ABSTRACT

Throughout the Suharto era, among the most useful tools of political scientists were Latin American corporatist models of the all-pervasive state. However, the Maluku conflict forces us to re-examine these long-held convictions. Today nobody talks corporatism, and observers are looking for other heuristic aids. Perhaps we should be looking at Africa’s failed states. According to a comprehensive study of communal conflict around the world conducted by Ted Gurr and his colleagues, 42 per cent of subSaharan Africans belong to a politicized communal group. Their leaders manipulate ethnicity not in order to break away from the state but to grab a bigger share of state power for themselves. Gurr labels this kind of conflict the ‘communal contenders’ (Gurr 1993).2