Gewalt in der Politik: Die Bedeutung kultureller Rahmung von State- und Nation-building in Malay(si)a und Indonesien

Abstract

In 1963 Malaya and Indonesia completed two projects of state-enlargement, incorporating new territories inhabited by people of different ethno-cultural affiliation into the larger whole of the young states. The styles of integration differed dramatically. I argue that these differences can be explained by taking recourse to the different cultural frames applied to political conflict resolution which were developed during the decades of decolonization and the early years of state- and nation-building. Although the Malay political elite took recourse to an ethno-cultural foundation for state- and nation-building, whereas the Indonesian nationalists turned to the civic variant of nationalism, the outcomes in the processes of policy-making, measured in either degree of violence or democratic participation and representation, contradict the traditional expectations held about different varieties of nationalism. As can be seen in either the early processes of state- and nation-building during the 1940s and 50s or the later efforts at state-enlargement, the ethnocultural foundation proved to be not only more peaceful, but also more democratic. This success is to a large degree dependent on the separation of State and Nation, of devising the state as a rational instrument in an multi-national endeavour at peaceful and cooperative coexistence of ethno-culturally defined "nations".