Rationale and Research Strategy. Foreign policy making has always been within the domain of the highest ranked political elites such as the heads of state, heads of governments, and their foreign ministers and, possibly, defense ministers. This can be observed anywhere in the world and throughout history. Although the concept of democratization has existed for decades,1 the concept of a democratization that is attributed to globalization has surfaced less than a decade ago, just as globalization has become prevalent as manifested by further advances in technology, transportation, and telecommunications. And as a coinciding result, countries around the world such as Xxxxxxxxx0, Xxxxxxxx0, Xxxxxx0, xxx Xxxxxxx0 are experiencing democratization. In this context, democratization can be defined as the smooth non-violent political transformation of a state resulting in a peaceful change of government whereby the power that was originally sourced from an all- powerful person at the apex of the political structure is diffused within that state’s new political and societal structure that now contains an unprecedented system of checks and balances of power. 1 According to the then Comparative Democratization Project at Stanford University (xxxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxx.xxx, accessed 10 December 2008), ‘Since the third wave of democratization began in 1974, more than 60 countries in Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa have made transitions from authoritarian regimes (of varying duration and repressiveness) to some form of democracy (however tentative and partial) … This wave of democratization, the greatest to date in the world system, represents a sea change in international relations and comparative politics.’ 2 Structural economic and political crisis led President Xxxxxxx to resign his 32-year tenure to pave the way for Vice-President Xxxxxxxxxxx Xxxxx Xxxxxxx (German university educated culminating with a doctorate from Aachen) to become President of Indonesia on 21 May 1998. President Xxxxxxx then enacted policies that set off the democratization process for Indonesia. Xxxxxxxx and Xxxxxx (2008) argued that Indonesia’s democratic transition was largely the by-product of the regional financial crisis and the IMF stabilization programs gone wrong.
