Civil Society Elites: Field Studies from Cambodia and Indonesia - Transcript

Intro [00:00:02]

This is the Nordic Asia podcast.

Fanny Töpper [00:00:09]

Welcome to the Nordic Azure Podcast, a collaboration sharing expertise on Azure across the Nordic region. My name is Fanny Topa. I'm the publishing assistant and project coordinator at Means Press. And today I have the pleasure to welcome Astrid Norén Nielsen Amalinda Savirani and Anders Uhlin, editors of our recently published edited volume, Civil Society Elites Field Studies from Cambodia and Indonesia. Astrid Norén Nielsen is a senior lecturer at the Center of East and Southeast Asian Studies at Lund University in Sweden. Her research focuses on the politics of contemporary Cambodia. Amalinda Savirani is an associate professor at the Department of Politics and Government, Universitas Gadjah Mada in Indonesia. She has published many books and academic articles on civil society movements in Indonesia. And Anders Uhlin is Professor of Political Science at Lund University. He has published widely on civil society activism, particularly in Southeast Asia. Welcome, Astrid and Melinda, and welcome Anders. It is good to have you here with us today.

Astrid Norén Nielsen [00:01:16]

Thanks very much. It's great to be here.

Amalinda Savirani [00:01:18]

Thank you.

Fanny Töpper [00:01:19]

Let us start with the beginning of it all. How did the book project come about?

Anders Uhlin [00:01:25]

Well, I think that all of us had for quite a long time engaged in research about, on the one hand, civil society and on the other hand, political and economic elites in Southeast Asia. But we started to find the civil society elite dichotomy increasingly problematic. Viewing civil society actors, as always opposed to the elite, simply did not seem to fit with the reality. Moreover, the simplistic distinction between civil society and elites overlooked the influence and impact of some civil society leaders in wider society. I had discussions with colleagues at Cajamarca University in Indonesia about a joint project application and at the same time I was part of a group of scholars working on an application about civil society elites in Europe. Meanwhile, Astrid and I began to discuss common research interests and agreed that it would be nice to do something comparative on Cambodia and Indonesia. So all these discussions resulted in a project application that was funded by the Swedish Research Council, and the book is an outcome of this project.

Fanny Töpper [00:02:38]

All right. Thank you. Now that you have all been engaging in this field for many years, you are experts in it. What is special about this edited volume that you just created? How would you describe the addition of the book to the field?

Astrid Norén Nielsen [00:02:53]

Well, the main contribution of the book is already given away, I guess, by the possibly provocative title, Civil Society Elites. So it's about a contradiction in terms and intuitively, it probably seems to be to most people. So what we do in this book is really to bring together what have been two very separate strands of research, civil society research and elite research. So we pride ourselves then to have come up with things for the first systematic study of elites within and then sometimes extending beyond civil society. And I already would like to add here that by elites we designate individuals who are influential within a field. So the term as we employ employed, it's not normatively laden, it does not have sort of negative connotations. So why is this that important? What does it add to our understanding of the architecture of different polities? There have been a lot of research on power relations between states and civil societies around the world, But what we see is that many forms of power relations within civil society have gone under the radar, so to speak. So what we seek to show is that for a sharper understanding of the social and political role of civil society, we need to understand how and why certain people manage to advance to these dominant positions within civil society, how they then may gain influence beyond civil society and interact with members of elites in other spheres, including the state, political, economic society and how and why they then sometimes even move on to themselves, take up leading positions within these other spheres. So it's a new and fresh look not only on power dynamics within civil society, but by consequence, also on relations between civil society, the state, political and economic society. And I think it also forces a sort of rethink of the different possibilities and limitations that pertain to each of these spheres. How can individuals navigate different fields of engagement to achieve the outcomes that they wish for? So sometimes it reads almost like a manual. I think it can probably be employed as such. I think at the core, the book lays bare the value of different forms of capital, such as political capital, social capital, economic capital. In different political systems and during different political moments, which is really rather revelatory. So we hope that this book will pioneer the study of civil society elites.

Fanny Töpper [00:05:21]

Thank you. We have the same hope that it will pioneer this field. You already started to talk a bit more about the terminology you chose and how the reader should understand civil society needs. For example, the term elites. Could you dive a bit deeper into how you develop the concept civil society elites and what you exactly mean by this specific terminology?

Anders Uhlin [00:05:47]

Yes, I can elaborate a bit more on that. So there are two parts of this civil society and elite which we combine a general understanding of. Civil society is a social space between the state, the market and the family. And this social space is inhabited by voluntary non profit non-governmental organizations, but also networks and movements. So this is the kind of general understanding of civil society that is our point of departure. Then we understand elites to consist of those who hold dominant positions within social relations or fields, to use bodies as concepts as we do in the book. A civil society elite is a group of people holding dominant positions within civil society and often exercising significant influence beyond civil society. To the civil society elite concept can be seen as counterintuitive or even contradictory. And this is because it focuses attention on the top of civil society rather than the grassroots and highlights power relations within civil society and the development of elite groups within as well as beyond this social sphere. Civil society elite actors have dominant positions and significant influence within a civil society sector or issue area within civil society as a whole or in society more broadly. To be a civil society elite after an individual must have an impact beyond his or her own organization. So elite status may be linked to formal leadership positions in an organization, but this is not always the case. Who belongs to the elite must be contextually determined based on an analysis of power relations in the field in question.

Fanny Töpper [00:07:52]

Thank you Anders for elaborating on this. The subtitle of your book, States Field Studies from Cambodia and Indonesia. And your research essentially builds up on these two countries. Can you share some insights on the status and the condition of the civil societies present in the countries? How do they differ?

Astrid Norén Nielsen [00:08:15]

But the rationale of this comparison is that we see that political space for civil society has gradually been expanding in Indonesia since reform and gradually shrinking in Cambodia over the same period, but particularly since around 2015 or so. And of course that's not the whole story, but it's a story painted with very sort of broad brush strokes. Some argue that Indonesia is undergoing a form of quantization. That's for Cambodia. If we start with Cambodian and let Linda elaborate on Indonesia. The book identifies three phases that Cambodian civil society has moved through. So first, we have the emergence of this donor driven civil society in the early 1990s, following the Paris Peace Accord and the subsequent opening of the country. Then the second phase from the early 2000 onwards, marked by the localization of civil society in tandem with increased state control thereof and also the rise of community based organizations. And then thirdly, civil society in the post 2013 increasingly authoritarian context. And so the book details how this current phase we're in is marked by the emergence of a range of networks that are closely affiliated with government. These networks, they differ radically from the traditional Western funded NGOs in just about every way there is in terms of their sources of funding the fields of operation as well as in terms of leadership. So we see that economic and political elites typically lead these networks. And meanwhile, the state has tightened its grip on the civic space. Independent civil society organizations are severely circumscribed. And so the resulting picture is quite mixed. We see on the one hand that influential civil society elite activists are able to secure outcomes locally sometimes, but it has been much more difficult for them to sort of take this one step further and really strengthen their civil society subfields at the national level. State sponsored civil society has become a new field of possibility and of power. As part of this, we have seen the integration of leading civil society activists into the state.

Amalinda Savirani [00:10:30]

I can add insight from Indonesia. I think the book is really important as a reflection for Indonesia. After 25 years of the reforms as funders and as we mentioned earlier, and this is the period of kind of mix in one way, there are a lot of achievement. The civil society organization has push and contribute to the quality of democracy, but at the same time, there's also another setback that may explore the achievement. And it has something to do with the civil society elites, as Anders and Astrid mentioned earlier, is not in a negative form, right? It's not in a negative sense that they're elites, because indeed for the Indonesian case in the early years of diplomacy, thanks to this organization and their elites who pushed the Democratic agenda into the policy that is and acted in a national level. So it's a very good achievement. And again, that's really related contribution of the elites in this matter, which is relevant to our discussion in this book. And then later on, many of the civil society activities become a minister, become a politician, or at least become an expert to whom the national government or local government consult. So they are really part of the from outside being an opposition struggle inside. This is the period where in Indonesia at least people to get into the government and become part of the policy makers. We need to emphasize their contribution is substantial, but at the same time, there are also now another setback that they lose their critical field and then they also not just because of their critical field, other activists reflect on this. At the same time, there are a lot of macro policy setting regulation that tend to harm the freedom of expression. And that's how over the past ten years, Indonesian democratic space is argued to be shrinking slowly. But of course this is mostly due to the stronger state control from the point of view of civil society organisations and civil society activists. This is also a question how come we have so many of us there but still continuing of the democratic space? To return to our book, we want to reflect this term on the elites. We acknowledge that it's not just about being in a negative sense, but also there's no value laden there, but at the same time cannot be avoided that we bring the discussion on how this equals that the elites in the government, whether they contribute or at the same time contribute to the strengthening of democracy or weakening of democracy. So that's the status and situation in Indonesia.

Fanny Töpper [00:13:11]

So I wonder what steps do you take to bring the book, but also really the broader discussion on civil society closer to the audience now that it has been published?

Amalinda Savirani [00:13:24]

We have conducted the series of launching of the book both in Cambodia and Indonesia before. In particular, we have held twice one in Indonesia, in Jakarta and another one in India. Following up the book, the PDF and the because it's open access, right? I got a, you know, my friend in Facebook poke me to have more discussion about this because this is very much what they have thought about what they have reflect about on how they can contribute or not contribute to the sustainability of the civil society agenda. I was quite surprised, though, because I didn't realize that it's really been part of the discussion reflection among at least friends that I know as a civil society activist and really concerned about this dominant, so to speak, of elites in their own organization and how if you connect that to the issue of sustainability of the agenda of civil society, you just need to be reflective and discuss starting conversations. Maybe we have another discussion, but not yet sure to really engage our readers for Indonesian readership and Indonesian Civil Society Forum, for instance, early this month, also invited as a speakers and also bring this point of our book into the forum. Also very concerned about or the topic is on sustainability of civil society of in Indonesia. And one of the points that we discussed at that time was the issue of generations. So in terms of generations, how these younger activists, you know, can take the leadership of the organizations and how the older generation, the so to speak elites can handle the topic to the younger generations. So because the most important thing at the end of the day is how this gender on civil society organization in Indonesia can sustain in the long run and long term. And that's our book. It's very, very much relevant to the discussion.

Fanny Töpper [00:15:21]

Thank you. What was your experience as editors of this project, which evolved in collaboration with a lot of early career scholars? Is there anything that surprised you in the process or along the way?

Astrid Norén Nielsen [00:15:36]

But one of the most exciting things about this project, I think, was that it was truly collaborative. So from the outset, there were these three legs to the enterprise that you've heard about. There was one set of people in Indonesia, one set of people in Cambodia, and then understand myself in London. And so among us there were early career as well as more senior scholars. We started out with a number of theoretical propositions on civil society leads that we had already put into the project proposal that from the very first workshop in Yogyakarta that Linda just mentioned, it was clear that pretty much everyone involved was thinking deep and hard about these questions, how to freeze them, how to investigate them. Really everything was subject to discussion. And we then embarked on our field studies. I would stress that field studies and the title of the book is Not There for Nothing. Of course, an allusion to that is also the fact that the heart of the book are these deep empirical studies and so for myself, to give you an example, not only as a writer, but also as a co-author, one of the empirical chapters that I worked on looked at leadership in Cambodian forest conservation networks, and I co researched and co-wrote this with Kim Hyun, who at the time had recently finished a master's in development studies at Copenhagen University and was then working in the private sector. And he's now a PhD student at the Center for Eastern Southeast Asian Studies in London. Our work, we went on to do some very intense and actually theoretically charged field work on leadership in these two high profile forest conservation movements. The Hmong community forest in northwestern Cambodia on the border with Thailand, and also the prolonged community forestry network in north central Cambodia. And so the Hmong Community Forestry really presented a puzzle, whereas just about all other conservation networks in Cambodia have failed. This one was a success story and that was quite different from the other case study, the prolonged community forestry network, which has been impactful, but it's had a sort of more difficult and uneven journey, let's say. So Kim here and I, we pieced together how the long time leader of the Hmong community forest had mobilized, what we conceptualized as religious capital and then successfully converted it to other forms of capital and thereby became very influential in forestry conservation beyond civil society and the leaders. They also successfully mobilized different forms of capital, but they rather became elite activists within civil society. So this really detailed on the ground studies did not only explain the rise to power of the leaders of the two movements, but it also helped explain the different paths that these that their respective movements have taken. So then when we all came back from a different fieldwork experiences to discuss our findings and kick off the actual writing of the book, everyone had insights that contributed to informing the chapters, framing the study. And then I realized that beyond gathering data and so on, we had really established a real research milieu. And this is, I guess what surprised me sort of enormous potential in co writing, co editing or researching as I'm otherwise a bit of a lone wolf, let's say, in my academic quest.

Amalinda Savirani [00:19:01]

Yeah, I can add more on that from the Indonesian experience. I think half of our chapter in the book involve early career scholars or researcher that we've been working with collaboratively. And that's really, I think, What about this book, right? This is we maybe some of you or the reader, Indonesia have no idea which this, but they are really, really good and they are really, really potential. And the way we collaborate, not just among the researcher, but also in one chapter that I wrote with Astrid, for instance, about youth activism. And that's how we also come out with Encounter, these supposedly activists who are very young and full of spirit. And that's really good for kind of picture from the Indonesian and Cambodia, younger generation on the activists and what we call as reproduction, because it's really like what sort of situation that enabling them to come about. That's really very strong on in this book that emphasizing and collaboration between us senior and the younger academics and early explorers and always a surprising element that we haven't thought about because think they think differently in a good way, very creative and very unique. And that's how I think the collaboration among us meets. And then we strengthen each other, collaborate in a creative way.

Fanny Töpper [00:20:16]

Thank you. I also think that this collaborative approach to your work really opens up for many interested readers from different backgrounds and groups. And I wonder who would you recommend the book to?

Anders Uhlin [00:20:31]

And well, first of all, we believe that scholars and students with a general interest in politics and society in Southeast Asia and especially Cambodia and Indonesia, of course, will find this interesting, both in terms of our fieldwork base case studies and what we believe to be quite innovative, analytical perspectives. But we also think that researchers studying civil society more generally in other geographic contexts and so on, we'll find this interesting from the perspective of trying to establish a research agenda on civil society elites. Then we also think that the policymakers and the donors, and not least civil society activists themselves, will find the book interesting. We know from discussions with civil society people that we've had that our analysis resonates with discussions and debates going on within civil society. We think that there will be an interest among civil society practitioners as well.

Fanny Töpper [00:21:39]

We are unfortunately coming to the end of this conversation, but I do not want to end before hearing what upcoming projects you are all having in the pipeline and where we can follow your research in the future.

Astrid Norén Nielsen [00:21:53]

Well, as for me, ever since the shift to a deeper form of authoritarianism in Cambodia over 2017 and 18, my research agenda revolves around mapping and analyzing this shift. I don't think the magnitude and the significance of it has been properly understood, properly recognized. So the research project that emanated in this book that we're discussing today, it fits very well into this agenda. It was conceived just at the time when the political opposition was dissolved in 2017, following which any sort of real political contestation shifted from the sphere of electoral politics to that of civil society, even though that did not last so long. So this project was timely for me, looking at this different novel crystallisation of civil society, not the typical NGOs of earlier years, but grassroots networks, discussion platforms, state sponsored, most organizations. ET cetera. And the people that were spearheading those initiatives, it was a perfect vantage point for capturing these shifts in Cambodia's political order. And so over this time, alongside this project, I worked on different aspects of Cambodia's shift. And what I am working on currently is to assemble such emerging evidence, let's say, of the Cambodian People's Party's ongoing remodelling of different spheres of social and political life, and put this into a monograph which hopefully will offer a reasonably, theoretically coherent and comprehensive account of the shift. So how has the CPP navigated the shift from competitive to hegemonic rule? What is involved in the shift and what sort of political future does the CPP envisage for Cambodia?

Anders Uhlin [00:23:37]

Okay. What I'm working on currently is civil society elites in Europe. So I mentioned before that I'm involved in a large research program which we are concluding now. So there are plenty of publications coming out of that comparing civil society, elite composition and reproduction and also integration of leads in for European countries and on the EU level. So that's my immediate research interests.

Amalinda Savirani [00:24:08]

Yes. After the access was released. I got so many questions, comments from friends, and from there I noticed that there are things that we can elaborate more for the Indonesian case, and it's quite specific on the issues that we have uncovered. For instance, whether the civil society is often gendered. But that's also another interesting topic that can elaborate more or we can elaborate more for the Indonesian case. I can also see that there are some ways that we explore more and then we'll be interesting to sanction what we have laid the foundation in the book. I mean, the book also raised many questions, which is good for future research, especially in relation in terms of gender, in terms of location or skill. Local, national as Indonesia is quite complex. Looking forward for collaboration perhaps with other Indonesian colleagues and who knows, we can also compare to Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries in the future.

Fanny Töpper [00:25:04]

Thank you to all of you. Thank you for joining the Nordic Asia podcast showcasing Nordic collaboration in studying Asia. I'm Fanny Töpper, and today I have been talking to Astrid Norén Nielsen, Amalinda Savirani and Anders Uhlin, editors of the recent NIAS press volume Civil Society Elites: Field Studies from Cambodia and Indonesia. Thank you for joining me.

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