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Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies
ISSN: 0007-4918 (Print) 1472-7234 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbie20
Book reviews
Gerry van Klinken , Ian Coxhead , Natasha Stacey , Juthathip Jongwanich ,
Lydia Napitupulu , Ariane Utomo & Lisa Ruhanen
To cite this article: Gerry van Klinken , Ian Coxhead , Natasha Stacey , Juthathip Jongwanich , Lydia Napitupulu , Ariane Utomo & Lisa Ruhanen (2009) Book reviews, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 45:3, 401-411, DOI: 10.1080/00074910903301688
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00074910903301688
Published online: 16 Nov 2009.
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ISSN 0007-4918 print/ISSN 1472-7234 online/09/030401-11 DOI: 10.1080/00074910903301688
BOOK REVIEWS
Lex Rieffel and Karaniya Dharmasaputra (2009) Di Balik Korupsi Yayasan Pemerintah [Behind the Corruption of
Government Foundations], Freedom Institute, Jakarta.
Offi cials use off-budget funds to top up meagre staff salaries, but also to grease
palms and enrich themselves. No complete survey of these funds exists, but this report is a valuable step along the way.
The foundation (yayasan) is a wildly popular fi nancial construction in Indonesia.
Tens of thousands of them do everything from collecting for the local mosque to running business empires. The main attraction of yayasan is that they pay no tax. They are part of Indonesia’s huge, sometimes criminal, unreported economy. Many yayasan are run by government offi cials. The military have used them since
the 1950s to add more than twice the offi cial government budget to their income.
During the New Order, the Soeharto family managed its wealth through 40 pri-vate family foundations, some in turn owning dozens of businesses. A 1974 law banning offi cials from conducting business did not prevent many from imitating
Soeharto’s example. Post-reformasi governments, under IMF pressure, have tried to make foundations accountable (Law 16/2001, amended in 2004). But resistance is vigorous and little has been achieved.
This ground-breaking report on ‘government foundations’ tries to map all those connected with central government departments. It found 44 active ones. The authors talked to staff at 18 of them. Of the 70 listed departments, only 22 were found to have one or more foundations. The departments of health, trans-port and national education were among those that did not. This seems hard to believe. The authors acknowledge that some offi cials managed to hide the
exist-ence of their foundations from prying eyes. Others may have been over-looked. For example, chapters of the well-known organisation for civil servants’ wives, Dharma Wanita, not mentioned here, run cooperatives in many departments.
Dubious as they are from a modern bureaucratic viewpoint, foundations are deeply entrenched. The most surprising revelation in the book is that those depart-ments in the best position to lead reform are also those with the biggest founda-tions. The giant among foundations is attached to Bank Indonesia (BI). Yayasan Kesejahteraan Karyawan BI (YKKBI) has assets worth Rp 5.3 trillion ($500 million). It wholly owns a chain of pharmacies, a sugar factory and a luxury hotel, and part owns much else. The police foundation, Yayasan Brata Bhakti (Rp 165 billion), goes back to 1952. It owns a university and has shares in logging, parking, private security and many other ventures. Other foundations are much smaller. All claim that their revenues supplement salaries and subsidise staff members’ housing, children’s education and haj pilgrimages. Curiously, most foundation directors
do not consider their assets to belong to the state, and oppose state auditing. Yet their starting capital comes from the national budget, their offi ce facilities are on
government premises and their staff are paid civil servants.
This report lifts only a corner of the veil. Thousands of foundations must be attached to lower levels of government. State-owned corporations, such as the oil giant Pertamina, have them too. ‘Private’ foundations linked to senior offi ce
holders also remain unstudied, despite Soeharto’s bad example. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s own Yayasan Puri Cikeas should receive greater scrutiny. Military foundations have been studied elsewhere.
Even the foundations that do appear in this book are depicted mainly as wel-fare organisations. For example, the authors only hint at the scandal caused when another Bank Indonesia foundation, Yayasan Pengembangan Perbankan Indo-nesia, was used in 2003 to pay bribes to parliamentarians. The history of similar scandals is long. Competing bureaucratic cliques use government foundations as money-laundering machines and as slush funds to buy infl uence.
The foundations fulfi l a vital function in bringing civil service remuneration
to market parity. Their biggest problem is that they deliberately blur the bound-ary between private and public property. It is precisely this blurring that is the essence of corruption. The most blatant example, unfortunately mentioned only in passing here, is a foundation at the Department of Religion that passed com-pletely into private hands, taking state property with it.
Gerry van Klinken Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV), Leiden
© 2009 Gerry van Klinken
Moira Moeliono, Eva Wollenberg and Godwin Limberg (eds) (2008) The Decentralization of Forest Governance: Politics, Economics
and the Fight for Control of Forests in Indonesian Borneo, Earth scan, London (UK) and Stirling VA, pp. 320. Cloth: £75.00.
This book documents and discusses efforts at decentralised, community-based control of forest resources in one district of Indonesia. According to the Stern Review on the Economics of Global Climate Change, greenhouse gas releases due to land conversion are responsible for 18% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Indonesia, with the world’s third-largest tropical forest area and a very high rate of forest land conversion, accounts for about 30% of these – meaning that the depletion of Indonesian forests for timber and to create plantations is responsible for some 6% of global greenhouse gas releases. The global gains from a reduc-tion in this rate of land conversion are thus high. For this reason alone the global community should care about the problems described in this book and the efforts being made to address them.
There are other reasons to read the book. The communities that depend on for-ests and forest-based ecosystems are directly affected by policies and institutions designed (most frequently) by distant law makers with starkly different interests.
Indonesia’s continuing decentralisation of forest governance has resolved some problems and created others; the book documents these and discusses their sig-nifi cance. Finally, by focusing on one specifi c district, the book presents a case
study that is worth reading simply for its wealth of detail.
The authors of this volume are researchers at the Center for International For-estry Research (CIFOR) in Bogor. The book reports on their engagement with forest-dependent communities in Malinau district in East Kalimantan province. The volume begins in part I with a chapter providing the conceptual context of decentralisation in rural Indonesia; this is followed by chapters providing geo-graphical and ethnographic data and local perspectives on the use of the natu-ral resource base. Part II then describes and analyses the incidence and effects of small-scale timber-harvesting arrangements (izin pemungutan dan pemanfaatan kayu, IPPK) and some other initiatives for locally based forestry management. The chapters in part III address other aspects of decentralisation, including the role of customary law (adat) in relation to timber harvesting and efforts to promote more sustainable means of forestry management.
As the title of the book suggests, the primary focus is on governance, specifi
-cally the fl uid and shifting boundaries of rights and responsibilities between state
and civil society, and among different and often competing groups within the state and non-government sectors. While never clear in the developing world, these boundaries have become notably indistinct in Indonesia in the post-Soeharto era. The lack of defi nition, both in law and in practice, reduces the chances that
cen-trally designed solutions to sustainable forest management can be made to work on the ground. More positively, decentralisation has created a larger space for experimentation with locally based initiatives.
While the trend to involve communities in the design and implementation of commercial forestry is surely a step in the right direction, the authors of this set of studies remain pessimistic about the outcomes, concluding that reforms ‘have dis-appointingly been unable to increase local society’s commitment towards better governance of natural resources’ (p. 18). Disputes between villages and logging companies, and among villages, about ownership, access rights and the distribu-tion of revenues from forestry remain unresolved. The individual contribudistribu-tions to the book go a long way towards helping readers understand the nature and complexity of these problems.
Overall, the book provides an absorbing set of accounts of locally based efforts to diagnose and come to grips with very diffi cult issues. As a research report,
however, it has some limitations. To enable the reader to distinguish more easily between what is idiosyncratic and what is a local manifestation of a generic prob-lem, it would have been helpful if the editors had provided a characterisation of the study sites relative to broader regions. More detail on methods and metadata would have been valuable for the same reason. Nevertheless, this book will be of interest to a broad community of researchers and practitioners in the area of natural resource governance in the developing world.
Ian Coxhead University of Wisconsin, Madison WI
© 2009 Ian Coxhead
Milan J. Titus and Paul P. M. Burgers (eds) (2009) Rural Livelihoods, Resources and Coping with Crisis in Indonesia: A Comparative Study,
ICAS Publications Series, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore, and Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, pp. 307. Paper: S$89.90/US$69.90.
Indonesia was the largest of the Asian economies to be hit by the economic crisis (krismon) in 1997. The crisis was made worse by an El Niño dry season, forest fi res
and other ecological disasters. This volume provides detailed comparative analyses of the effects of the economic crisis on rural livelihoods in Indonesia and the various response patterns and resource mechanisms developed by communities and house-holds to cope with those effects. The book presents the results of the ‘Livelihood and resources’ component of the broader ‘Indonesia in transition’ research program sponsored by the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences. This multi-discipli-nary Indonesian and Dutch program was carried out between 2001 and 2005.
The book consists of 10 chapters, each covering one research project, plus a concluding chapter. Each case study follows a sustainable livelihoods framework, where it is assumed that ‘communities and households construct their livelihoods on the basis of rational choices resulting from various opportunities and limita-tions, which are determined by their available assets, capabilities and needs within the framework of local environmental, socio-cultural and political–economic conditions’ (p. 13). The research program sought to examine through detailed village-based case studies areas of vulnerability and resilience of households and communities during the economic crisis. As the authors point out, this area of research has been neglected in Indonesia, where most studies on the economic cri-sis have been at a macroeconomic level. The study also questions the assumption that ‘poverty automatically leads to environmental degradation’ (p. 90).
The fi rst three chapters consider the effects of the crisis on rural communities
from ‘remoter’ regions of Indonesia, and their responses. All three case studies are by Dutch researchers: Edwin de Jong focuses on two villages in Toraja, Central Sulawesi; Gerben Nooteboom examines the diversity, vulnerability and resilience of the Madurese in Mahakan, East Kalimantan; and Paul P. M. Burgers studies three agricultural villages in the Kerinci district of West Sumatra, where liveli-hoods are centred on the cultivation of cash crops.
The second cluster of four chapters is based on doctoral projects by Indo-nesian geographers Muhammad Baquini, Agus Sutanto, R. Rijanta and Djarot S. Widyatmoko, all from Gajah Mada University. They analyse community-level effects and responses in a total of 16 densely populated villages in Yogyakarta, Central Java. These villages represent a cross-section of agro-economic and envi-ronmental settings, from commercial versus subsistence-oriented villages to rural versus semi-urban ones.
The third cluster focuses on three Makassarese villages in Gowa district, Southwest Sulawesi. The respective authors, Marja Rijerse, Mascha Singeling and Rogier Vogelij, are students in the masters’ program in human geography at Utrecht University. The villages were selected to represent the various livelihood systems of the Makassarese. This cluster contains the only case study in the book on coastal–marine livelihoods (chapter 10 by Vogelij). It adds a special dimension to the collection, and to studies of vulnerability and resilience in maritime liveli-hood studies in Indonesia and the region more broadly.
Based on the preceding case studies, in the fi nal chapter Milan J. Titus draws
some general conclusions pertaining to the program’s research questions. He
fi nds that the livelihood strategies of both communities and households diverged
from the typical pattern of responses: there was no national response to the crisis but rather responses that differed across regions and ethnic groups according to differences in social and environmental conditions and even different types of resource use by households. Based on the results of this comparative study, Titus concludes that the effects on various socio-economic groups were perhaps not as bad as projected. Overall, however, the crisis did hit the poorer (‘survival’-level households) much harder than the wealthier ones.
Some of the case studies consider the effects of the crisis in terms of the bigger picture across the archipelago. They conclude that the crisis did have some negative impact on rural resource use but that the net outcome varied across regions and was not as bad as expected given the impact of previous comparable events. Again, the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ were not clearly distinguishable, but Titus notes that, in gen-eral, survival-type households (those relying solely on intensive food crop farming) were more likely to be losers than accumulation-type households (those cultivating highly commercialised food crops). The researchers also fi nd that labour migration
as a means to tap external resources is important for rural households under stress and provides an important safety net during times of crisis.
I recommend this collection of case studies to anyone working in the area of rural livelihoods analysis. The book is well presented, although it contains some typographical errors and would have benefi ted from a few illustrations. Students
would benefi t if the book was available electronically, possibly as part of the
pub-lisher’s recently introduced E Book series. The cross-disciplinary coverage and content of the book make it suitable for a variety of academic audiences. The research team should be congratulated on the publication of this book and for making the results of the collaborative program accessible in one volume.
Natasha Stacey Charles Darwin University, Darwin
© 2009 Natasha Stacey
Helen E.S. Nesadurai and J. Soedradjad Djiwandono (eds) (2009) Southeast Asia in the Global Economy: Securing Competitiveness and Social Protection,
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) and S. Rajaratnam School of Inter-national Studies (RSIS), Singapore, pp. xvii + 259. Cloth: S$59.90/US$49.90.
A number of authors have written about how Asian economies cope with glo-balisation and the phenomenal rise of the Asian powerhouses, India and China. However, this book is one of very few to cover both the economic and social chal-lenges that Southeast Asian countries must confront amidst globalisation and the rise of India and China.
The book begins by analysing the economic structures and growth strate-gies of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries on the one hand and India and China on the other, emphasising in particular similarities and complementarities. The fi rst two chapters in part I focus on fl ows of trade,
investment, services and labour between ASEAN and India (chapter 2) and ASEAN and China (chapter 3). Rahul Sen and Sadhana Srivastava point out in chapter 2 that the largely complementary economic relationship between ASEAN and India in a wide range of economic sectors is likely to offer considerable scope for cooperation. Firms in ASEAN countries already benefi t from contracts in India in a number of
areas, including infrastructure and information technology. The authors provide a good description of the economic links between ASEAN and India. However, they fail to capture the dynamism of the relationship, especially the policy initiatives undertaken by ASEAN in response to the emergence of India as a powerhouse.
China clearly poses a greater competitive challenge for ASEAN than India, but also offers greater opportunities for the region to expand trade and investment and take part in production networks. To integrate with the rising Chinese econ-omy, in chapter 3 Liu Yunhua advises individual ASEAN countries to focus on moving up the technological ladder, in addition to supporting the wider regional approach of establishing an ASEAN–China Free Trade Area (FTA).
Part II of the book looks at how ASEAN countries can secure broader interna-tional competitiveness. In chapter 4, Heribert Dieter analyses the implications of bilateral economic agreements for competitiveness in the Asia-Pacifi c region. He
argues that the rules of origin that are central to all preferential trading arrange-ments undermine the competitiveness of fi rms and eventually the economy at large.
In particular, if a bilateral FTA imposes limits on inputs from the two countries involved, as is commonly the case with automotive production in Southeast Asia, welfare-reducing diversion of trade is likely to occur. In addition, the less powerful party may be at a disadvantage in negotiating a bilateral FTA. Dieter cites as exam-ples the negotiations of Australia, Singapore and Thailand with the United States. The author offers an interesting solution to reduce the complexity of the current rules of origin and increase the transparency of the trade regime – namely for the Asian region to adopt a cumulation of origin regime based on the pan-Euro model. Unfortunately, however, he does not explain in detail how such a regime would be developed and how the pan-Euro model could be adapted for the Asian region.
Chapters 5 and 6 focus on the technological capabilities and labour productivity of fi rms. According to Rajah Rasiah (chapter 5), it is the network strength of
elec-tronics fi rms in Korea and Taiwan that has allowed them to continually improve
their technological and innovative capacity. The lesson for Southeast Asian fi rms
is to put more resources into education and training, health support, infrastruc-ture, research and development in order to encourage innovation among their staff and strengthen their competitiveness.
In chapter 6, Chew Soon Beng and Rosalind Chew examine the role of trade unions in improving labour productivity and competitiveness. They argue that macro-focused unions, which take a longer-term outlook and set wages at employ-ment-maximising levels, help economies compete in an era of globalisation by strengthening the competitiveness of labour. Singapore, with its stable political and social environment, is the only Southeast Asian country to have developed macro-focused unions; the others tend to have micro-macro-focused unions that aim to maximise wages rather than employment. The chapter provides a comprehensive discussion of labour markets in selected Southeast Asian countries but it does not explore the ways in which countries could develop more macro-focused unions or identify the policy elements that would need to be given priority in those countries.
The last part of the book considers the social dimensions of competitiveness. In chapter 7, Carolina S. Guina argues that well-designed labour regulations on child labour, minimum wages and other matters would have a positive effect on long-term economic growth, despite cost adjustments in the short run.
In chapter 8, Mukul G. Asher and Amarendu Nandy describe the nature of and challenges facing social security systems in Southeast Asia in the current era of globalisation. The highly diverse social security systems and distinct political, demographic and economic conditions in the region call for a different develop-ment path for each system. However, one eledevelop-ment that is crucial for the devel-opment of all systems is that governments regard social security as an essential aspect of, rather than an obstacle to, international competitiveness.
The fi nal chapter of the book looks at the issue of corporate social responsibility
(CSR). Interestingly, Bala Ramasamy argues that CSR practices are a product of the specifi c norms and cultures that prevail in a country, rather than its level of
eco-nomic wealth, its degree of ecoeco-nomic development or even its democratic practices. The author tries to identify the specifi c factors driving the divergence of CSR
prac-tices across Southeast Asia. He fi nds that government regulations, consumer
prefer-ences and the willingness of multinational enterprises, non-government groups and CEOs/managers to participate are crucial to the degree of CSR penetration. While CSR can support the social and economic development of a country, Ramasamy concludes that governments must also promulgate regulations to enforce minimum standards and provide incentives for fi rms to adopt CSR programs.
The book provides a comprehensive discussion of competitiveness and social protection in Southeast Asia. One question that kept bothering me as I read the book was what policy priorities governments should adopt to secure competitive-ness in the region and what role public–private partnerships should play. I could not fi nd the answers in this book. Nevertheless, I still consider this an excellent
book and recommend it to all scholars who are interested in globalisation and the Southeast Asian region. It is one of very few books to cover both the economic and social dimensions of globalisation. I congratulate the authors for their thorough and meticulous analysis.
Juthathip Jongwanich Asian Development Bank, Manila
© 2009 Juthathip Jongwanich
Roehlano M. Briones and Arnulfo G. Garcia (eds) (2008) Poverty Reduction through Sustainable Fisheries: Emerging Policy and Governance Issues in Southeast Asia, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) and Southeast Asian Regional
Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), Singapore and Laguna, pp. xviii + 276. Paper: S$19.90/US$14.90; Cloth: S$39.90/US$29.90.
Perhaps for no other region in the world are fi sheries, both inland (freshwater)
and marine, as important as for Southeast Asia. Whereas global fi sh production
increased annually by 1.7% between 2000 and 2004, production in Southeast Asia increased by 5.7%. Much of this increase can be attributed to the world trade in fi sh,
with fi sh exports increasing at an annual rate of 6.6% globally. Among Southeast
Asian countries, the share of fi shery exports in total merchandise exports is 1.8%,
much higher than the global share of less than 1%. The proportion is even higher for some Southeast Asian countries, such as Myanmar (16.6%) and Vietnam (11.9%). The value of the region’s fi sh exports (about $10 billion) is comparable to the value
of its exports of fruit, vegetables, cereals, coffee, tea and cocoa combined.
Fish is also important domestically within Southeast Asia. It comprises a high proportion of people’s animal protein intake, ranging from 10% to 20% in Brunei and Singapore, 20% to 40% in Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Repub-lic, Malaysia and Vietnam, 40% to 50% in Myanmar, the Philippines and Thai-land, and more than 50% in Indonesia. This is far higher than the average for the developed world (12.3%) and even the developing world (20%). Future growth in production, however, is threatened by excessive harvesting effort, pollution and habitat destruction. It is now widely accepted that most near-shore marine fi
sher-ies in Southeast Asia are over-fi shed.
Despite the sector’s importance, studies discussing the broad economic signifi
-cance of Southeast Asia’s fi sheries are few and far between, and those that do exist
are mainly in the form of national or regional project reports. This edited volume commissioned by the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) is a welcome addition to address this gap. The book covers the entire circular fl ow of production and consumption in fi sheries,
from fi shing households, markets and trade to production technology, the supply
chain and the governance of both inland and marine fi shery resources.
The fi rst chapter provides a good introduction to and synthesis of the book. It is
followed by two chapters on the fi shing households of Southeast Asia (chapter 2)
and Cambodia (chapter 3). The next six chapters focus on the production aspects of fi sheries: the structure of demand and supply (chapter 4), the integration of the fi sheries sector in ASEAN (chapter 5), technology policies (chapter 6), fi sheries in
Southeast Asia (chapter 7), the seafood supply chain (chapter 8) and aquaculture farmers in Indonesia (chapter 9). The fi nal three chapters deal with ecological
and governance issues: the status of coastal and marine resources in Southeast Asia (chapter 10), property rights and institutional arrangements (chapter 11) and regional cooperation (chapter 12).
Although the book provides extensive information and data, it is more a collec-tion of papers than a coherent and unifi ed treatise. The depth of analysis is un even
across chapters, with some resembling project reports and one even including a list of key informants’ names and positions. There are also inaccuracies, such as that ‘trawl fi shing has been totally banned in Indonesia’ (p. 134). The order of the
chapters could also have been improved. Chapter 7, for example, should have been placed earlier in the book, since it essentially provides an overview of the
fi sheries sector in Southeast Asia.
These weaknesses are unfortunate, because the book raises many important and valid issues. It argues, for example, that the fi sh aggregating device – a
man-made structure strategically placed to provide shelter and food for fi sh and other
marine organisms – may merely facilitate fi sh capture and intensify over-fi shing
and social confl ict, despite being a popular technical solution to the problem of
dwindling stocks. Stock enhancement programs are another set of technical solu-tions to be wary of: they are often undertaken without sound economic (cost ver-sus benefi t) and ecological (carrying capacity, predator–prey) analysis.
To successfully implement sustainable technical and economic ventures in fi
sh-eries, the open access nature of the resource must fi rst and foremost be recognised
– including in aquaculture, which is often undertaken in an open access setting such as a lake or river. Catch sizes must fi rst be limited, because fi sh stocks and
carrying capacity are not infi nite. Catch limits mean that participation in fi sheries
must be curtailed and, further, that a system must be put in place for allocating catch. Ultimately, the book recognises (correctly) that the challenge in fi sheries is
to shift to a rights-based regime, without which production, technological inno-vation, fi nancing schemes or even trade liberalisation will only deplete resources
and aggravate poverty.
Lydia Napitupulu Faculty of Economics, University of Indonesia, Jakarta
© 2009 Lydia Napitupulu
Evi Nurvidya Arifi n and Aris Ananta (eds) (2009) Older Persons in Southeast Asia:
An Emerging Asset, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore, pp. xxxi + 425. Paper: S$59.90/US$45.90; Cloth: S$79.90/US$69.90.
In the 1960s and 1970s, most scholarly discussion of population issues in South-east Asia focused on the prospect of rapid population growth. The ensuing demo-graphic transition in the region has occurred at considerable speed. As a long-term consequence of rapid fertility decline, the proportion of people over the age of 65 in Southeast Asia is projected to increase by a factor of at least three by mid-century. While population ageing has been at the forefront of research and policy debate in developed countries, its emergence in Southeast Asia occurs in a differ-ent socio-economic and demographic context. Cdiffer-entral to the challenges posed by population ageing in Southeast Asia is the fact that countries in this region are becoming ‘old before they are rich’.
This interdisciplinary book presents timely contributions to the debate on population ageing in the region from the perspectives of demography, economics, sociology, anthropology, public health, psychology and epidemiology. In line with its focus on fi nances, the authors stress the potential to transform the image
of the older person from ‘liability’ to ‘asset’. The book is organised into fi ve parts:
(1) introduction (two chapters); (2) income security in old age (four chapters); (3) employment and other sources of fi nance (four chapters); (4) ageing, migration
and development (three chapters); and (5) the role of government and civil society (two chapters).
The fi rst chapter sets the backdrop and research context, beginning with the
disappearing notion of fi lial piety, the rapid shift in the prevalent population
pattern from a baby boom to an ‘elderly’ boom, and the diversity of ageing issues in the region. In the absence of a concluding chapter, it provides both an overview of the book and a brief section on policy recommendations. Especially valuable is chapter 2, which outlines the context of future ageing in Southeast Asia. It uses population projections to illustrate future demographic trends in the light of changes in educational composition and levels of disability. The rest of
the book draws mainly on case studies from individual countries in the region. The one exception, chapter 7, compares the employment patterns of older persons across and within nations. The last two chapters of the book focus on Indonesia and include a useful summary of past and recent ageing-related policies in the country.
While one might wish for further quantitative and qualitative insights on productive ageing in the region, the editors are to be congratulated for projecting the ageing issue onto an ASEAN development platform. The data and case studies presented in the book will be of interest to scholars in population studies and development economics, but also to non-specialists and policy makers interested in ageing and population dynamics in the region.
Ariane Utomo ANU
© 2009 Ariane Utomo
Michael Hitchcock, Victor T. King and Michael Parnwell (eds) (2009) Tourism in Southeast Asia: Challenges and New Directions, Nordic Institute of Asian
Studies (NIAS) Press, Copenhagen, pp. 368. Paper: S$49.90/US$38.40/£18.99.
As its title suggests, this book provides a contemporary analysis of key themes, issues and events affecting the tourism industries of Southeast Asia. In addition, it uses a series of case studies to touch on anthropological and sociological research in the region and issues related to globalisation, politics and policy, culture, and sustainability and the environment. This collection is the successor to a 1993 vol-ume by the same editors called Tourism in South-East Asia. In their introductory chapter the editors revisit the intervening 16 years, noting that ‘the time is ripe to take stock and evaluate what has been happening in tourism studies since the publication of our fi rst book, and as a necessary next step, begin to chart the
future direction of research in the region’ (p. 1). It is this opening chapter that will arguably be the most valuable for those seeking a reasonably defi nitive analysis
of tourism in the region. Among other topics, the authors examine the evolution of tourism and its importance to the region, the political, economic, social and reli-gious contexts, and the ramifi cations of globalisation for the industry. They then
give a thorough (and at times tough) critique of other published works covering similar territory.
Undoubtedly the Southeast Asian region has experienced a number of tumul-tuous and well-publicised events over recent years, and faces many challenges in the future. The case studies in this volume cover several of these key events and challenges, while also incorporating a number of country- and region-specifi c
investigations. One could not argue with the editors’ claims that ‘the volume cov-ers a wide territory both thematically and locationally’ (p. 34). Indeed, the case studies are quite eclectic, arguably representing the particular interests of con-tributing authors rather than an attempt to limit the volume to contributions that would provide a more complete resource on tourism in the region.
The case study chapters review anthropological and sociological research on tourism in the region (Victor King); the Indonesian souvenir industry and its effect on the arts and handicrafts sector (Kathleen Adams); terrorism in Bali and South-east Asia (I Nyoman Darma Putra and Michael Hitchcock); Balinese identity after the Kuta bombings (Michel Picard); tourism policy making in the political, geo-graphical, historical and socio-cultural contexts of the region (Linda Richter); gov-ernment regulation of privately owned tourism businesses in Vietnam (Jonathon Bennett); tourism development in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (David Harrison and Steven Schipani); the experiences of Japanese tourists in Southeast Asia (Shinji Yama shita); tourism on the China–Vietnam border (Yuk Wah Chan); and romance and sex tourism in Yogyakarta (Heidi Dahles). Several chapters examine the environmental impact of tourism: stake-holder power and competi-tion as inhibitors to sustainable tourism (Michael Parnwell); eco-tourism in Indo-nesia (Janet Cochrane); environmental management in Komodo National Park (Henning Borchers); and the effect of back-packer tourism on the marine environ-ment of Gili Trawangan in Lombok (Mark Hampton and Joanna Hampton).
The editors conclude with a chapter on current issues facing the tourism indus-try in Southeast Asia, again drawing comparisons between their 1993 publication and the current volume. Importantly, this chapter looks at future directions for tourism, set against the particular cultural, economic, political and social contexts of the region.
This volume is a valuable resource, although not necessarily because of its con-sistent coverage of tourism in the region. The selection of cases is diverse, yet all contributors provide interesting and thought-provoking analyses and critiques. The book will be of interest to researchers and academics, who will fi nd value in
the broad regional overview provided in the introductory and concluding chap-ters, and to those engaged in research or teaching on specifi c topics such as the
environment or sex tourism. As seven of the 16 chapters focus on Indonesia, read-ers of the BIES are likely to fi nd the book of particular interest. It is a worthwhile
addition to the body of literature on the Southeast Asian region.
Lisa Ruhanen University of Queensland, Brisbane
© 2009 Lisa Ruhanen
