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AbstractEastern Indonesia has been a region of international interest since its identification as a source of spices and rare woods. This paper considers ideas of sovereignty held by both Portuguese and Dutch at the time of European contact. It traces the consequence of the application of these ideas to the development of forms of governance in eastern Indonesia: in particular, the concept of indirect rule that began with contracts of trade fostered by the Dutch East India Company. Such contacts with local rulers or community representatives provided the basis for later colonial rule and contributed to specific social identities that remain prominent to the present. These historically established social identities continue to underpin various efforts at establishing local autonomy.

This article demonstrates how an integral element of the fabric
of governance on the eastern Indonesian island of Lombok, and many
other parts of the Indonesian archipelago, are non-state local security
arrangements, such as night watches and militias. These groups play a
significant role in the local infrastructure of security and law enforcement.
Consequently, this article challenges a common assumption by
legal scholars, and many other observers of Indonesia, that state-based
institutions such as the police are the exclusive, and only legitimate, mode
of law enforcement in Indonesia. Through an ethnographic engagement
with the idea of law enforcement on Lombok, I seek to broaden these
assumptions about legitimate modes of statecraft. These non-state entities
fill a void in the Indonesian law enforcement architecture that the state
is unable or unwilling to fulfil (or potentially finds it more practical to
delegate to local non-state institutions).

In contrast to accounts that explain increases in women's political representation by reference to structural and institutional factors, this article draws attention to the agency of women candidates. The number of women elected in the Eastern Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara ( Nusa Tenggara Timur, NTT) increased markedly in 2019. To explain this increase, this article highlights the remarkable persistence of women candidates, many of whom succeeded in 2019 only after competing in multiple prior elections, slowly building their personal political skills and reputations. The article also draws attention to the effects of positive female role models – showing how a female candidate in a gubernatorial race inspired other women politicians – and the positive effects that can arise from co-operation among women candidates. It shows that, despite the emphasis on male dominance and dynastic power in much of the literature on Indonesian politics, there are still pathways to power for women with origins in the grassroots.