ABSTRACT
This chapter presents inception, violence and coercion at the core of Suharto's New Order. It explores that racketeering nature of the New Order was more than mere analogy. The chapter explains the transformation of the protection racket state and emergent role of violent entrepreneurs that occurred post-1998. Institutional formats and disciplinary regimes provided a means whereby jago and youth could be 'civilised'. According to Bourchier, despite the expansion of siskamling, tensions continued within the military and police over how best to deal with the 'crime problem' and the challenges it was believed to pose to the New Order's legitimacy. The ambiguity arising from the unwillingness of the state to explain exactly who was behind the killings led to them being dubbed by the press as the 'mysterious shootings'. Beking was dependent upon a personalistic and patrimonial system meant that the resultant distribution of resources was never effectively institutionalised, allowing the incubation of intense rivalries and tensions, a structure of rackets.
