Democracy from below : cultural practices and grassroots initiatives in Indonesia

Abstract

The utilization of cultural practices have in fact helped the community to build and maintain good social relations, especially in post-disaster context, that the community is able to conduct peace keeping, which is useful to hasten recovery processes. Further, those cultural practices are also very healthy for the development of local democracy, which is important in community’s disaster governance. Based on the experiences of the two communities in the above-mentioned areas in post-disaster contexts, this report highlights that democracy which is practiced from below every day, is an important seed for the development of democracy in general context. It could be an alternate route for the official democratization, which is commonly done through general elections, legislating processes, and judiciary mechanisms.