Contextualising the 2025 Indonesian Protests: Authoritarian Statism, Militarisation, and the Crisis of Social Reproduction

Abstract

Indonesia’s success in building democratic institutions and sustaining economic growth has been punctured by the recent widespread protests in August 2025. Much ink has been spilled over the intra-elite conflicts and institutional dysfunction that have sparked the protests. Yet, little is understood: why did it take this form? Why are economic issues so prominent at this point of time despite the fact that income inequality has dramatically increased in the past few years? This essay seeks to better understand the root of the protest, which is linked to the crisis-ridden nature of the neoliberalisation process driven by a shifting geopolitical economy that has gradually increased levels of political disincorporation and normalised the authoritarian turn. We argue that it is precisely the authoritarian and coercive shift in state institutions and the failure of the political management of disincorporated classes of labour that provide the structural context for the Indonesian protests. Using the framework of authoritarian statism we argue that Indonesia exemplified an intensified state control over socio-economic life – with ostensible democratic institutions, that serves to exclude subordinate groups from formal and informal political channels. It is the failures of these mediating institutions that fuel protests and provoke an even more intense authoritarian reaction