Journal articles

2022. Charting their own course: How Indonesians see the world. Lowy Institute for International Policy, 2022 (with Ben Bland and Natasha Kassam)

Abstract:

With Indonesia seeking to play a larger role on the global stage, and many outside powers hoping to woo Southeast Asia’s largest country, there is a pressing need to better understand how its people see the world and themselves in a changing international environment.The Indonesia Poll 2021 — Charting their own course, conducted a decade after the Lowy Institute’s last poll in the country, is based on fieldwork carried out in December 2021. The survey consists of a nationally representative sample of some 3000 Indonesians aged 17 to 65 across 33 provinces of Indonesia.

2020. “Whose Centrality? ASEAN and the Quad in the Indo-Pacific”, The Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs 3 (5): 106-117

Abstract:

Why has Southeast Asia been particularly lukewarm to the idea of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (or Quad)? If Japan, India, Australia, and the United States collectively work under the Quad to confront China, Southeast Asia’s biggest and most difficult strategic challenge, should not the region embrace and support the Quad? This article seeks to answer these questions by examining the different Southeast Asian views on the Quad. It further examines whether and how the Quad leaders could gradually develop mechanisms to induce a strategic buy-in from Southeast Asia. I argue in particular that the Quad should not reinvent the wheel in terms of regional architecture building and instead seek to become a “strategic filler” for and a “strategic amplifier” to existing ASEAN-led mechanisms and institutions. Furthermore, as far as Southeast Asians are concerned, the idea of the Quad boosting ASEAN institutions is perhaps more appealing than expanding the Quad into a “Quad Plus” by inviting, for example, South Korea, New Zealand, Brazil, Israel, and Vietnam. The key to a future Quad–ASEAN relationship therefore lies in finding a calibrated partnership based on shared principles and interests as well as practical cooperative engagements.

2018. "Abandoned at Sea: The Tribunal Ruling and Indonesia's Missing Archipelagic Foreign Policy", Asian Politics & Policy, Vol. 10, No. 2: pp. 300-321 (with Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto)

Abstract:

Indonesia's response to the 2016 UNCLOS tribunal ruling was underwhelming, even as a nonclaimant in the South China Sea disputes. Given its maritime geography and interests, the response is symptomatic of the country's underdevelopment of an “archipelagic foreign policy”—one where the entire foreign policy system, from its bureaucracy, doctrine, and strategy, should be geared to secure and defend its external maritime interests. This article further argues that the authoritarian New Order regime (1966–1998) repressed the development of an archipelagic foreign policy in two ways: (1) the army‐dominated foreign policy establishment deprioritized external maritime interests and (2) the infusion of the National Resilience (Ketahanan Nasional) concept into the “Archipelagic Outlook” (Wawasan Nusantara) doctrine as a regime maintenance tool further “domesticated” what could have been a geopolitical outlook. These authoritarian legacies put Indonesia's foreign policy on a path‐dependent trajectory that even President Joko Widodo's Global Maritime Fulcrum could not break.

2016. "The Domestic Politics of Indonesia's Approach to the Tribunal Ruling and the South China Sea", Contemporary Southeast Asia, 38 (3): pp. 382-388

Abstract:

This article argues that Indonesia’s inconsistency should be placed within the deeper and broader historical ambivalence embedded in the bilateral relationship with China and in Indonesia’s awkward non-claimant position, as well as the country’s chaotic domestic maritime security governance. These permissive (or antecedent) conditions, however, are necessary but insufficient to explain Indonesia’s lukewarm response to the ruling. This article argues that President Jokowi’s lack of personal interest and grasp of foreign policy provides the more proximate (or triggering) condition behind the response. Specifically, his aloofness has led to deteriorating bureaucratic politics and the growing influence of a small number of advisers outside of the foreign ministry — a “foreign policy oligarchy” if you will — in the formulation of the country’s China policy.

2011. “Indonesia’s Rising Regional and Global Profile: Does Size Really Matter?“, Contemporary Southeast Asia 33 (2): pp. 157 – 182

Abstract:

This paper seeks to challenge the view that Indonesia’s geographical and population size account for its rising regional and global profile. Instead, it makes three inter-related arguments. First, the manifestations of Indonesia’s foreign policy and global profile have always been based on its ability to harness the country’s normative and moral voice. Second, while democratization since 1998 has allowed Indonesia to restore its reputation in world affairs and provided it with a new source of “soft power”, it has also complicated foreign policy-making. Third, Indonesia’s large geographical size and population have been a source of persistent internal security threats, and because the government has been unable to meet national defence requirements, the growth in its defence diplomacy activities reflect the country’s continuing strategic weakness rather than its strength

2011. “Variations on a Theme: Dimensions of Ambivalence in Indonesia-China Relations,” Harvard Asia Quarterly 13 (1): pp. 24-31

Abstract:

Is Indonesia finally joining the Chinese bandwagon? Upon taking a closer look at the evolution in the bilateral relations, however, the answer to this question is not so straightforward. Indeed, the picture of Indonesia’s policy towards China is not a simple question of hedging, balancing, band-wagoning, or some variation of the three — though many analyses of Southeast Asian responses to China’s rise focus on these specific strategies. This paper argues instead that, when located within the broader evolution of Indonesia-China relations, Jakarta’s policy towards China is that of persistent ambivalence and ambiguity. This paper aims to explain the ambivalence in Indonesia–China relations by assessing its four main dimensions: domestic politics, economics, strategic and security, and regional and foreign policy. These dimensions of ambivalence largely originate from deep-rooted sentiments and from the perceptions of the Indonesian public and elite, which are in turn shaped by a long history of mutual interaction, the place of ethnic Chinese-Indonesians in Indonesian society, as well as by China’s geographic proximity.

2011. “The Enduring Strategic Trinity: Explaining Indonesia’s Geopolitical Architecture,” Journal of the Indian Ocean Region 7 (1): pp. 95-116

Abstract:

This paper seeks to describe and assess the geopolitical architecture of Indonesia as the largest archipelagic state in the world. It makes two main inter-related arguments. First, Indonesia’s geographical traits suggest that it could be both a source of weakness and vulnerability as much as it brings enormous potential for political, economic, and even military power. Second, the historical origins and conceptual foundations of ‘geopolitics’ as a policy theme suggest that Indonesia’s geopolitical architecture is based on three building blocks
the ‘strategic trinity’: geostrategy (the military and security dimensions), geoeconomics (the resource and economic dimensions), and geopolitics (the social and political dimensions). While these arguments are not novel in themselves, this paper represents among the first attempts to systematically analyse and assess Indonesia’s geographical traits and how they shape the country’s strategic thinking, foreign policy, and national security system. The paper will also consider how Indonesia’s geopolitical architecture could help explain the country’s resurgent interest in the Indian Ocean Region in recent years.

Book chapters