Ethnicity and access to economic and governmental resources in Indonesia

Against the background of Indonesia's ethnic resurgence and social cleavage in the wake of the fall of Soeharto regime in mid-1998, this thesis seeks to identify the factors that have led to a particular incidence of this discord: the perceived inequity in access to economic and governmental resources, i.e., access to jobs in the public sector and to public health services. Taking modernization theory as its framework, the thesis compares the ascribed factor, i.e., Javanese or non-Javanese ethnicity, and certain other factors, i.e., level of education, region of origin and place of residence (urban or rural area) and evaluates the resulting data. The thesis argues that respondents who have a high level of education, live in a region closest to a national center and reside in an urban area, which are relatively more exposed to modernization, are better off in terms of access to economic and governmental resources regardless of their ethnic membership