VILLAGE GOVERNMENT AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN INDONESIA: THE NEW DEMOCRATIC FRAMEWORK

The political reforms that began in Indonesia in 1998 have created new opportunities for a revised relationship between state and community, replacing the New Order's centralistic and uniform framework with local-level institutions that are strong and responsive. This paper presents the new legal framework for the democratisation of local-level politics and village institutions. Representative councils have been elected in all Indonesian villages, and the village head is no longer the sole authority in the community. Village governments are provided with far-reaching autonomy and do not need the approval of higher authorities to take decisions and implement policies. However, decentralisation and democratisation are necessary but not sufficient preconditions for developing the countryside and alleviating poverty. An active government and civil society engagement must ensure that regulations are not distorted during implementation, and that ordinary people are included in public policy making and local governance.     

SOCIO-ECONOMIC STRUCTURE OF THE RURAL PHILIPPINES*

Since the hacienda type of landownership is quite unique, it is assumed that the village located within a hacienda, so called a hacienda barrio, has various distinctive features in relation to its socio-economic structure. In this monograph, one of the hacienda barrio in Central Luzon is taken as a case study, revealing a heterogeneous composition of the tenant class, that is, the existence of non-cultivating tenants and sub-tenants. The author attempted to get an integrated or systematic understanding of this composition through an examination of the social stratification, arriving at the hypothetical conclusion that the existence of multiple sub-classes within a homogeneous tenant class should be understood as a differentiation of the tenant class within the framework of the hacienda.     

大商所产业链格局谋变

3月22日上午9点,大连商品交易所(以下简称大商所)推出的焦煤期货合约正式挂牌交易。2007年以来,大商所从单一农产品市场努力向综合性市场转变,先后上市了聚乙烯、聚氯乙烯、焦炭等品种。如今随着焦煤的上市,大商所的综合性发展道路更加开阔。贴近现货物流格局保障焦煤交割顺畅作为最具有代表性的炼焦煤,焦煤是焦炭生产中不可或缺的基础原料配煤,     

THE EMERGENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES AND POLITICAL CHANGE IN THE PHILIPPINES

This article provides a study of the middle classes in the Philippines. First, the process of their emergence was examined in relation to that of Philippine industrialization, which started in the 1930s but from the 1960s progressed slowly and was accompanied by the expansion of the tertiary industries and informal sector. Then, the composition and characteristics of the middle classes, including their relatively small population size, distinctness from the lower classes, and internal diversity were analyzed. Finally, based on the data of the middle‐class‐centered organizations formed during the anti‐Marcos struggle, their political aspects were discussed, with emphasis placed on the new pattern of political participation which appeared after the Aquino assassination.     

COUNTING FOR DEMOCRACY: DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL STATISTICAL SYSTEMS IN A DECENTRALISED INDONESIA

Underlying the hopes and plans for democratic decentralisation in Indonesia are a series of assumptions about the availability, adequacy and use of statistical data, both locally and nationally. While the government does not question the need for data to define welfare needs, it has yet to clarify the mechanisms by which information can be generated and transmitted to relevant decision makers in a democratic and decentralised Indonesia. This paper argues the need to restructure and strengthen national statistical collections. At the outset of decentralisation the major statistical organisations were seriously under-funded, and most line departments were burdened with contradictory and inefficient approaches to the collection of operational and financial information for planning and monitoring. Without significant and immediate reform, the information Indonesia needs to develop the economy and the new democratic polity will deteriorate in quantity and quality.     

CURRENCY BOARD ARRANGEMENTS AS A SUPER‐FIXED ALTERNATIVE IN THE CHOICE OF EXCHANGE RATE REGIME1

Currency board arrangements (CBAs) are currently widely proposed as a super‐fixed exchange rate solution to exchange rate volatility. This paper researches the nature, operation, benefits and disadvantages of CBAs. Benefits comprise improved policy credibility, lower inflation and interest rate levels, increased economic growth, increased foreign capital flows, and sharply reduced currency speculation. These are compared with the shortcomings of CBAs, such as the absence of a lender of last resort, real exchange rate misalignments and their consequences for the economy. The paper identifies the type of country that would be the most likely candidate to benefit from a CBA.     

REGIONAL INCOME INEQUALITY IN INDONESIA AND THE INITIAL IMPACT OF THE ECONOMIC CRISIS

This paper estimates regional income inequality from 1993 to 1998, using a Theil index based upon district-level GDP and population data. Between 1993 and 1997, when Indonesia's annual average growth rate exceeded 7%, regional income inequality rose significantly. A two-stage nested inequality decomposition analysis indicates this was due mainly to an increase in within-province inequality, especially in Riau, Jakarta and West and East Java. In 1997, the within-province component represented about 50% of regional income inequality. The crisis caused per capita GDP growth to revert to its 1995 level, but the impact was spread unevenly across provinces and districts. In 1998 regional income inequality declined to its 1993-94 level. In contrast to 1993-97, three-quarters of the 1998 decline was due to a change in between-province inequality, with the Java-Bali region playing a prominent role. The crisis appears particularly to have afflicted urban Java and urban Sumatra.     

JOSÉ RIZAL: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATIONAL VIEW OF HISTORY AND NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE PHILIPPINES

The rewriting of the history of the Philippines from the standpoint of the Filipinos is today one of the major subjects of research in the history of that country. A perspective on Philippine history from the standpoint of the Filipino people themselves and free from the bias of the colonialists, was first attempted in the era of the Propaganda Movement, 1882–1896. In this paper, I should like to probe into the process of the formation of the historical view of the Filipino people taken by the greatest thinker of the Propaganda Movement era, José Rizal, and into the notion of the national solidarity of the people of the Philippines (i. e., their national consciousness), which that historical view heightened.