Power, Politics, and Anti-Corruption Reform in Indonesia: A Historical Analysis of Regime Formation
- Authors
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Nurhayati Nurhayati
Universitas Islam Negeri Maulana Malik Ibrahim, Indonesia
Author
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Rahman Rahman
Universitas Brawijaya, Malang, Indonesia
Author
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Yasmin Zahra
Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
Author
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Youssef Ali
University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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- Abstract
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Corruption in Indonesia is not merely a matter of law enforcement; it is also deeply embedded in the configuration of political power that shapes the direction, character, and effectiveness of the country’s anti-corruption regime. This study historically examines the relationship between shifts in political power and the formation of Indonesia’s anti-corruption regime from the Old Order and New Order periods to the Reform era. It employs a qualitative approach with a historical research design, combined with a legal-political perspective. The findings demonstrate that Indonesia’s anti-corruption regime has evolved not simply as a normative response to corruption, but as the product of sustained interaction among law, elite interests, the distribution of political power, and changing sources of political legitimacy. In certain periods, anti-corruption policies and institutions have operated primarily as instruments of law enforcement; in others, however, they have also exhibited tendencies to function as mechanisms of political legitimation, control, and power consolidation. These findings underscore the need to reconstruct the anti-corruption regime through stronger functional independence, more robust checks and balances, multipolar oversight, and an integrity-governance approach capable of insulating anti-corruption institutions from political domination without undermining democratic accountability. This study contributes to the development of historical institutionalism, political settlement, and rule-of-law scholarship by conceptualising the anti-corruption regime as an institutional arena in which law and political power have historically constituted, constrained, and reshaped one another.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Nurhayati Nurhayati, Rahman Rahman, Yasmin Zahra, Youssef Ali (Author)

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