POLITICS
The Politics section contains a detailed overview of Indonesia's political history stretching from the pre-colonial period when Indonesia can be labelled a fragmented patchwork of indigenous states, to the colonial period when the archipelago gradually transformed into a political unity, the independent Soekarno government in which politics dominated while economic policy took a backseat, the prolonged rule of Suharto's New Order which was characterized by a strong central government but weak civil society, and lastly the current era of Reformation.