| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立暨南國際大學 === 東南亞研究所 === 90 === Suharto is an authoritarian ruler, and the New Order Regime he set up had last for 31 years, the longest one since Indonesia got independence. Suharto was authorized as the acting president in 1967, it was that time his regime was gradually built. During his tenure, he underwent six president campaigns and got overwhelming support from the representatives of the People’s Consultative Assembly, the most superior legislative unit in Indonesia. Such support legitimates Suharto’s authoritarian governing and acts as one reason for Suharto’s holding authority for more than 30 years! However, Suharto made a resignation speech on May 21, two months later from his reappointing by the same assembly in 1998. This speech caused profound effects to Indonesian politics and, of course, caught scholars’ attention. One explanation is on the basis of the effect of economic breakdown, resulting from the regional financial crisis in 1997. The other one just focuses on the role played by the elites, especially military and religious, during the last few days before Suharto made up his mind. Foreign intervention is as well the one cause some scholars try to figure out.
Differing from the viewpoints listed above, this dissertation just tries to make use of the Theory of Political Opportunity Structure to provide a theoretically explanatory perspective.
The Theory of Political Opportunity Structure contains four dimensions and they are The Opening up of Political Access, Unstable Alignments, Divided Elites and Influential Allies respectively. The four consistent dimensions are the basis of regime building. According to the point of the theory, as on dimension changes, the regime is more vulnerable than the one that keeps all the four dimension still. In other words, as the four dimensions change, the regime is undergoing the most dangerous situation, that will make regime more vulnerable and influence the lasting of ruler’s governing. The main argument of this thesis is that Suharto’s New Order regime was undergoing the most dangerous situation in 1998. And that’s why the regime transference occurred then.
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