ABSTRACT
The state, according to Brown (1994: xii-xix), determines the boundaries,
content, and character of ethnicity by translating ‘sometimes minor lin-
guistic graduations or physical variations into cultural boundary markers
which are believed to be intrinsically significant and clearly demarcated’. In
the case of Indonesia, the constructed pribumi nation and the assumed
solidarity of a ‘kinship community’ became the ‘psychological and political
ideology’ against the Chinese as internal enemy (Brown 1994: xviii-xix).
Ethnic policies as tools of state power limited the capitalists in Indonesia significantly. Hence, it is imperative to ask who implemented these policies
and who benefited from them, or, in a more general sense, who holds con-
trol over the state. Traditional class-based accounts have difficulties in
attributing power to any non-capitalist class and should therefore be mod-
ified to appropriately evaluate the New Order with its weak Chinese busi-
ness element. To expand definitions of the ‘ruling class’ will thus help in
assessing the role of Chinese capitalists vis-a`-vis state bureaucracy.
