Nankyung Choi is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of Asian and International Studies of the City University of Hong Kong.
Choi has provided us with a detailed and accurate description of how Indonesia's local politics works in the era of democratisation. By providing a body of original empirical data, this book has certainly made a contribution to the growing literature on local politics in post-Suharto Indonesia. This study is not only valuable for Indonesianists who are engaging in the ongoing discussion on the nature of Indonesia's new democracy, but also for comparativists who are interested in broader theoretical issues of democratisation. The experience of Indonesia, as Choi, together with other scholars, highlights, demonstrates the daunting difficulty of installing liberal democratic values in the continued presence of patrimonialism, which constitutes one of the classic challenges of democratic transition. - Yuki Fukuoka; Local Politics in Indonesia: Pathways to Power, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 43:1, 186-188 (2013).