provided a limit on
corruption. Now that limit is gone and officials still are faced with dramatically
increased opportunities to seize state assets for allocation. This is especially true at the
local level where governments have sought to expand their power and have created
99
King 25.
100
ibid 21.
101
King 22; Ross 190.
102
Allen Hicken, “Parties, Policy and Patronage: Governance and Growth in Thailand,” Corruption: The
Boom and Bust of East Asia, Campos, ed., September 1999; Donald Weatherbee, “Indonesia: Political Drift
and State Decay,” The Brown Journal of World Affairs 9, Spring 2002: 25.
Convention