A central government facing separatist activities adopts various policies to respond to them. In some cases, the government represses them harshly, while in other cases, it tries to accommodate the separatists' demands. We currently have two strands in the literature to understand which policies are implemented by the government: the reputation theory and the cost-benefit calculation model. However, neither of them is sufficient to explain Indonesia's policies toward its separatists in Aceh and Papua following democratization. Indonesia's policies toward separatists have been drifting between accommodation and repression. To understand these policy shifts, this paper emphasizes the importance of the inner workings of the central government, introducing two variables: the preferences of national leaders and the existence of veto players. This paper demonstrates that these perspectives are essential in order to fully explain the Indonesian government's policies toward its separatists.
Autonomy arrangements short of secession have been popular among international actors as a solution to deadly self‐determination conflicts. However, the number of peace agreements incorporating autonomy, while clearly eliminating the possibility of secession, is limited in practice. According to the literature, this is because: (1) ethnic rebels are too weak militarily to extract substantial concessions from national governments; and (2) because the governmental offer of autonomy is not credible to rebels. Drawing upon the single case study of Aceh, this research examines how warring parties overcome these two obstacles and successfully settle ethnonational conflicts through autonomy. First, although ethnonational conflicts do not tend to be costly over a single year, they often last for decades, and the accumulation of this cost over years can be substantial. In light of this long‐term cost, national governments have incentives to offer substantial concessions to stop the conflict from persisting indefinitely. Second, rebels could sign the agreement if they perceive that their autonomy is internationally guaranteed in the long term. It is imperative for international policy makers to consider these points when they try to help resolve ethnonational conflicts through autonomy.
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