In the last few years, the archipelago nation of Indonesia has undergone major changes. The longtime ruler Mohammed Suharto resigned in 1998, after years of cracking down on civil liberties. Since his resignation, the archipelago nation has introduced major reforms to its political and judicial systems.

Sounds good…but when you take a closer look, a more complicated picture emerges. Chicago Public Radio’s old friend and law student, Gretchen Helfrich, recently visited the Indonesia -- the world’s most populous Muslim state – to study rule of law. She and Jeffrey Winters, a professor of political science at Northwestern University, stopped by our studios to tell us what’s going on in Indonesia.

I asked Winters if democracy in Indonesia is sinking in…