`Don't Worry, Clinton Is Megawati's Brother'

Abstract

This study explores the political significance of rumours — as public resistance to a repressive authoritarian communication structure — in the changing structure of the global economy, which is characterized by a high degree of capital mobility and an increasing separation of the entire financial sector from underlying, real economic activity. This study proposes that rumours — within a specific time period — may gain political significance in contributing to the delegitimization of a ruling regime. In Indonesia's case, rumours played a part at a specific historical juncture of the development of global capitalism — into which Indonesia became integrated in the 1970s — where human agencies' perceptions, fear, greed and sudden changes of heart are fundamental for capital mobility and the ruling regime's structural stability or change.