ABSTRACT
The recent Indonesian experience demonstrates the problems of envisioning processes for replacing authoritarian rule with liberal forms of democratic governance—whether through benevolent elite pacts, or simply the rise of civil society and the growth of ‘social capital’. As such, it is clearly relevant to the concerns of the still growing literature on democratization and transitions from authoritarian rule, both academic and those spawned by the prolific intellectual production lines of international development and consulting organizations (for example, O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986; Di Palma 1990; Huntington 1991; Linz and Stepan 1996; McFaul 2002; NDI 2002; USAID 2002).
