Quasi-civilian defence minister and civilian authority: The case study of Indonesia's Ministry of Defence during Joko Widodo’s presidency

Abstract

The President of the Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, appointed two former military generals, Ryamizard Ryacudu (2014–2019) and Prabowo Subianto (2019–present), for the first- and second-term defence minister positions consecutively. The appointment of military officers – either retired or active – as defence ministers has been perceived as a recipe for potential democratic setbacks. Current studies on the quasi-civilian defence minister mainly focused on explaining the logic behind such appointments. On the other hand, our study attempts to test the argument about whether the decision to select former military figures to lead the Ministry of Defence undermines civilian control. This article examines: (1) the institutional arrangement of the defence establishment; (2) the composition of the Indonesian Ministry of Defence's leadership structure; and (3) the leadership activities and key initiatives. The findings are that military officers have indeed dominated the ministry's organisational structure. Nevertheless, such domination did not automatically translate into the deterioration of civilian supremacy as the institutional arrangement limits those quasi-civilian defence ministers’ manoeuvres.

Keywords

civil–military relations civilian control democratisation Indonesia Ministry of Defence

Introduction

Historically, the Indonesian National Armed Forces (Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia/ABRI) had dominated Indonesian politics and played an important role in the authoritarian rule of Suharto's New Order regime (1966–1998). During his administration, former President Suharto had almost exclusively appointed ABRI high-ranking officers – especially generals who were affiliated with the Indonesian Army – to lead the then Department of Defence and Security (Departemen Pertahanan dan Keamanan/Dephankam). Furthermore, the Indonesian National Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief (Panglima ABRI) also occasionally held the ministerial position (Menteri Pertahanan dan Keamanan/Menhankam), before the separation of the National Police (POLRI) from the military structure in 2000 – following the resignation of President Suharto in mid-May 1998.¹ Such dual positions were held by five army generals: Suharto (1968–1971), Maraden Panggabean (1971–1978), Muhammad Jusuf Amir (1978–1983), Edi Sudrajat (1993) and Wiranto (1998–1999).

In the post-authoritarian era, the civilian leadership urged the reorganisation of the Department of Defence to become the leading institution in guiding military reform. This initiative aimed to establish an objective civilian control procedure and to strengthen civilian supremacy over the military. Under Abdurrahman Wahid's presidency (1999–2001), the government embarked upon major defence reform through the promulgation of Presidential Decision No. 355/M Year 1999. Abdurrahman Wahid modified the designation from Department to Ministry, restricted the Ministry of Defence's (Kementerian Pertahanan/Kemhan) authority to defence policymaking and confined the Commander-in-Chief's responsibility to leading the military headquarters.

Apart from one extraordinary case, in which President Wahid appointed General Agum Gumelar as caretaker of the Ministry of Defence from July to August 2001, Indonesia's post-authoritarian civilian leaders have always entrusted civilian politicians or professionals to lead the Ministry of Defence. However, President Joko Widodo (popularly known as Jokowi), first elected in 2014 and then again in 2019, discontinued this tradition when he appointed Ryamizard Ryacudu and Prabowo Subianto – both well-known to be conservative army generals – to lead the ministry.² Nonetheless, President Jokowi's decision to appoint Ryamizard and Prabowo raised a moot point about whether appointing these former military figures into leadership positions within the Ministry of Defence would disrupt Indonesia's civilian control over the military.

The answer to this debate is at best inconclusive due to several reasons. First, nominating a former military figure as defence minister can be seen as a ‘stop-gap‘ measure to patch civilian leadership's lack of knowledge and experience about defence-politico issues (Bruneau and Goetze, 2006: 93; Friend, 2020a). Second, even though the literature on Indonesia's civil–military relations has shown military dominance over the defence establishment, it rarely touches on the impact of appointing these military figures towards overall civilian control. The existing scholarship on Indonesia's civil–military relations mostly focuses on the political nexus between the civilian and the military leadership (Haripin, 2020; Honna, 2003; Laksmana, 2019b; Mietzner, 2009; Sebastian and Gindarsah, 2013). In a similar vein, several contemporary inquiries have analysed the Ministry of Defence within the framework of civil–military relations: its relative autonomy and early transformation (Anggoro, 2009, 2007); its subsequent internal reform (Sukadis, 2016); the development of its roles, duties and organisational composition under Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's presidency (Gunawan, 2017a, 2017b); and the recent evaluation of military professionalisation and bureaucratisation under it (Laksmana et al., 2020).

Against this backdrop, this article aims to analyse the impacts of appointing former military elites as Ministers of Defence, dubbed ‘quasi-civilians‘, on Indonesia's civil–military relations. In particular, we seek to answer the following main question: how does President Joko Widodo's appointment of Ministers of Defence with military backgrounds affect Indonesia's civilian control over the military? To address this salient point, we examine three factors that potentially enable former military figures to influence civilian control: (1) the institutional arrangement of the Indonesian defence establishment; (2) the composition of the Ministry of Defence's leadership structure; (3) the leadership activities and their key initiatives.

Due to ongoing developments and our aim to achieve parsimony, our assessment is limited to the Ministry of Defence under the Joko Widodo government, whose two defence ministers – Ryamizard Ryacudu (2014–2019) and Prabowo Subianto (2019–present) – are former military generals. In analysing the activities of Prabowo Subianto's defence ministership, we limit our analysis to until December 2020 as the outbreak of COVID-19 has significantly limited our attempt to conduct proper field research.

This article argues that the appointment of retired military officers as defence ministers might not necessarily have undermined civilian supremacy if a clear demarcation between the Ministry of Defence and the military headquarters had been set up. Military domination in leadership positions indeed appeared during these former military officers’ defence minister tenures. Nonetheless, an examination of the activities of those ministers indicated that the domination did not automatically compromise civilian control.

The rest of the article will be divided into three sections. We start the discussion by reviewing the conceptual framework on civil–military relations to identify the problems with the appointment of former or active military figures into the civilian leadership of the defence establishment. The second section assesses whether the Indonesian Ministry of Defence's leadership appointment has affected the configuration of post-authoritarian civil–military relations by examining the three factors previously mentioned. Finally, our last section concludes the assessment by highlighting the implications of appointing former military figures to the Ministry of Defence, and discusses a potential area of inquiry for further studies.

Analytical framework: Civil–military relations, democratisation and the Ministry of Defence

This section elaborates on the framework for assessing the impact of appointing a former military figure into the civilian's defence establishment on civil–military relations in a post-authoritarian democracy. The first subsection discusses the theoretical underpinnings of how nascent democracy needs to manage its civil–military relations by establishing forms of civilian control. The second subsection primarily builds the argument on how appointing military figures to lead the Ministry of Defence may evoke competing effects – either positive or negative – on the state's civil–military relations.

Nascent democracy and the pursuit of civilian control

The study on both civilian control and supremacy as well as democratisation finds its place under the subfield of civil–military relations. In its nascence, the theorisation of civil–military relations owed much to the works of political scientist Samuel P Huntington (1957) and sociologist Morris Janowitz (1971). Recent scholarships have produced empirical studies on the experiences of democratising polities in consolidating and reforming civilian control over the military (Alagappa, 2001; Croissant et al., 2010; Diamond and Plattner, 1996; Huntington, 1995; Kuehn et al., 2017).

From the ongoing discussion, scholars have found several common assumptions to understand civilian control. First, civilian control is conceptualised as relative political power between military leaders and non-military political elites (Bruneau and Croissant, 2019: 7). Second, civilian control needs to be laid on a continuum between full military dominance and complete civilian control (Kuehn et al., 2017).

In the context of nascent democracy and post-authoritarian polities, the process of enacting civilian supremacy might be disrupted by several problematic situations. First, transitioning democracies tend to be at risk of facing a coup from the military. Second, the absence of a military coup alone hardly signifies a clear indication of declining military interference in political affairs (Croissant et al., 2010). Evidence has shown that militaries could undermine the authority of civilian government even without supplanting civilian government (Valenzuela, 1992). Third, apart from removing the military institution from the political arena, civilian polities must ensure that military institutions adhere to civilian political authority. The democratic transition process could go both ways: either improvement or deterioration of civilian supremacy. A suspension of democracy could facilitate the military comeback in domestic politics (Diprose et al., 2019).

Hence, the literature on civil–military relations has pointed out the necessity of curbing and minimising the political power of the military to safeguard democratic norms and system. Peter Feaver (1999: 225), quoting Welch (1976) and Finer (1962), proposes that the solutions to prevent military involvement in politics and enhance civilian supremacy over the military can be grouped into two broad techniques: depriving the military's ability to subvert civilian control, and depriving the military's disposition to be insubordinate. The first category borrows Trinkunas's thinking (2005: 6) of maximising civilian control through minimising the military's exclusive jurisdiction in state policy. The second category deals with mechanisms involving the process of establishing the principles of civilian control through modifying the inherent characteristics of military personnel, providing incentives for military subordination and setting up an effective oversight agency (Feaver, 2003).

Nonetheless, it is vital to note that any control mechanism would need to be established through an institutional arrangement that deals with the decision-making process from the topmost authority down to the managerial officials.³ The institutional arrangement here is defined as the way in which the military organisation is enmeshed and connected with political leaders (Mukherjee, 2020: 21). The ideal institutional arrangement for democratic polity can be designed by considering four principles: enhancing civilian presence, empowering the Ministry of Defence, lowering military vertical authority and keeping the military divided (Pion-Berlin, 2009: 566–570). The institutional arrangement may also involve the delegation of authority to conduct the decision-making process within the defence establishment to both civilian and military agencies (Brooks, 2019; Laksmana, 2019a: 64). Various circumstances may affect how polities design their institutional arrangement regarding the division of authority between the military and civilian agencies.⁴ This discussion then leads us to the second subsection where we discuss the Ministry of Defence as a main civilian agency that embodies control over the armed forces.

Ministry of Defence and civilian control

The Ministry of Defence functions as a tool to ensure civilian control (Bruneau and Goetze, 2006: 71–73) and an arena where elected politicians translate policy preferences into military commands; a link between the government and military organisations (Pion-Berlin, 2009: 564). An ideal institutional arrangement is reflected in a Ministry of Defence that is capable of having the absolute authority in guiding and managing military affairs to ensure civilian control (Aguero, 1995: 190–197; Kim, 2014; Pion-Berlin, 1997: 159; Pion-Berlin, 2009). However, in cases where governments enact imperfect institutional arrangements, the Ministry of Defence is often unable to perform these functions (Bruneau and Goetze, 2006: 71).

On leadership of the Ministry of Defence, Samuel Huntington's (1957: 428–55) classical formula hints that having a civilian minister who has the ability to shape and oversee the implementation of defence policy is paramount to achieving control over the military.⁵ Yet, often civilians have limited expertise and knowledge about defence affairs, such as military organisation, deployments, force structures and the uses of military force (Mukherjee, 2020: 20).

A temporary prescription offered by civil–military theorists is for the governments to appoint or transfer the authority to military (or former military) officers to fill such appointments within the Ministry of Defence (Bruneau and Goetze, 2006: 93; Pion-Berlin, 2020: 82–84). However, the excessive delegation, coupled with the imperfect institutional arrangement, may result in an imbalanced composition of military and civilian figures within the Ministry of Defence (Pion-Berlin, 2009, 2020; Mukherjee, 2020: 20). This situation can harm democratic practices in defence policymaking, as military officers tend to display divided loyalty (Pion-Berlin et al., 2019: 1075). Furthermore, the military's point of view might get too dominant, thus leaving no room for a civilian perspective (Pion-Berlin and Martinez, 2017: 212–213). However, having too many civilians without expertise in defence affairs might also hamper the overall military effectiveness (Mukherjee, 2020). Regardless, military domination within the Ministry of Defence is harmful upon the establishment of democratic civilian control (Pion-Berlin, 2020: 84–86).

In this regard, it is important to clarify the differentiation between the civilian and the military in civil–military relations. The civilian can be defined as ‘particular individuals occupying specified roles in the administration (or ministerial cabinet) and guidance of, and the budgeting for, the military services and the defence enterprise‘ (Friend, 2020b). Civilian includes not only political party elites, members of parliament and ordinary citizens but also includes military retirees. On the other hand, the military is described as a ‘member of the armed forces; they have roles and responsibilities that involve them in the civil-military relations of policymaking‘ (Friend, 2020b).

In consolidating democracy, these definitions can be problematic and less applicable. The transition period of active-duty military officers into retirement has been less institutionalised. To bridge this gap, we put retired military officers into the same category as active military officers. These individuals, as earlier mentioned, might still possess personal ties to the military organisation and display divided loyalty against the norms of civilian supremacy. Furthermore, the divided loyalties of former military leaders might manifest in policy or activities that enable the military to advance their relative interest towards civilian control.⁶

In summary, we have discussed how particular institutional arrangements allow former military officials to be nominated into the Ministry of Defence leadership, how a military-dominated ministry can impact defence policymaking and how these military figures (active-duty and retired) may perform initiatives that display their divided loyalties. Table 1 summarises our argument.

Table 1.

Analytical framework to assess the effect of appointing former military figures into the Ministry of Defence.

Institutional arrangement	Leadership composition	Leadership activities
The institutional arrangement retains a regulatory gap that allows former military personnel to hold defence ministerial appointee without further scrutiny. Former military figures may also perform his/her duty below the established standards of the existing institutional arrangement and dilute civilian control mechanisms.	Former military figures allow military personnel to dominate the ministerial leadership or even the entire ministry organisational composition.	Former military figures might display divided loyalty towards the civilian leadership. Some ministerial policy and initiatives might advance the interests of the military organisation.

Source: The authors.

Taken together, these three factors serve as the building block of our analytical tools in assessing the claim whether President Joko Widodo's decision to appoint a former military figure affects Indonesia's civilian control over the military.

Tightening the fence: The Ministry of Defence's leadership in post-authoritarian Indonesia

The previous section outlined the analytical tools to examine whether Joko Widodo's decision to appoint former military officers to the leadership of the Ministry of Defence has undermined civilian control in post-authoritarian Indonesia. To give readers some context on Indonesia's political evolution, the country has been on a different path since the end of Suharto's New Order regime. Indonesia has undergone massive political reform since the late 1990s, known as Reformasi.

Arguably, the changes and continuities in Indonesia's political landscape have brought both impediments and facilitations that shape the way post-authoritarian leaders govern differently from the New Order regime. On the one hand, presidents would have to take into account the different political dynamics –which may include the consolidation of the political coalition – in order for the government to function effectively. On the other hand, the president still has a strong prerogative to change the organisation of the government and its entire working relationship. Taken together, these circumstances allow chief executives to organise ‘power-sharing arrangements’ by appointing their political allies to cabinet-level positions (Slater and Simmons, 2013).

As a political outsider, Joko Widodo had to face the political reality of the elite power play first when he came into power in 2014 and even when he was re-elected in 2019 (Hadiz and Robison, 2014). President Jokowi – who is nominated by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan/PDI-P) – had to make some compromises in appointing retired general Ryamizard Ryacudu as Minister of Defence (Bachelard, 2014; Lindsey, 2014).

Having been re-elected in 2019, President Jokowi also made a conciliatory decision to appoint his former political rival Prabowo Subianto to take over Ryamizard's ministerial post. This decision was arguably the result of a similar power-sharing arrangement (Huang, 2019; Ng and Priamarizki, 2019). Prior to the moment of fierce competition between the two, we shall also remember that Prabowo Subianto used to be a strong supporter and influential financier of Joko Widodo leading up to Jakarta's Gubernatorial Election in 2012. Prabowo's political party, Partai Gerakan Indonesia Raya / Gerindra (Greater Indonesia Movement Party), stood side by side with PDI-P in nominating Joko Widodo and his running mate Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Hamid, 2014: 90–91).

The appointment of the two former military figures to lead the Indonesian Ministry of Defence broke the established post-Reformasi pattern of appointing civilian as Ministers of Defence (see Table 2). The appointment of Ryamizard Ryacudu invited heavy criticism and questions over the president's democratic credentials. Ryamizard lacked the reputation of being a reform-minded general, unlike Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Instead, Ryamizard is infamous for his ultra-nationalistic views and military hardliner image, particularly due to his persistence in the use of military force against insurgents in Aceh and Papua during his tenure as Army Chief of Staff. Joko Widodo's already deficit democratic credentials were further deteriorated when Prabowo Subianto, another military hardliner and the president's two-time presidential election rival, was appointed as the successor of Ryamizard Ryacudu in October 2019.

Table 2.

Indonesia's post-authoritarian Minister of Defence.

Names	Time period	Presidency	Background	Political affiliation	Professional affiliation
Wiranto	May 1998–October 1999	BJ Habibie	Active military	TNI/Golkar (Functional Group)	Military
Juwono Sudarsono	October 1999–August 2000	Abdurrahman Wahid	Civilian	Non-Partisan	Civilian, academic
Mahfud MD	August 2000–July 2001	Abdurrahman Wahid	Civilian	PKB (National Awakening Party)	Civilian, academic
Agum Gumelar	July–August 2001	Transition	Retired military	Golkar	Military
Matori Abdul Djalil	August 2001–October 2004	Megawati Sukarnoputri	Civilian	PKB	Civilian, politician
Juwono Sudarsono	October 2004–October 2009	Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono	Civilian	Non-partisan	Civilian, academic
Purnomo Yusgiantoro	October 2009–October 2014	Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono	Civilian	Non-partisan	Civilian, professional
Ryamizard Ryacudu	October 2014–October 2019	Joko Widodo	Retired military	PDI-P	Military
Prabowo Subianto	October 2019–present	Joko Widodo	Retired military	Gerindra	Military

Source: The authors.

Even with civilian ministers, Indonesia's civil–military relations often experienced trouble imposing control mechanisms over the military to start with (Gunawan, 2017a). By reintroducing former military officers at the head of the ‘civilianised’ Ministry of Defence, its organisational capacity to conduct such tasks is further called into question. To test this argument, the following subsection follows the framework of analysis outlined earlier and examines three factors: (1) the defence sector's institutional arrangement, (2) the Ministry of Defence's leadership composition and (3) the activities or policy initiatives of former military ministers.

Flawed institutional arrangement: Patching the gaps

During the early days of Reformasi, Indonesia inherited several authoritarian legacies that mainly had the military organisation entrenched into every aspect of Indonesian society (Rinakit, 2005: 12). In order to end the military domination, Indonesia had managed to commence security sector reform that aimed to establish strong civilian control over the armed forces (Mietzner, 2006: 60). Yet despite having such an ambitious objective, the military remains a dominant institution in the country. This dominant role owes to the lack of substantial adjustment upon the institutional arrangement of Indonesia's defence establishment since the New Order regime (Gunawan, 2017a: 217).

Indonesia's post-authoritarian leaders have attempted to amend its defence sector's institutional arrangement by both institutionalised and less-institutionalised means. Among other goals, the military reform process aimed to (1) separate the police and domestic security elements from ABRI, (2) civilianise the Ministry of Defence and (3) subordinate the national military (TNI) under the civilian Minister of Defence. To support these goals, both Abdurrahman Wahid and Megawati Sukarnoputri appointed civilian ministers to lead the Ministry of Defence. During Megawati's presidency, the separation between the Ministry of Defence and the TNI was formalised through Law 3/2002 on National Defence and Law 34/2004 on TNI. According to the National Defence Law, the Ministry of Defence is responsible for performing seven tasks.

The formal establishment of the Indonesian defence sector's institutional arrangement lacked a substantive transformation from the previous authoritarian governance of the New Order era. For instance, it did not sanction the ideal arrangement that supposedly places the military under a subordinate relationship with the civilian Minister of Defence. Since then, the current arrangement only mandates both the Ministry of Defence and the TNI to have a coordinative relationship in administering Indonesia's defence affairs and for both organisations to report to the president (Gunawan, 2017b: 136). These arrangements constitute a layering mechanism – a form of institutional change without replacing the established regulation that supports the status quo (Gunawan, 2017a: 217).

The formulation of numerous regulations related to defence and security following the 1998 reform established a set of rules that guide the post-Reformasi Indonesian Ministry of Defence (see Figure 1). The defence minister holds limited authority to alter those legislations as many of them were proposed either by the president and/or with the parliament. On the one hand, the institutional arrangement retains the dual structure of the Ministry of Defence and the TNI and allows the latter to preserve its autonomy. On the other hand, the introduction of such laws and regulations in the post-1998 setting has strengthened the civilian position compared to the New Order period.

Figure 1.

Regulations related to the organisational development of Indonesia's Ministry of Defence. Source: The authors.

Looking more closely at Figure 1, we find that the Minister of Defence is mandated by the presidential decrees to organise the leadership through ministerial regulations. From time to time, these Ministry of Defence organisations – as described by Table 3 – have evolved since the New Order era. Over the past 20 years, the Ministry of Defence has generally made incremental development by forming new agencies such as the Public Communication and Standardisation Centre. The Ministry also replaced the Expert Staff on Technology and Industry position with the creation of the Defence Industry Policy Committee (Komite Kebijakan Industri Pertahanan, KKIP) through Presidential Regulation 42/2010 (Peraturan Presiden/Perpres) on the National Defence Industry.

Table 3.

The changes of positions within the Ministry of Defence, 2005–2019.

Category	Positions	2005	2008	2014	2017	2019
Minister	Ministry of Defence
Vice Minister	Vice Minister of Defence	□		□	□
Inspector and Secretary General	Inspector General of the Ministry of Defence
Inspector and Secretary General	Secretary General of the Ministry of Defence
Expert Staff	Expert Staff to the Minister for Economic Affairs
	Expert Staff to the Minister for Ideology and Political Affairs (shortened to Political Affairs)
	Expert Staff to the Minister for Security Affairs
	Expert Staff to the Minister for Social, Cultural, and Religious Affairs (shortened to Social Affairs)
	Expert Staff to the Minister for Technology and Industry			□	□	□
Director General	Director General of Defence Forces
	Director General of Defence Planning
	Director General of Defence Potential
	Director General of Defence Strategy
	Director General of Defence Facility			□	□	□
Head of Executive Agency	Head of Education and Training Agency
	Head of Research and Development Agency
	Head of the Defence Strategic Installation Agency	□	□
	Head of Defence Facility Agency	□	□
Head of Centres	Head of Financial Centre
	Head of Data and Information Centre
	Head of Codification Centre
	Head of Rehabilitation Centre
	Head of Public Communication Centre	□	□
	Head of Standardization Centre	□	□	□
Head of Ministry Defence Regional Office	Acting Head of the Provincial Office of the Ministry of Defence	□	□
Total Positions		19	20	21	22	23

Source: The authors.

Leadership composition: Old network, new institution

The appointment of civilians as Minister of Defence in the early years of Reformasi is quickly neutralised by a constant influx of high-ranking military officers holding various strategic positions within the ministry, i.e. secretary general, inspectorate general and director general (see Table 4). These leadership positions are crucial for the day-to-day operations of the defence ministry. Therefore, the holders of these positions are responsible for the shape and nature of the implementation of Indonesia's defence policy.

Table 4.

Civil–military balance within Ministry of Defence, by presidency, October 1999 to October 2004.

Categories	Civ/Mil	Abdurrahman Wahid 1999–2001	Megawati Sukarnoputri 2001–2004
Minister	Civilian	2	1
Minister	Military	1	-
Inspector and Secretary General	Military	2	3
Director General	Civilian	-	1
Director General	Military	4	4

Source: Compiled from Gunawan (2017b).

In this section, we specifically compare the leadership composition of the Ministry of Defence during the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Joko Widodo presidencies. There are three reasons why we only compare the Ministry of Defence during these two presidencies. First, the 2004 General Election, which is the first direct presidential election in post-authoritarian Indonesia, has been acknowledged as the landmark for political stabilisation and democratic consolidation in the country. Unlike the complicated situation that took place during previous administrations, the Ministry of Defence under the Yudhoyono administration, which was led by Juwono Sudarsono (2004–2009) and Purnomo Yusgiantoro (2009–2014), was fully operational without facing any serious political obstruction.

Second, the Ministry of Defence under the Abdurrahman Wahid (1999–2001) and Megawati Sukarnoputri (2001–2004) presidencies experienced unideal circumstances and so was incompatible to be compared with the Yudhoyono or Widodo administrations. The Ministry of Defence under Wahid's administration went through a number of swift leadership changes, with three defence ministers leading the institution in the span of less than two years. In the case of Sukarnoputri's administration, the defence minister seat had been vacant for more than a year after the late Matori Abdul Djalil suffered a stroke. These constant leadership shifts and volatile political situation had greatly circumcised the role of the defence ministry.

Third, the aftermath of the 2004 General Election also marked a new era of civil–military interactions with the promulgation of Law 34/2004 on TNI. The ratification of the law provided a strong regulatory framework on the TNI's activities and engagements, particularly related to its interaction with the civilian side.

Our dataset on Indonesia's Ministry of Defence leadership composition during the presidencies of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (October 2004 to October 2014) and Joko Widodo (October 2014 to December 2021) accounts for 131 personnel from the ministerial level to the head of agencies (kepala badan) level. It records 113 military and 18 civilian personnel. In total, the dataset records 56 army officers, 28 navy officers, 21 air force officers, 18 bureaucrats, seven academics and one business professional.

To acquaint the reader with the context, the 2004 TNI Law stipulates that transfer of military personnel to hold a position at the civilian ministry is allowed as long as the institution in question is responsible for defence and security matters.⁷ In the case of the Indonesian Ministry of Defence, the TNI Headquarters holds the right to recommend military officers to be posted at the ministry. However, the defence minister owns the prerogative whether to accept or reject the nomination.

For more than 15 years, we find that the military has generally dominated all leadership positions (see Table 5). One interesting point from Table 5 is that there are more civilian expert staff members to the minister during the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono administration than during the Joko Widodo administration. Also, the heads of executive agencies during the Yudhoyono administration were relatively more balanced – between civilian and military personnel – as compared with the Jokowi presidency.

Table 5.

Civil–military balance within Ministry of Defence, by presidency, October 2004 to December 2021.

Categories	Civ/Mil	Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono 2004–2009; 2009–2014	Joko Widodo 2014–2019; 2019–present
Minister	Civilian	2	-
Minister	Military	-	2
Vice Minister	Civilian	-	1
Vice Minister	Military	1	1
Inspector and Secretary General	Military	12	9
Director General	Civilian	3	3
Director General	Military	18	14
Expert Staff	Civilian	10	3
Expert Staff	Military	9	16
Head of Executive Agency	Civilian	3	1
Head of Executive Agency	Military	7	16

Source: The authors.

If we look more closely, civilian personnel were more likely to be positioned in the Ministry of Defence's key positions during the Purnomo Yusgiantoro leadership (2009–2014). The opposite effect happened during Prabowo Subianto's leadership (2019–present). Prabowo was more likely to appoint military officers into the top positions within the defence ministry. In addition, both Juwono Sudarsono and Purnomo Yusgiantoro seemed to keep the balance between appointing civilian and military personnel into key positions (see Table 6).

Table 6.

Civil–military balance within Ministry of Defence, by minister, October 2004 to December 2021.

Position	Civ/Mil	Minister of Defence
Position	Civ/Mil	Juwono Sudarsono 2004–2009	Purnomo Yusgiantoro 2009–2014	Ryamizard Ryacudu 2014–2019	Prabowo Subianto 2019–present
Minister	Civilian	1	1	-	-
Minister	Military	-	-	1	1
Vice Minister	Civilian	-	-	-	1
Vice Minister	Military	-	1	-	1
Inspector and Secretary General	Civilian	-	-	-	-
Inspector and Secretary General	Military	5	7	6	3
Director General	Civilian	1	2	3	-
Director General	Military	8	10	9	5
Expert Staff	Civilian	2	8	3	-
Expert Staff	Military	6	3	10	6
Head of Executive Agency	Civilian	1	2	1	-
Head of Executive Agency	Military	3	4	9	7

Source: the authors.

As the dataset displays, the gradual flows of military officers into the Ministry of Defence's key position occurred during Ryamizard's tenure. For instance, Ryamizard assigned an army officer Thamrin Marzuki as the Director General of Defence Potential (Direktorat Jenderal Potensi Pertahanan) in December 2017, though later in April 2018 the minister installed Bondan Tiara Sofyan – a senior civilian bureaucrat – and promoted Thamrin to the Inspectorate General position ( Tempo, 2018 ). We also see the increasing entrance of military officers into the position of head of the executive agency. Throughout his tenure, Ryamizard appointed nine military and only one civilian. Meanwhile, Prabowo is apparently not only continuing this pattern but also expanding the military presence to the expert staff positions as well.

Indeed, the change in the Ministry of Defence leadership composition occurred significantly during Prabowo Subianto’s leadership. In 2021, President Jokowi appointed as Vice Defence Minister Lieutenant General Muhammad Herindra, who was former Prabowo's subordinate at the Army Special Force (Kopassus). Herindra replaced Sakti Wahyu Trenggono, a businessman, seasoned politician from the National Mandate Party (Partai Amanat Nasional/PAN) and current Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (December 2020–present). Moreover, Major General Dadang Hendrayudha, another former Prabowo subordinate at Kopassus, and Air Vice Marshall Julexi Tambayong became Director General of Defence Potential and Head of Defence Research and Development Agency respectively. Both Dadang and Julexi's predecessors were civilian officials ( Detik, 2020 ; Kementerian Pertahanan, 2020). In April 2020, Brigadier General Rodon Pedrason, former Governor of National Intelligence College (Sekolah Tinggi Intelijen Negara/STIN), was also appointed as the Director General of Defence Strategy. The appointment of those four figures marked the absence of officials with a non-military background at the level of head of agency and above at the Ministry of Defence.

In addition, most Ministry of Defence high-ranking officials with a military background came from the army. Army officers generally have a larger chance of being appointed into the ministry's key position given their large annual academy outputs. As Table 7 displays, this pattern has been seen consistently throughout the post-authoritarian period. During Juwono Sudarsono’s and Purnomo Yusgiantoro’s leadership, army officers dominated high-level positions in the Ministry of Defence. In terms of the numbers, nevertheless, the Ryamizard Ryacudu leadership displayed rather a striking picture. He appointed 21 officers with an army background in various high-level positions, in contrast with only seven officers from the navy and air force. So far, Prabowo seems to maintain this pattern. Out of 23 high-ranking officers under his command in the Ministry of Defence, 12 of them are from the army.

The domination of the military is also seen in the second highest appointment. Except in the Purnomo Yusgiantoro tenure, military officers from the navy and air force also occupied various strategic positions within the Ministry of Defence throughout the leadership of Juwono Sudarsono, Ryamizard Ryacudu and Prabowo Subianto. Meanwhile, career bureaucrats with a civilian background were in second place during the Purnomo tenure. He appointed nine civilian bureaucrats and four academic scholars.

Our datasets show that in total 58 military personnel were appointed during the Ryamizard Ryacudu and Prabowo Subianto leadership (as of December 2021) (see Table 7). The number of military appointments might increase if Prabowo remains in office until 2024. Therefore, it is sufficient to conclude that the appointment of defence ministers with a military background has increased the number of active-duty military officers into key defence ministry appointments.

Table 7.

Professional background within Ministry of Defence key appointment, by each minister, October 2004 to December 2021.

Background	Minister of Defence
Background	Juwono Sudarsono 2004–2009	Purnomo Yusgiantoro 2009–2014	Ryamizard Ryacudu 2014–2019	Prabowo Subianto 2019–present
Army	11	12	21	12
Navy	9	6	7	6
Air Force	2	7	7	5
Bureaucrat	2	9	7	-
Academia	3	4	-	-
Business	-	-	-	1

Source: The authors.

Leadership activities: Between legacy and achievement

Both Ryamizard Ryacudu and Prabowo Subianto actively engaged in various activities during their tenures as defence minister. While both of them pledged to improve the defence sector, each promoted a different agenda to realise this goal. This difference in reality encapsulated the approaches implemented by Ryamizard and Prabowo. The two ministers utilised the promotion of a specific agenda to leave a legacy that will be associated with their ministerial service. During the Ryamizard period, the former Army Chief of Staff advocated the implementation of the Bela Negara or Defend the State programme.⁸ Prabowo meanwhile showcased his defence diplomacy activities.

On 22 October 2015, Ryamizard launched a Bela Negara training programme that involved 4500 participants from across 45 cities/regencies (BBC, 2015). However, Ryamizard was not the initiator of Bela Negara. The foundation for Bela Negara was stipulated in the 1945 Constitution article 27 (3) and 30 (1) and Law 3/2002 on National Defence (Febriansyah, 2021). On the one hand, Ryamizard promoted the scheme without immensely jeopardising the regulatory framework. On the other hand, the Bela Negara programme contains the possibility of militarisation of the general population.

Although Ryamizard was not the initiator of Bela Negara, undoubtedly he was the most prominent figure in promoting its ideology. This contrasted with his two predecessors, Juwono Sudarsono (2004–2009) and Purnomo Yusgiantoro (2009–2014), who confined their ministerial duties within the narrow framework of defence. Ryamizard regularly promoted Bela Negara through various public talks and training programmes. Ryamizard's promotion of Bela Negara hinted at an attempt to outsource the government's coercive capability to civilian-vigilante groups (Haripin et al., 2021: 36). This attempt was apparent when one of the Bela Negara trainings included some members of FPI (Front Pembela Islam/Islamic Defender Front), a notorious civilian-vigilante group, in early 2017. The Indonesian Ministry of Defence defended the decision by citing that ‘every Indonesian citizen has the right to defend the country’ (CNN Indonesia, 2017).

Meanwhile, Prabowo employed a different strategy in running the defence ministry. He has been actively engaging foreign representatives. His meeting agenda with overseas counterparts relates heavily to the former Special Force commander's pledge of developing the TNI's military platforms. He initially pledged his commitment to continue and fulfil the Minimum Essential Force (MEF) programme, a long-term military modernisation policy first initiated in 2010 during the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono presidency, and mentioned the necessity to improve the quality not only of military armaments but also of human resources ( Detik, 2019 ). Our media monitoring on the news of Prabowo's various overseas visit between October 2019 and December 2020 showed that defence cooperation, primarily military exercises and arms procurement, and defence industry development were the two most discussed topics (see Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Prabowo Subianto's overseas meeting theme and frequency, October 2019 to December 2020. Source: The authors.

Nonetheless, the focus of the Prabowo defence diplomacy was pretty much inward-looking with little attention towards global and regional issues (Suoneto and Evander, 2021). As an example, regional security issues and cooperation rarely became the focal point of Prabowo's overseas meetings. Moreover, it was only in February 2022 that Prabowo managed to secure a major procurement deal through the Dassault Rafale acquisition arrangement and the United States’ approval of the F-15 sale ( Aljazeera, 2022 ). Prabowo's overseas ventures served as a way to fulfil his promise to strengthen the Indonesian military armament, not to mention the urge to accelerate the MEF programme, which he outlined in the early period of his defence ministership ( Kompas, 2019 ). The ability to deliver this promise will surely maintain Prabowo's strongman image and help his chances of being top presidential candidate in the 2024 General Election.

Conclusion

Current studies on the quasi-civilian defence minister mainly focused on the logics behind the appointment. Those studies noted that the appointment of quasi-civilian defence minister has the possibility to undermine the balance of civil–military relations, not to mention eroding civilian control. The massive influx of military officers – either retired or active – into the Ministry of Defence structure could affect democratic practices in defence policymaking due to their divided loyalty. Our study aims to complement the existing literature by scrutinising the impacts of the quasi-civilian defence minister appointment. Furthermore, the case study of the Indonesian defence ministry under President Joko Widodo offers a different perspective regarding the appointment of quasi-civilian defence ministers.

The institutional arrangement of Indonesia's defence policymaking produced a mixed result in terms of the civil–military relations balance. A number of post-reform-era laws pertaining to the TNI did not radically overhaul the military's political power. Instead of doing so, the Indonesian military managed to maintain its autonomy as the existing regulations preserve the dual structure of the Ministry of Defence and TNI. However, the current regulations setting has indeed strengthened civilian authority over the military compared to during the authoritarian New Order period.

Meanwhile, the composition of the leadership at the Ministry of Defence during Joko Widodo’s presidency demonstrated an increase in the number of officials with a military background in comparison with their civilian defence minister predecessors. This case was apparent under both Ryamizard Ryacudu’s and Prabowo Subianto’s leadership as they brought some of their former military subordinates into the Ministry of Defence. Here we can see that these quasi-civilian defence ministers attempted to fill various strategic positions with their military cliques in order to give them leverage. This finding also suggests that anxiety and distrust of civilian leaders remain ingrained within the Indonesian defence establishment.

This article's observation on Ryamizard's Bela Negara and Prabowo's defence diplomacy activities offered an interesting finding. The case of Ryamizard's Bela Negara showcased the minister's intention of increasing the stature of the military through massive promotion of the militarisation programme. Nonetheless, such promotion heavily depended on the Ryamizard figure. His absence from the ministry had demoted the archaic status of the programme. Prabowo's tenure meanwhile showcased a different story. His defence diplomacy activities focused on defence cooperation and defence industry development which aimed to support Minimum Essential Force fulfilment. Prabowo focused his venture on the narrow interpretation of defence, notably his defence diplomacy activity, compared to Ryamizard. Nonetheless, Prabowo's defence diplomacy might have been related to his personal interests, notably his presidential hopeful bid, as the activity largely draws media spotlight.

Our analysis on the defence ministry's institutional arrangement, leadership composition and leadership activities displayed mixed results regarding the civil–military relations balance. Nonetheless, our findings hardly show any specific sign of deterioration of civilian authority over the ministry. The introduction of new laws pertaining to the TNI in the post-reform era has increased civilian authority vis-a-vis the armed forces, though the military still maintains its autonomy. Despite this seemingly positive circumstance, Indonesia's civil–military relations balance in reality depends heavily on the civilian side's commitment at large and their understanding of the existing legal framework.

The problem is that the elected leaders in a post-authoritarian country are prone to make concessions with the military in order to sustain the democratic transition and to de-escalate conflict between elites, or even to secure their own position under the new unstable political circumstances. In the presence of explicit regulation prohibiting the appointment of active-duty military officers in the civilian ministry, as in the case of our study country Indonesia, the elected president apparently remains in the position to accommodate the military via the appointment of former military personnel – retired high-ranking TNI officers – in the cabinet.

The military elites also usually employ different political and policy instruments to deter reform agendas targeting the armed forces’ privileges under the authoritarian regime, e.g. access to state resources, organisational autonomy and an immense defence budget. In this regard, there is a need to specify the manifestation of ‘civilian control’ – regardless of its degree of success and failure – as performed by the defence minister as the civilian agency that is largely, or in some cases exclusively, dealing with the military institution and being tasked to manage defence affairs.

It is no accident that Joko Widodo's presidential chief of staff (Moeldoko, in office 2018–present), coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment (Luhut B Pandjaitan, in office 2016–present), religious affairs minister (Fachrul Razi, in office 2019–2020) and health minister (Terawan Agus Putranto, in office 2019–2020) are former military men (Haripin, 2021). Also, all of this development is happening in conjunction with the growing active troop involvement in military operations other than war, such as counter-terrorism (Haripin et al., 2020).

Lastly, we hope the findings of this article can help other researchers to further study the role of defence ministers in civil–military relations. First, many democracies have witnessed the transformation of retired military officers into prominent politicians, as in the case of Prabowo Subianto who is the patron of the Gerindra Party. Thus, this gives us a question over the influence of political motives into the scheme. The situation also can affect the political patronage system that those quasi-civilian defence ministers might build. Second, this study's findings also remind us about the importance of establishing a strong pool of civilian defence expertise in new democracies. A high quantity of military officers within the Ministry of Defence could jeopardise the defence policy making process, as the military perspective may disproportionately monopolise the defence policy. Therefore, future research endeavours should be directed towards charting a systematic agenda to identify key civilian actors, relevant educational institutions and civil society organisations and networks of concerned citizens. This area of inquiry has not yet been explored sufficiently, including in Indonesia.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article

ORCID iD

Muhamad Haripin

Notes

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