FROM DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE TO DEMOCRACY ASSISTANCE:UNDERSTANDING JAPAN’S AID POLICY FOR PROMOTING DEMOCRACY

Tulisan ini akan menganalisa kebijakan bantuan Jepang dalam mempromosikan demokrasi yang mencuat ke tatanan global setelah berakhirnya Perang Dingin. Hal ini penting dan menarik dikaji mengingat bantuan Jepang selama ini dipahami sangat berorientasi pada kepentingan ekonomi Ada tiga pertanyaan utama dalam tulisan ini yaitu, satu, bagaimana Jepang merespon perkembangan internasional yang mengaitkan antara bantuan luar negeri dan promosi demokrasi? Kedua, bagaimana Jepang menformulasikan kebijakan/pendekatannya dalam mengimplementasikan bantuan demokrasinya dan faktor- faktor apa saja yang mempengaruh pendekatan tersebut. Terakhir, dengan menganalisa kasus Indonesia, bagaimana tren bantuan Jepang dalam membantu demokratisasi di Indonesia. Tulisan ini menemukan bahwa Jepang tidak mempunyai pilihan terkecuali mengikuti perkembangan internasional, akan tetapi merumuskan program bantuan demokrasinya secara hati-hati. Bantuan demokrasi Jepang sangat dipengaruhi oleh pendekatan pembangunan dan menfokuskan program-programnya di level pemerintah Kepercayaan bahwa stabilitas ekonomi yang utama perlu dibangun, serta pertimbangan ekonomi dan politik, mempengaruhi rumusan kebijakan dan pendekatan bantuan demokrasi ala Jepang.


Introduction
Since 1990s, the United States has raised the "enlargement of the democratic community" as a key element of U.S foreign policy. As consequences, almost all donor countries and organizations have focused on democracy and human rights as prerequisites of assistance and stressing conditionality on political and administrative reform in the recipient countries. Democracy, human rights and good governance became objectives of aid conditionality of donor countries and democracy assistance became a substantial element of 38 GLOBAL Vol. 13 No. 1 Mei 2011 development cooperation (Ottaway and Carothers, 2000:5) and a tool of international community's role playing in democratization process in a country.
Previously, World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) was introduced other forms of conditionality which called Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) with market liberalization as the primary objective. The main distinction between two is that SAPs aimed in reforming recipient countries's economic policy, while the aid conditionality in 1990s aimed at political reform involving both systemic and substantive aspects (Stokke, 1995:1).
SAPs were initially implemented by Structural Adjustment Lending (SAL) program of World Bank in 1979. The emergence of SAL has caused by the rapid deterioration of economic conditions in the developing countries during the late of 1970s and early 1980s.
Japan, since 1986, has helped the World Bank SAPs programs by starting structural adjustment loans (SALs) to many countries, and has become the World Bank's largest partner in this area. In contrast, Japan appeared not willing to operate political aid conditionality for Japanese assistance as other donor countries do. As Japanese Foreign Ministry explained "Japan has a principle refrained from attaching political conditions to its aid." (Akaha, 2002:89). However, under international pressure, Japan announced Official Development Assistance (ODA) Charter 1992 by introducing "Four Guidelines of ODA" which clearly emphasizes democratization as one of main pillars of Japan's aid policy (Japan ODA Annual Report, 1993) and supported the Partnership for Democratic Development (PPD) Initiative at the Lyon Summit in June 1996. PPD is an initiative that explicitly designed to support democratization efforts in the developing world. After that, Japan started to support some activities to promote democracy such as system building in the legal system in Vietnam, electoral support, and women in a development program (JICA). In case of Indonesia, Japan, after Soeharto stepped down, has started to distribute their aid for election and other activities to support democratization in Indonesia, an area which was obviously a political and for long time having been avoided by Japan. Since Japan has a principle to avoid political interfere, these trends are interesting to be explored.
Considering these facts, this paper will investigate the implementation of the Japan's democracy aid by addressing three questions. First, how Japan has responded the international trends on the issue of aid and democracy promotion? Second, how Japan's democracy aid approach has been formulated and what are the factors has affected it. Third, using the Indonesia's case, how Japan's democracy aid has been distributed to Indonesia and how does the trends of Japan's aid to support democratization in Indonesia? GLOBAL Vol. 13 No. 1 Mei 2011 39 This paper will be divided into three sections. Section one will explore the framework of Japanese democracy aid policy which initially by explaining some definition of democracy assistances. Section two will investigate the implementation of Japan's democracy aid to Indonesia. Final part contains conclusions which reached in this study.

Definitions
The concept of democracy assistance has been understood in various ways. Some scholars generalize democracy assistance as foreign aid or part, and others put democracy assistance as a specific concept arguing that there are different strategies and approaches in the implementation of democracy assistance and others foreign aid. Foreign aid is defined as transfer capital, commodities and expert from developed countries to developing and late developing countries which can be distributed through bilateral and multilateral organizations.
The phase of foreign aid can be divided into two period: first, during the Cold War (1950s-1990) and second, after the end of Cold war.
In the first period, the conflict between the US and Soviet has colored the motives of foreign aid at that time. Political and national security could be seen as the main motives of donor countries in the early of this era. Then, after the end of Cold war that the US has become a hegemonic power, democratization, human rights and environmental consideration became important issues for distributing donor's aid.
Actually, using foreign aid for political development goals has been avoided by donor for many years because it would be seen as a part of intervention. However, since 1990s, this goal explicitly formulated with argument that "a democratic form of government and good governance promote economic development, and that respect for human rights is an integrated part of poverty orientation." (Degnbol et.all, 2003:30 Related to the relations between aid and democracy, Knack (2004) found that "no evidence is found that aid promotes democracy." Furthermore, he argues that improving education and increasing per capita incomes are more conducive to democratization rather than through technical assistance (for election, strengthening legislature and judiciaries, etc.) and aid conditionality.
Although some scholars found the negative or insignificant relations between aid and democracy, in fact democracy assistances are still distributed by donors with various strategies and approaches. Burnell (2000:5) in his work emphasized three conditions which should be considered before democracy assistance is defined. "First, democratic advance must be a primary objective of democracy assistance. Second, the methods of democracy assistance must be peaceful. Third, democracy assistance is negotiated on a not-for-profit basis (a commercial market transaction). Consequently, democracy assistance should be funded on a grant basis." In addition, Schoofs and Zeeuw (2007) stressed that there are two main 'entry points' for external actors to promote democracy: one is to focus on the state; the other is to focus on civil society. When the international community is serious in helping countries to become more democratic, both entry points should be used.2 There are various definitions on democracy assistance. Carothers and Ottaway (2000:5-6), define democracy assistance is "aid programs specifically designed either to help non democratic countries become democratic or to help countries that have initiated democratic transition consolidate their democratic system." In parallel, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has defined democracy assistance as the support (as funds or technical assistance) for efforts which have the intention of bringing democratic structure to the developing world (JICA Study Report, 2003).
As a result, this study defines democracy assistance as an aid program provided by international community through bilateral or multilateral organizations, to assist non democratic countries become democratic countries (and to strengthen it), by using peaceful GLOBAL Vol. 13 No. 1 Mei2011 41 This paper will be divided into three sections. Section one will explore the framework of Japanese democracy aid policy which initially by explaining some definition of democracy assistances. Section two will investigate the implementation of Japan's democracy aid to Indonesia. Final part contains conclusions which reached in this study.

Definitions
The concept of democracy assistance has been understood in various ways. Some scholars generalize democracy assistance as foreign aid or part, and others put democracy assistance as a specific concept arguing that there are different strategies and approaches in the implementation of democracy assistance and others foreign aid. Foreign aid is defined as transfer capital, commodities and expert from developed countries to developing and late developing countries which can be distributed through bilateral and multilateral organizations.
The phase of foreign aid can be divided into two period: first, during the Cold War (1950s- Believe in supporting democracy based on the conviction that basic feature of democratic governancetransparency, accountability, and responsiveness-contributes to more equitable socioeconomic development. Believe that the advance of democracy in a country contribute to social and economic development (the socio economic aspect is secondary) of Value democracy will This approach values democracy as contributing factor in the larger process of national development.
Looks beyond an exclusively political definition of democracy to broader conception that incorporates socioeconomic concerns economic and social rights as being no less important than political and civil rights. Democratization" divided the approaches of international democracy assistance into three categories as following: coercion, persuasion, and consensus (Sugiura, 2006: 25-27).
Coercion is the approach of donor countries in demanding political reform in recipient country through aid conditionality, sometimes by suspending aid, economic sanctions or diplomatic sanctions. Furthermore, donor countries sometimes implemented the military action and have also strongly supported the pro-democracy groups to support democratic movement in recipient country. In other hand, donor approach which is based on partnership with the government of recipient countries and focusing on the request from the government GLOBAL Vol. 13 No. 1 Mei2011 43 could be categorized as persuasion and consensus approaches. In these approaches, donors and host governments have to cooperate under economic development scheme which believed has indirectly affected the process of democratization. He argued that the Japanese approach to promote democracy is based on persuasion and consensus (Sugiura, 2006: 40).
Other scholars, Stephen J. Golub in his work "Democracy and Development", by using the US aid for democracy and governance as the case study, divides democracy aid into two types (Golub, 2000:136-137); democracy with Big D and democracy with small d (the D or d means democracy). The assistance which is directed at formal systems of governance such as elections, judiciaries, legislatures, political parties, and other core democratic institutions, could be categorized as democracy with a "Big D". In contrast, assistance which is distributed with a focus on democracy with a "small d" aims in part at socioeconomic progress for disadvantaged people, aspiring to have an impact on specific policies, practices, and populations. The disadvantaged people here are defined by Golub as citizen who participates little in governance and benefit little from development. He considered the importance of the role of civil society organizations whose primary focus is socioeconomic development to achieve both development and democratization. Therefore, he argues democracy aid should support "small d" over "Big D" initiatives. of democratic community enlargement (democracy promotion), but limit themselves to engage in democracy promotion activities. Second, the economic interest and the belief that prioritizing economic development was necessary to achieve democratic development have influenced the pattern of Japanese democracy aid policies. Third, the pattern of Japanese democracy assistance in Indonesia is focused on the Big D, and affected by the developmental approach. As the largest investor in Indonesia, Japan has been implemented this approach to keep and maintain a good relationship with Indonesian government which is directly or indirectly expected to secure Japan's interest in Indonesia.

The Framework of Japan's Development Aid for Promoting Democracy
In contrast to the US policies on "enlargement of the democratic community", Japan appeared unwilling to make political aid a condition for its assistance as other donor countries do. The Japanese Foreign Ministry explained, "Japan has a principle of refraining from attaching political conditions to its aid" (Akaha, 2002:98). However, after the end of Cold War, almost all of Development Assistance Countries (DAC) members have put democracy and good governance as a basis of legitimacy of rendering their assistance.
As a consequence, in 1991, Japanese government changed its aid policy by introducing "Four Guidelines of Official Development Assistance (ODA)." At this time, Japan announced the ODA Charter 1992, which clearly emphasizes democratization as one of main pillars of Japan's aid policy (Japan ODA Annual Report, 1993). The Japanese government also supported the Partnership for Democratic Development (PDD) Initiative at the Lyon Summit in June 1996. PDD is an initiative explicitly designed to support democratization efforts in the developing world. PDD assistance is intended to help recipient countries develop legal, administrative, electoral and police systems and institutions, as well as to build the human resources capacity necessary for democratization and human rights protection.4 Furthermore, since mid 1990s, the Japanese Government made a study group to formulate how Japan can contribute in promoting democracy. This group composed of researchers/academician from the university and element from Government such as the person from Ministry of foreign affairs and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). As result was the involvement of good governance and decentralization issues as a way to promote democracy which focused on the long-term approach (JICA Study Report: GLOBAL Vol. 13 No. 1 Mei 2011 45 1995, 155). Since that time, Japan started to support system building in the legal system in Vietnam, strengthening civil society by focusing on electoral support in Zambia, Cambodia and other countries, and human rights including women in development program.
Considering the widespread of democratization movement in the early 2000s, JICA organized a study group which expected to formulate the proposal for democracy assistance of Japanese ODA. The study group began their work by examining three main elements of democratization; democratic political system, institutions which make democracy work (governance), and an effective socioeconomic foundation for democracy. This group concluded that Japan can play a role by focusing their assistance on the governance and the socio economic foundation (JICA Study Report, 2003:12 and 24).
Meanwhile, the Japanese democracy aid has been continually debated by many scholars. As Juichi Inada (Inada, 2005:14) says, "Japan has tended to disconnect the three factors of development, democracy and security (condiet)-which are closely linked to one another in fact." Moreover he also argues Japan's ODA still clearly prioritizes development and the Japanese government justifies this policy by emphasizing the positive impact of development on the other two factors, security and democracy.
In addition, Kazuo Inoue, a former of House of Representatives Members, said that the limitations of Japanese approach to promote democracy could be explained by two reasons ( Jakarta Post, Oct. 19, 2004). 5 First is civil society and the non-governmental sector are not as strong in Japan as other countries such as the US. Second is the initiatives to organize a democracy assistance organization are not supported by the bureaucracy. Since the Japanese NGOs as a partner. Then, the government has formulated some schemes in the areas of social and welfare such as health, education, and environment to build cooperation with Japanese NGOs. In the other hand, although there was some a positive progress towards the relationship between government and NGOs, the data shown the small components of NGOs in Japanese aid which only 3% of aid budget in 2008. A small distribution to NGOs has been identifying that "Japan tends not to make use of either Japanese or local NGOs as implementing partners" (DAC Peer Review of OECD 2010, p.17).
Based on DAC Report, if we compare the amount of aid in the area of government and civil society (GSC) between Japan, the US and the EU, Japan's aid was far less than the US and EU's aid distribution. In 2006, the trend of Japanese aid has increased about 150%, but the amount has still far less than the two countries. Moreover, if we look to the percentage of total aid, Japan's GSC aid placed only about 1-2 percentage of total aid every year, except in the 2002. In the other hand, the US and the EU has more attention towards GSC program than Japan which is indicated by the percentage of their GSC aid as described in the table below.
In addition, the U.S. NGO "Democracy Coalition Project" (Democracy Coalition Project, the following abbreviated as DCP) explained three factors which influenced Japan4s limited approach to democracy promotion. 8 First, based on Japanese experience before -  2003). From their statement, it can be summarized that Japan had never arranged and designed their aid to be involved in supporting political reform in Indonesia.
Following the implementation of Japanese democracy aid to Indonesia, the study found the limited programs directly connected to democracy and governance areas funded by Japanese aid. The election assistance package received the greatest funding. In the 1999 election, most of the Japanese fund (US$30, 97 million) channelled through UNDP, has distributed to cover the technical and material needs such as voter registration, press center, electoral ink, ballot printing, etc. The remaining funds about US$3, 49 million was intended to be used for monitoring and voter education by Indonesian NGOs, and for other purposes such as sending international observer, and dispatch of experts to the central and local General Election Commissions {Komisi Panitia PemilufKPU) for technical advice in the field of training and IT technical support.
In the 2004 Legislative and Presidential election, however, Japan did not channel their funds to UNDP again. The Japanese fund has been channelled under bilateral cooperation scheme. Considering the change of Japanese method to distribute their fund, it could be indicated as a way of the Japanese government to look more active and serious in supporting democratic process in Indonesia. Besides providing the financial assistance which distributed to KPU for the procurement of electoral equipment (bullet boxes and pooling booths), Japanese fund also designated to support the voter education program which conducted by Indonesian NGOs. By coordinating with Indonesian government, there were some Indonesian NGOs (Pemuda Muhammadiyah, LP3ES, Parwi Foundation and LSI, JAMPPI) has been selected to conduct that program in Java, Sulawesi, Sumatera, and West Nusa Tenggara.'1 The program was aimed at disseminating information on the new election system, and voting system through distributing PR materials, organizing seminars, and through talk show in radio. For the 2009 election, Japan's also distributed their aid for NGOs, however, the amount was still less than aid which has channelled to government. The involvement of NGOs in Japanese aid could be seen as a positive response toward some criticism on the low of NGOs element in Japanese aid. However, considering the most of funds has still 50 GLOBAL Vol. 13 No. 1 Mei 2011 distributed for logistics/material supply, the way of Japanese democracy aid, especially for electoral assistance, has not changed substantially. and UNDP In addition, although during the latter half of the 1990s, JICA began to strengthen its cooperation with NGOs, however, the element of NGOs both Japanese and local, are still limited in Japanese aid compared to other donor countries. For Japanese NGOs, most of them have activities which have not connected directly toward democracy in Indonesia.
Considering this fact, this study argues that concentrating the analysis on direct assistance for democracy by government it may be possible that we can figure out the policy orientation of Japanese government by restricting the analysis on its direct involvement in assistance. If a certain policy were regarded important, the government would directly engage themselves in it, given that the Japanese government has been characterized as 'Statist'.
The other Japanese democracy and governance programs were focused on projects to reform Indonesia's National Police by promoting Indonesia's civilian police force activities.
Under the scheme of Support Program for Reform of Indonesian national police, this project is aimed to socialize a model police station, and designated the police station in Bekasi, West Java. Moreover, in order to promote citizen trust in the civilian police force, this project also established a citizen-police partnership center, which is used as a base for citizen police force activities at a local level. This project shown the centre of program was the technical cooperation project which focused on the state level. In similar, another program such as judicial and bureaucracy reform were conducted on the state level rather than collaborating with civil society or NGOs. Japan's support for democratization in Indonesia, can be summarized as the table 5 below.