Indonesian Sociology

The twentieth century was the century of the state. While liberalism gained traction later in the century, such that Francis Fukuyama declared its triumph as the end of history,1 during the mid twentieth century, state-led development and the welfare state were the reigning paradigms that transcended the borders of
communism and capitalism. In a speech in Italy in 1954, the American sociologist Edward Shils declared that ideology had ended.2 The division now was between individual liberalism and the state, with the latter winning. The victory of state-led development came alongside the expansion of the state itself and its bureaucracy. This expansion, during the first half of the twentieth century, was the result
of several factors: The increasing politicization of the middle and working classes and the advent of the Great Depression drove the creation of the welfare state as a way to quell popular political unrest.3 Plus, the Second World War culminated in the emergence of Total War, in which society and economy were ‘retooled’ under
state management in order to direct the resources needed to win the war.4 After the end of the war, the institutions and relationships that were created between
the state and the industrial sector continued, necessitating the preservation of the
position of the state and private managers. The rise of white-collar office workers, the result of an expanding bureaucracy in both the state and the private sector, was as much due to a need to generate new positions of employment for the
expanding university-educated population as it was a way to ensure that these individuals did not become radicalized by ideas of Marxist class struggle. Bureaucratic expansion was thus predicated on both external and internal threats and
the need to create an effective strategy to combat these threats.