Mainstreaming Modernisation Risk Politics under Indonesia’s Democratisation: Towards Public Control over of Welfare and Risk in Expanding Water Access

Abstract

This paper attempts to understand modernisation risk politics under Indonesias’ democratisation in post-reform era. It endeavors to identify the politics of knowledge between civil society, academics, private companies, and government in defining and minimising modernisation risks, or in managing manufactured-uncertainties, under democratic regime. This paper argues that highlighting welfare issues in Indonesias’ democratisation is insufficient as welfare distributions, characterised by Indonesias’ effort to conduct modernisation specifically in development sector, are at the same time producing a high amount of manufactured-risk which is lack in number of analysis. The fundamental differences between welfare and risks results in distinctive characteristics of democratisation that the actors have to face. Informed by the notion of risk society by Ulrich Beck (1992) and transformative approach to democratisation (Harris et.al., 2004; Tornquist et.al., 2009), risk politics are best understood and conducted under the lens of transformative democratic politics—an approach that equally recognise the importance of democratic institutions as well as actors’ will and capacity to posit themselves in the structure and to make use of demoratic institution in creating a more prosperous life. This paper uses qualitative method to assess the construction of New Yogyakarta International Airport (2011-2017) in Kulon Progo as a case study.