ABSTRACT
The subject of cronyism and corruption permeating the corporate economy of Indonesia has been covered in detail by Richard Robison and Andrew MacIntyre.1 They have focused principally on government-business relations but not on how far it affected the performance of the corporations. R. Fisman, in his study of the inter-relationship between Soeharto and corporate performance on the Jakarta Stock Exchange, used ‘event theory’ to assess the impact of political connections on corporations and their fortunes on the stock market.2 However, without detailed corporate data and analysis, this remains highly speculative. The very assumption of political connections with any one corporation is too rigid and ignores historical changes in the corporate economy. The tenure of Soeharto from 1966 to 1998 was marked by changes in his relationships to institutions – the bureaucracy, the military, pribumi, Chinese corporations, state-owned corporations – and Fisman ignores these critical changes and concentrates on the months between the outbreak of the crisis in September 1997 and the ousting of Soeharto in May 1998. Stijn Claessens (1999), too, indulges in broad comparative analysis, forsaking detailed analysis of corporate growth and performance and the influence of political connections in this development.3
