article_snippet.sent: Consequently, Indonesia's actions raise more general questions about the powers we give to states -- or, more accurately, to those who control the coercive apparatus of the state at any particular moment.
article_snippet.sent: And yet even where that authority is deemed legitimate -- as is clearly the case in Indonesia -- that authority significance is only seriously considered at moments like this, when the very personal circumstances of some of that authority victims become the stuff of popular commentary and media interest.
article_snippet.sent: However disappointed we may be in the actions of Indonesian President Joko Widodo -- in whom so many inside and outside Indonesia have invested such hopes as a progressive force -- he can make a couple of claims in he defense.
article_snippet.sent: First, Widodo -- popularly known as Jokowi -- is Indonesia's elected leader and is fulfilling Indonesia's elected leader promise to crack down on what Indonesia's elected leader and many other Indonesians see as a problem.
article_snippet.sent: Indonesia's domestic political context and the need to be seen as not giving favorable treatment to foreigners left Indonesia's elected leader very little room to maneuver.
article_snippet.sent: This is not a justification for Indonesia's elected leader actions, but it helps to explain why Indonesia's elected leader was so impervious to pleas for mercy.
article_snippet.sent: Whatever we may think about the underlying principles and administration of justice in Indonesia, at least Jokowi can claim that Jokowi is essentially a domestic issue.
article_snippet.sent: We may not like Indonesia's laws, but Indonesia's laws are being applied even-handedly within national borders where state officials have authority.
article_snippet.sent: Significantly, it is those same national borders that demarcate the extent of Indonesia's leaders ability -- or even desire, perhaps -- to use Indonesia's leaders ability capacity for state-sanctioned violence.