The Agrarian movement, civil society, and emerging political contellations

When Suharto was finally forced to step down in May 1998, in the face of an intractable economic crisis, Indonesia's political constellation altered suddenly and dramatically. The crisis period was characterized by the emergence of ad hoc alignments of activist students, NGOs, and newly formed or revived community groups, which began to take on the mantle of long-repressed civil society. Government departments and international agencies now found themselves in round-table discussions with groups they formerly ignored or treated with suspicion