2 - Political Mobilization in Autonomous Region: Papuans' Mobilization under Joko Widodo's Administration

How does politically-driven mobilization operate under an autonomous regime prone to violent conflict? A large body of scholarship exhibits autonomy grants privileges to territorially concentrated people to manage their affairs. In this regard, autonomy constrains people mobilization by giving financial and social incentives to improve their conditions and prevent them from challenging the national government. However, the mobilizational levels increase when such incentives are partial to resolving deep-seated grievances born out of long authoritarian periods. Using the case of Indonesia’s Papua under Joko Widodo’s administration, this paper argues that a special autonomy (Otsus) strengthens a Papuan identity that emerged from racial discrimination by the state, combined with Indigenous Papuans’ past and contemporary grievances, and subject to political mobilization in the forms violent and non-violent methods. Despite a constrained situation, indigenous Papuans have organized and mobilized themselves through effective mobilizing structures based on organizational and social relationships. Under Widodo’s administration, there has been an increased number of demonstrations and armed conflicts by the indigenous Papuans to respond to the state’s abuses in Papua. The increased level of indigenous mobilization displays a constant resistance to the state’s authority and its political arrangement of Otsus, which has so far resulted in a more contentious environment in Indonesia’s autonomous region of Papua.