Publication

Local institutions in Indonesia, empowered by decentralization, are defying the country’s highest courts with impunity, undermining judicial authority and allowing local conflicts to fester. If courts are to have any authority at all, the president, as chief executive, needs to do more than urge compromise. This paper argues that allowing local officials to defy the courts not only hurts the prospects for local conflict resolution, but sends the message that the power of the majority can take precedence over institutions of justice in a way that emboldens mobs, threatens minorities that feel they cannot depend on the state for protection, and ultimately undermines Indonesia’s democracy.