The work expresses the financial turmoil that struck Indonesia in 1997, which dislodged Soeharto from his position of near absolute power, ushering in an era of democracy in the country. Commenting on Indonesia's democratic reform, which still has a long way to go, the intention of this book is not call into question the objective of creating a genuinely democratic system of government in Indonesia. Rather, the purpose is to look more deeply into what is required if those efforts are to be successful and sustainable, drawing to some extent on comparison with other countries in the region and elsewhere.

"Soeharto's fall and the great optimism about what democratic governance would bring for Indonesia" persuaded the present work to concretize through papers presented at the annual Indonesia update conference on September 2006 at the Australian National University, Canberra. In the present volume, the ten contributors (regional as well as international) seek to take stock of both Indonesia's progress in establishing and refining a democratic framework of governance, and the extent to which this is yielding satisfactory outcomes. Two distinctive contributions projected are to help establish realistic expectations or bases for comparison, and to highlight areas where governance arrangements are not working well or where there may be scope for further refinement.

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