Building A New Paradigm In State – Civil Society Relations

One of very few remaining law drafted by the New Order regime that continues to be legally valid until now is Law No. 8/1985 on Social Organization. The Law was issued in October 1985 with the purpose primarily of controlling the growing strength and number of civil society organizations. In 1980s Indonesia saw the emergence of hundred of civil society organizations that started to challenge to New Order’s grip on power.

The collapse of the New Order regime in the late 1990s brought about a dramatic change in the relationship between the State and Society. The main pillar of the New Order’s regime, the military, Golkar and state apparatus lost their legitimary to rule and pave the way for emerging role of civil society. Weakened by severe economic crisis and growing ethnic and communal conflicts in Kalimantan and Sulawesi, the post New Order State lacked legitimacy to regulate the growing numbers of civil society organisations. Emboldened by their active participation in toppling the regime, civil society demanded more role in public sphere. Majority of newly emerged civil society organizations stricly adhere to rules and regulations, but there are many who simply use civil society as their means to pursue their unlawful goals.

The End of Capitalism? Cracks in The Foundation

By Ann Robertson
January 05, 2009 “Information Clearinghouse“

The collective consciousness of the U.S. working class is on the brink of a profound transformation. We grew up being told that capitalism was the best of all possible systems, with apparent confirmation being supplied by the fall of the Soviet Union. But we are now entering a new reality that has the potential to overturn all the old, established assumptions perhaps, in the final analysis, even to overturn capitalism itself.

The Link Beetwen Religion and Capitalism

A provocative book written by a Japanese mathematician has reignited the debate about whether there are specifically “Asian” values.

As yet untranslated …, “The Dignity of a State” by Masahiko Fujiwara is an emotional plea for a Japanese “special path.” In particular, it argues that liberal democracy is a Western invention that does not fit well with the Japanese or Asian character.

A Capitalist Criticises Capitalism

“The global capitalist system… is coming apart at the seams”. So declared capitalist and arch-speculator George Soros before a US congressional enquiry on 19 September 1998. He has since expanded on this in a book entitled The Crisis of Global Capitalism. What has he in mind?

By “global capitalist system” Soros doesn’t mean what we would understand by the term, i.e. capitalism as a world-wide system of production for profit, but the more restricted sense of present world financial arrangements which allow the more or less free movement of capital throughout the world:

“The global economy is characterized not only by free trade in goods and services but even more by the free movement of capital. Interest rates, exchange rates, and stock prices in various countries are intimately interrelated, and global financial markets exert tremendous influence on economic conditions. Given the decisive role that international financial capital plays in the fortunes of individual countries, it is not inappropriate to speak of a global capitalist system” (Introduction).

Modernization theory and dependencia: Why did they fail?

by: Martina Schuster

By the end of the 1980s the debate about the failure of grand development theories was well underway. Economists, politicians, and academics bemoaned the end of the Third World and declared former theories (some of them quite well known) worthless.

Theories tend to form “theory families”; the discussion here will center on the modernization theories of the 1950s and 60s and the dependencia theories of the 60s and 70s.

The supporters of modernization theories assumed that a linear process exists whereby developing countries progressively become industrialized. Reasons for the underdevelopment of countries were seen within the different societies in internal factors, for example, in their traditions or in the lack of sufficient capital investment.

Democracy and the Media Bias

In democratic societies the press, the Fourth Estate, should supposedly make sure that the government does its job properly as well as raise issues of public interest. In practice, we now seem to have a situation where the political elites cooperate with the media on making sure that some topics receive insufficient or unbalanced attention while others are simply kept off the agenda altogether. This isn’t the case with all issues but with some more than others, especially those related to Multiculturalism, mass immigration and anti-discrimination where there seems to be a near-consensus among the elites. Together they form a new political class. This trend is recognizable all over the Western world, but it has become more deeply entrenched in Western Europe than in the USA, partly because more media outlets in Europe are either controlled by or at least sponsored by the state, but mainly because the political class has become formalized through the European Union.

In Europe, politics is more and more becoming an empty ritual. The real decisions are taken before the public even get a chance to vote on them , and the media won’t talk honestly about important matters. Our daily lives are run by a bloated bureaucracy which is becoming increasingly transnational. Ever so slowly, everyone is reduced from being an individual to being a cogwheel in a giant machine, run by supposedly well-meaning administrators and technocrats. They don’t really care about you; they just don’t want anybody to rock the boat, so they constantly grease the bureaucratic machinery with lies.