I have been interested in the politics of Indonesia since my first visit to Jakarta as a teenager in 1986. While pursuing an MA degree at Goethe University in Frankfurt in the mid-1990s, I spent one year in Ambon to collect material for my thesis on the rebellion of the South Moluccan Republic in 1950. After graduation, I moved to the ANU to obtain my PhD. During fieldwork for a thesis on the Indonesian military, I began working for USAID in Jakarta – an engagement that would last for more than seven years. Eventually, however, I returned to academia, finishing the PhD in 2005 and starting my new position as a lecturer at the ANU in 2008. Since then, my research has primarily focused on political parties, elections and the presidency in democratic Indonesia