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Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies

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Indonesia's Rise: Seeking Regional and Global

Roles

Awidya Santikajaya

To cite this article: Awidya Santikajaya (2015) Indonesia's Rise: Seeking Regional and Global Roles, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 51:3, 482-484, DOI: 10.1080/00074918.2015.1111797

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Published online: 29 Nov 2015.

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482 Book Reviews

of labour’ in Indonesian political studies, and it is unfortunate that scholars of

oligarchy did not fully respond to the challenge.

Yuki Fukuoka

Embassy of Japan in Malaysia

Indonesia’s Rise: Seeking Regional and Global Roles. By Vibhanshu Shekhar. New Delhi: Indian Council of World Affairs and

Pentagon Press, 2015. Pp. xiii + 205. Paperback: $65.95.

Research on China, India, Brazil, and Russia as rising powers is abundant, but few academic works look at emerging powers beyond those countries. Indonesia, in particular, is often overlooked. From an investment and business perspective, Indonesia can be considered an emerging power, but there is little discussion of

how Indonesia’s economic proile inluences its rising prominence on the global

stage. This book is therefore an important contribution to the emerging-powers

discourse, and a useful companion to Amitav Acharya’s Indonesia Matters: Asia’s Emerging Democratic Power (2014).

The book’s strong point is its ability to correlate domestic and systemic lev -els of analysis. Whereas Acharya used constructivism in attempting to explain

Indonesia’s rise, Shekhar uses neoclassical realism, which incorporates multilevel variables in analysing a state’s foreign policy. Gideon Rose (1998), who postulated

the idea of neoclassical realism, has argued that the main motivator of a

coun-try’s foreign policy is its relative position in the international system, especially in

terms of its material capabilities (p. 146). Yet Rose acknowledges that the relation between material power and foreign policy is complicated, ambiguous, and able to be explained only by embodying domestic factors.

Shekhar believes that the debates over rising power tend to focus on the systemic

level, where a particular country’s rise results from changes to the international

system. He argues that the dynamics of domestic politics within rising powers are

also key determinants in shaping the policies and behaviours of these countries. On Indonesia’s rise, he suggests that ‘while the domestic transformation has strength

-ened the country’s capability and international image, international changes have offered opportunities for Jakarta’s regional and global projections’ (p. 23).

On the domestic level, Shekhar recognises that Indonesia’s high economic growth and democratic consolidation since reformasi have helped to raise Indonesia’s pro

-ile regionally and globally. Nevertheless, the author is pessimistic about long-term projections of Indonesia’s rise, given the country suffers from inadequate infrastruc -ture, widespread corruption, a lack of religious freedom, and weak multiparty

gov-ernance. From a systemic perspective, Shekhar underlines that Indonesia’s rising diplomatic, economic, and political proiles correlate with current events at regional

and global levels. In chapter 2, for instance, he argues that the rise of some pow-ers—most importantly, China—and the forming of relations between rising and established powers have resulted in complex diplomacy practices in Asia. These

practices could lead to intense rivalries among Paciic and global powers.

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Book Reviews 483

As a result of these domestic and systemic developments, Indonesia has chosen a different path from that of other rising powers. While other emerging powers advance their material-power capabilities, Indonesia prefers to be a norm promoter, constructive actor, and active regionalist. At this point, there is a divergence of

opinion between Acharya and Shekhar. Acharya argues that Indonesia’s choice to

promote itself as a normative power was based on its success in democracy,

devel-opment, and stability. Shekhar, in contrast, suggests that Indonesia’s normative pro

-motion resulted from its ‘lack of institutional capacity and resources to innovate’,

as well as its increasingly fragile democracy and economic uncertainty (pp. 118–19).

On this point, Shekhar might agree with Dave McRae (2014), who has argued that Indonesia’s middling economic and military capabilities have prevented it from

pursuing the aggressive foreign policy typical of other emerging powers.

Despite its well-structured, relevant, and strong arguments, this book has its short-comings. For one, there is a disconnection between the theoretical approach used in

most of the book and the approach used in the concluding chapter, on Indonesia’s ‘strategic culture’. This conceptual framework is close to the constructivist tradi

-tion, and its inclusion seems to contradict the author’s neoclassical-realism analysis

that preceded it. It is true that neoclassical realism has revised conservative realist views by looking inside the state, but its focus is limited to institutional and material factors, not culture. There are some intersections between neoclassical realism and strategic culture, but these concepts are more competitive than mutually

support-ive. The book would have beneited from one or two sections in which the author

set out why he brought neoclassical realism and strategic culture together, and how

the collaboration between these concepts could help explain Indonesia’s rise more

accurately. Shekhar may be attempting to contribute to the integration of culture into neoclassical realism, but he does not make his intentions clear to readers.

The book also seems to overstate the trend towards Sunni majoritarianism (pp.

156–61)—a simpliication, because there is no single Sunni entity in Indonesia. Unlike in Saudi Arabia, where Wahabi is the state’s formal Islamic thought, in

Indonesia Sunnis are fragmented into numerous intellectual traditions and

mahzhabs, which prevents such a majoritarianism. More importantly, the book neglects the fact that the two largest Sunni organisations in Indonesia (and the world), Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, are strong proponents of democ-racy and promote its compatibility with Islam. Religious violence still exists across the country, but moderate Muslims, particularly those represented by the aformentioned Sunni organisations, have done much to help promote the rights

of minorities. Indonesia’s role in projecting its moderate Muslim agendas beyond

its borders might be not so successful, but this is not because of the rise of radi-calisation. Rather, the lack of a coherent and effective institutional framework has

prevented Indonesia from achieving high-proile results despite several interfaith

dialogues.

A inal suggestion is that the book would have been enriched by more exten

-sive ieldwork and a greater number of interviews. The author did interview key

Indonesian foreign policymakers, former diplomats, and international-relations

scholars; but including discussions with members of parliament, NGO activ

-ists, and government oficials (other than those from the Ministry of Foreign

Affairs) would have helped readers to better understand the dynamics of domes-tic polidomes-tics—an increasingly important determinant of foreign policy-making.

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484 Book Reviews

Nevertheless, scholars of international relations and politics, and indeed anyone

interested in studying Indonesia’s place in the world, can learn much from this

book.

Awidya Santikajaya

The Australian National University

McRae, Dave. 2014. ‘More Talk Than Walk: Indonesia as a Foreign Policy Actor’. Lowy Institute Analysis. 27 February. http://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/more- talk-walk-indonesia-foreign-policy-actor.

Rose, Gideon. 1998. ‘Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policies’. World Politics 51 (1): 144–72.

Regional Dynamics in a Decentralized Indonesia. Edited by Hal Hill. Singapore:

Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2014. Pp. xxviii + 538. Paperback: $30.90.

Indonesia’s decentralisation and associated reforms have been complex and

highly nuanced, and questions remain over whether decentralisation has in fact improved regional development. This edited book, which came out of the 2013 Indonesia Update conference at ANU, compiles interesting, high-quality studies of the implications of decentralisation for regional development dynamics amid

Indonesia’s enormous physical, socio-cultural, and economic geographies.

The idea of Indonesian decentralisation has evolved over time. It was enacted in 1999, amended in 2004, and amended again in 2008. The policies regulating it have changed twice since this book was published. Indonesia is still looking for the best model of decentralisation and regional governance, so the term

‘decentralis-ing’—instead of ‘decentralised’—would describe developments more accurately. Booth (chapter 2) notes that Indonesia’s decentralisation policy was prepared in response to inancial crises and political tensions triggered by the problem of ‘rich provinces, poor people’—that is, of uneven development outcomes across

its regions. In chapter 3, Mietzner describes how power and the authority to govern in Indonesia were originally devolved to the districts (kabupaten) and municipalities (kota), rather than the provinces, to prevent national dis integration.

Indonesia’s political leaders thought that distributing power to a large number

of small administrative units would make separatist sentiments easier to contain (Fitrani et al. 2005). This approach may have increased the opportunities for local governments to bring public services closer to the community—through

inno-vative schemes such as the National Program for Community Empowerment

(McCarthy et al., chapter 10)—but it has left little room in which to develop strong institutional arrangements at the regional level (Firman 2009).

Hill and Vidyattama (chapter 4) ind that interregional differences in living

standards and economic structures remain large. Schulze and Sjahrir (chapter 8) suggest that decentralisation appears to have improved service delivery and made budgets more needs-oriented, but that local-level democratisation has not

made the allocation of government spending more eficient. In other words, there