Date of Award

Spring 5-21-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

Department

International Affairs

First Advisor

Feryaz Ocakli

Second Advisor

Victoria Leigh Brown

Abstract

How does mass violence affect perceptions of citizenship? What are the impacts of mass violence and state-led repression on post-colonial political economies? This thesis focuses on the impact of mass violence on the perceptions of citizenship and the political economy of Indonesia. After the Indonesian 1965-1966 mass murders and subsequent state-led repression under General Suharto, perceptions of political and civic identity and political participation were fundamentally changed– where Chinese Indonesians, despite their economic power, are politically disenfranchised and PKI/PKI affiliated pribumi (native) Indonesians are neither politically nor economically empowered.

Capitalist expansion also serves as a critical motive for mass atrocity in Indonesia in the mid to late 60s. This thesis seeks to discuss and analyze the role of foreign intervention during this transition. Political gaslighting by the ‘West’–namely the United States and the United Kingdom– changed the scope of the mass atrocity, and that capitalist ambition and economic interests have a major role in the coup. State-led repression also reshaped the way Indonesia, as a nation, perceived itself on the world stage which led the nation to pursue an imperialist agenda, imitating political and economic behaviors of the ‘West’. State violence, political repression, and capitalist ambition are intimately related in post-colonial Indonesia, working in tandem to recreate systems of oppression and trauma in contemporary political and economic policy.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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