In a country as ethnically diverse as Indonesia–from Melanesian tribe members of Irian Jaya to Jakarta’s Chinese Indonesian millionaires–and with its population differentially incorporated into the modern political economy, it was difficult to identify a political culture shared in common by all Indonesians.
Nevertheless, there were major cultural forces at work in Indonesia that did affect the political judgments of large groups of Indonesians.

Traditional Political Culture

In the late twentieth century, there were as many traditional political cultures in Indonesia as there were ethnic groups. Nevertheless, the similarity to the Javanese kingship model of Suharto’s increasingly paternalistic rule reflects the Javanese cultural underpinnings of the New Order.