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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.

The Church-State relationships in EU Member States are in a process of a radical transformation. This is the result of a rapid political integration and also of the major transformations of the modernity. Religion is still part of the European public space even if, according to modernity premises, it should be only a private matter. According to Max Weber and other authors, secularization diminishes the role of the religion in society. However, these theories are being contested in recent years, due to the interpretation of statistical data and to the emergence of fundamentalist religious movements spreading around the world. Consequently, secularization is a tendency and not an "iron law". As regards the current role of the religion, Silvio Ferrari developed the theory according to which there is a common European model. This model does not exist yet, but certainly we live in an era defined by the continuous searching of such a model. There is no European identity without common values. Some of these values, like toleration, do have a profound religious foundation. European integration is based on the action of different actors, including interest groups located in Brussels. The Churches and the religious organizations are also part of this category of actors and they try to be part of a process by which a common space for consultation will emerge.

Pierre Manent is viewed as a French thinker that develops in modern times the liberal tradition of political thinking. One of the most important issues of Manent's thinking that was not enough underlined it is the relationship between religion an politics and how this evolved from the beginning of Christianity until the main consequences of modernity. Manent view on religion and politics is the core of this paper analysis. The main contributions of Manent, such as Naissances de la politique moderne. Machiavel, Hobbes, Rousseau (1977), Histoire intellectuelle du lib.ralisme (1987) La cit. de l'homme (1994), Cours familier de philosophie politique (2001), La raison des nations. R.flections sur la d.mocratie en Europe (2006) are analyzed from this perspective. Our conclusion is that in the way Manent deals with the relationship between politics and religion there are some constants that may be found in all his work. These are: the relationship between the Church and the different forms of political organization in Europe (Civitas, Imperium, monarchy); the fact that Christianity is one of the few current relevant concepts for political, due to the failure of totalitarian ideologies; the idea that secularization in Europe is not irreversible; we live in "an age of separations", and Church-State is one of these separations; we witness the religion transformation process and the .tat la.que cannot survive to .tat-nation; the role of Islam in modern societies and his perpetual finding of a political form; the relationship between Judaism, state and nation; the issue of the Christian identity of Europe.

The European Union is a rather new player in international relations. The European Union is neither a state nor international organization. With the accession to the European Union, the states transfer some attributes of sovereignty and, thus, the governing is done by the European Union mostly, taking part in its relations with third countries. At the same time, it contains some elements of the union (confederation, federation). Therefore, the European Union is more than an international organization. We find elements of the federation, confederation without being identified as such, being established on a system of organization. The European Union aims for integration of societies within a single economic, social, political, legal area. The European Union acts as a proper system based on an idea of creating strong Union bonds between the people of Europe, by establishing an internal market, an economical Union. The European Union, in its relations with the member states, keeps the ultimate goal that it has, being an international legal person, special competences, realizing common goals established with the member states. The legal basis of the European Union is represented by two treaties: the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The well-known Lisbon Treaty represents legally an amending treaty of the previous legal instruments - a compromise between the need for reform, on the one hand, and the need to live in a united Europe, on the other hand. The member states of the EU relate to two legal systems. As a result of their participation in an international organization with supranational character, Member States of the European Union assume a number of commitments with repercussions to their state sovereignty. The Member States coexist with the European Union. The European Union has become, along with its Member States, a matter of international law; even if it shows itself as a conglomerate of states - international organization; it is a union of states established by state attributes, an entity more complex and powerful, with a higher importance with its relations with the Member States, but also with an increased influence on international arena.

Any reflection on the relationship between religion and politics in the Catholic thought cannot do without reminding the Augustinian distinction between the civitas Dei and civitas terrena. The goal and foundation of any just political community should be the orientation to wards the common good. In the contemporary catholic thought, Johann Baptist Metz proposes a political theology revolving around the concepts of the value of the human person, the necessary refusal, on the part of the Church, of any mundane ideology and the necessary use of the socially critical potential of theological thought. Hans Küng criticizes any politicization of theology. He insists on the development of an internal pluralism within the Church and advocates a self-limitation of the magisterial intervention in the world in the name of a necessary "eschato logical reserve". Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict the XVIth , invested with the magisterial authority, relies heavily on official documents of the Catholic social doctrine. He emphasizes the necessity of founding the state on the central value of justice and its acting according to the principle of subsidiarity. In this context, the Christian faith and the Church in particular may have a pedagogical role, as it may guide reason to follow the right priorities. All three thinkers agree on the public significance of the Christian vision of society and on the fact that it may help society both by its critical and by its constructive dimension.

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.