This article explores the development of international relations (IR) in Indonesia with special focus on the changing trends in its theoretical perspectives. It argues that the academic works examined reflect the ways in which Indonesia's IR scholars perceive and theorize the nature of the dynamics of external political environments and their connections to the state's foreign relations. The argument is elaborated in two related parts. The first section discusses the theoretical perspectives that developed during the Cold War period, which focuses on the propensity toward historical realism and regionalism. The second part of the discussion examines recent developments in which Cold War perspectives have been reconsidered, and in many respects modified into three new categories of theoretical thinking, namely reform, resistance, and eclecticism. The changing theoretical trends reveal that Indonesia's IR scholarship is open and innovative. The conclusion comments on the development of the Indonesia's IR.
Global surveys indicate that massive disillusionment with economic globalisation, upheld by the liberal order, which is ignored by governments in European, Asian and Latin American countries, has paved the way for the ascent of nationalist forces. This trend is also visible in Indonesia. President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has consolidated power against opponents who exploit nationalist, populist and religious causes. On the international front, Jakarta has been actively engaged within a variety of multilateral organisations where liberal institutionalist agendas are enforced. Therefore, it is worthwhile considering the influence of internal and external environments on Jokowi's economic policy which is getting increasingly nationalistic. This article argues that nationalist economic practices have emerged as the Jokowi government's response to domestic and international challenges which can have an impact on its perceived legitimacy. The discussion proceeds in five steps. To begin, this article presents a comparative perspective to understand the position of Indonesia in the developing international political economic context. This is followed by an overview of the definition of economic nationalism and its connections to domestic politics and foreign relations. The third section is about the Indonesian government's efforts to put economic nationalism into effect. The next two parts investigate how the inside and outside dynamics generate Jokowi's inward-looking policies. The conclusion emphasises what can be learnt from the Indonesian case.
This paper analyses the important of regional investment agreements for promoting international trade in ASEAN countries. To visualize the above idea, this work will explain the roles of regional investment agreements to serve investment, trade facilitation and to protect regional investment interests. It is argued that regional investment agreements can serve as a vehicle for dialogue, coordination on and to response regional issues including regulatory harmonization, infrastructure development, and collaboration among members to facilitate investment. The paper shows how regional agreements will commit to eliminate barriers on substantially trade and investment, create positive welfare gains, the productivity and stimulus to growth in the region. This paper also analyses the effect of the establishment of an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015 to the regional investment policies. AEC aiming at transforming ASEAN into a single market and production base with a highly competitive economic region, equitable economic development, free movement of goods, services, investment, skilled labor, and freer flow of capital, will likely accelerate regional integration and cooperation in the investment sectors fully integrated into the international trade. Then, this work demonstrates the implementation of regional investment cooperation into the formal instruments/agreements of investment policy architecture promoting and protecting cross border investment among nationals of ASEAN member states, such as ASEAN Investment Guarantee Agreement (IGA), the ASEAN Investment Area (AIA) and ASEAN Comprehensive Investment Agreement (ACIA). However, it is realized that the ASEAN members may resist and protest against the regional investment agreements because of conflicting their national interest. The paper proposed that the regional inv stment agreements need to be strengthened by harmonization and structural adjustment due to the member's resistance and protest. This idea may spark challenge because each member has fundamental differences on the nature and character of legal and economic systems reflecting different political systems, economic and social cultures in accordance with the philosophy of life values and national interests of each country. To overcome the challenge, this paper argues that ASEAN member countries need to unilaterally and collectively come up with structuring trade and investment policy harmonization to move ahead and reap the benefits from regional investment agreement as a common tool for contesting their interest in international trade. In addition, pre agreed flexibilities to accommodate the interests of all ASEAN countries may eliminate the problem.
This study considers the political aspects of the Joko Widodo government's megaproject to build an integrated marine logistic system known as the tol laut. Expanding the existing literature which gives details about the contextual obstacles faced by and the prospects for the Indonesian government to pursue its infrastructure ambitions, the study argues that notwithstanding the relevance of the tol laut for advancing the Indonesian economy, it is inevitably entangled with dynamic internal and external environments which can unfavourably distort the construction processes. This is the way of understanding the political economy of Indonesia's development issues which allows for the juxtaposition of domestic political and international relations factors as its framework of analysis. The discussion is divided into four sections. Section one explains the conceptual and methodological foundation of the study. Section two outlines the importance of the tol laut to Indonesian national economic development. Section three looks at how the current domestic political settings pose structural hurdles to Widodo's tol laut, and section four observes the effect of international relations of powerful regional actors and Jakarta's diplomatic capacity to the on-going tol laut. The concluding section summarizes the findings of the study.
Realism has been the dominant conceptual approach to studying Indonesian foreign policy. This article, however, considers realist analyses to be insucient since their emphasis on the struggle for power and security in the system of states has led to the neglect of the importance of perspectives which focus on order. To ll the gap it then intends to apply the English School perspective which focuses on the concept of international society to trace the nature and function of Indonesian foreign policy. Two cases are examined, including the Asian African Conference and Association of South East Asian Nations, to demonstrate the relevance of international society for policy ideas and action. The central argument is that the Indonesian elite worldview indicates that the creation and maintenance of order in international societies are ones which are prominent objectives legitimizing the conduct of Indonesia's external relations.
The purpose of monetary policy is to affect the economic activity through various channels of monetary transmission. One of the transmission channels Is via Islamic banking through financing to various sector of the economy. The change of monetary instruments certainly affects economic sectors differently Given the dual monetary system (Islamic and conventional) in Indonesia, it is interesting to see how those rates influence each of the economic sectors. This is important for the government in designing future economic programs by determining the specific sectors which must be prioritized. This paper aims to investigate the sensitivity of the economic sectors in response to the change in the Islamic and conventional monetary rate. The paper relies on the unit root test, the co-integration test, and impulse response functions, focusing on the period from May 2006 to February 2011. The data used is from monthly economic sectors for Islamic and conventional systems, Islamic monetary rates, and conventional monetary rates. The results show that Islamic banks play important roles in the monetary transmission process in the Indonesian economy. In particular, specific economic sectors react differently to both Islamic monetary instruments as well as conventional monetary instruments.
The IFRS can be applied in the multi national company (MNC) and listing firms across the country but it does not mean it can replace the national accounting standards that have been owned by respective countries. The accounting standardization is not an easy job because each country has different political, social, and economic background. This study is to reveal the reason and who is behind IFRS adoption in Indonesia. This qualitative research is a case study based on cases representing institutions in Indonesia: DSAK, DPN IAI, BAPEPAM-LK, the finance ministry and the ministry of state own enterprises (BUMN). Data were collected by interviews and using readily available documents and processed with thematic analysis. The result shows the adoption of IFRS decisions is driven by international interests. Indonesia's membership in several international organizations, such as IFAC (International Federation on Accountant), IOSCO, and the G-20, has resulted in the approval of global accounting standards in Indonesia. Each organization has done a variety ways to ensure that its members adopt IFRS. IFRS should be based more on Indonesia accounting needs and should not be only based on a desire particularly coercion from others. In-depth analysis based on the reality of each particular business should be conducted before a decision to adopt IFRS is taken.
Global climate change and its associated risks are serious issues for almost all countries in the world. There are many growing evidences of a shift in climate patterns with flow on effects for established environmental, economic and social structures and systems. Governments around the world have embarked on programs designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions that Juel climate change, but momentum for shifts in climate patterns is already established. Therefore, it is important for governments and private decision makers to begin planning for its potential consequences, as a complement to current mitigation action aimed at slowing its progress. Indonesia is the 4th largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter globally, and is now leading the way as one of the first non-Annex I countries to make a significant voluntary commitment to cut its national greenhouse gas emissions by 26% (unilaterally) and 41% (with support.from the international community) by 2020. Indonesia's commitment to climate change action has been increasingly evident since 2007, when the country hosted the UNFCCC 13th Conference of the Parties in Bali and a high level meeting of Finance Ministers.
The IFRS can be applied in the multi national company (MNC) and listing firms across the country but it does not mean it can replace the national accounting standards that have been owned by respective countries. The accounting standardization is not an easy job because each country has different political, social, and economic background. This study is to reveal the reason and who is behind IFRS adoption in Indonesia. This qualitative research is a case study based on cases representing institutions in Indonesia: DSAK, DPN IAI, BAPEPAM-LK, the finance ministry and the ministry of state own enterprises (BUMN). Data were collected by interviews and using readily available documents and processed with thematic analysis. The result shows the adoption of IFRS decisions is driven by international interests. Indonesia's membership in several international organizations, such as IFAC (International Federation on Accountant), IOSCO, and the G-20, has resulted in the approval of global accounting standards in Indonesia. Each organization has done a variety ways to ensure that its members adopt IFRS. IFRS should be based more on Indonesia accounting needs and should not be only based on a desire particularly coercion from others. In-depth analysis based on the reality of each particular business should be conducted before a decision to adopt IFRS is taken.
Currently, ASEAN has come to the new phase of cooperation on political security, economic, and socio-cultural by the establishment of ASEAN Charter in 2008. The cooperation has been deepened, widened, and enlarged. Accordingly, the AEC is the most significant cooperations, namely the economic integration of ASEAN which not mere free trade area but to make the region as a production basefor all products of ASEAN as well as to accomplish the region as a single market by applying scorecard system of AEC's blueprint that should be preserved by all ASEAN state members. Theformation of AEC in 2015 totally depends to the commitments of the member states of ASEAN to apply those agreed trade agreements, roadmaps, and plan of actions including AEC's blueprint.
This study investigates the contribution of Islamic banks and Islamic windows to the growth of the Nigerian economy. Data were obtained using structured questionnaires. 379 copies of questionnaires were administered based on the sample size obtained via the use of Taro Yamane formula. 367 questionnaires were successfully retrieved. Variables such as deposit activities, loan activities, and perception of bank employees were also adopted as explanatory or independent variable and dependent variable respectively. To support the study hypothesis were also formulated. For the analysis, measures of central tendency (tables, frequency and percentages) and inferential statistics (Logit Regression) were used. The result revealed that the variables (i.e. deposit and loan activities) have a positive impact on the growth of Nigeria's economy because the probability values of the variables (P=0.003 and 0.019) were less than alpha (α =0.05) level of significance. In other words, this implies that Islamic banks and windows have largely supported private consumption, business investments of its customers, aid government spending via sharia bonds (sukuk) to fund developmental projects of its customers. The study concludes that Islamic banks and windows have contributed towards the growth of the Nigeria's economy. Furthermore, the study recommends that there is need for creating the necessary legal framework to ensure its smooth operations, intensify efforts on creating public awareness, rolling out more sharia compliant products that can take care of the peculiarities that exist in business environment and training and retraining of staff on effective Islamic banking.
