The rise of populism is a contemporary global phenomenon occurred in many part of the world, including Indonesia. The rising populism in the country has been epitomized by the emergence of two populist candidates, Jokowi and Prabowo, in the 2014 presidential election and recurring in the 2019 simultaneous election, which brings about new complexities in the dynamics of contemporary political contestation. The uniqueness of such competing populist politics is that both exploit the rhetoric of nationalism and social justice combined with the traits of respective candidates, in contrast to the conventional pattern of populists in other nations. This article attempts to analyze the transformation of competing populisms in two different elections and discusses its consequences to electoral politics, including the elaboration on populist’s working pattern in contestation processes and factors underlying the return of populism in Indonesia’s politics. Employing concept of populism in eclectic way and elite adjustment thesis, this paper demonstrates how populist politics is only instrumented as a vehicle of entrenched elite and oligarchic interests by pragmatically exploiting various aspects ranging from primordial identity, clientalistic relations, achievements and personalities of each candidates, instead of offering greater prospects for substantially political transformation and democratic deepening for the years to come.Keywords: Populism, Indonesia’s Election, Elite Adjusment, Identity Politics, Oligarchy, Democracy
With the rise of digital technologies and innovation disrupting the economy, the global phenomenon challenged the current concept and strategies of “conventional” economic diplomacy that have increasingly gained importance in contemporary foreign policy, including Indonesia. In the meantime, the digital economy had been significantly growing as a potential driver of growth and an inclusive economy which becomes central in the Indonesian development agenda. A new or innovation-based economy such as the digital economy did not only become one of the priorities in national policies but also emerge to be an essential variable to the foreign policy of Indonesia amid diplomatic deficit. This research examines Indonesia’s economic diplomacy in optimizing the potential of digital and new economic activities in facing the challenges of digital disruption. By employing integrative diplomacy concept, this research argues that Indonesia’s government should pursue intermestic, comprehensive and integrative strategies in its economic diplomacy by integrating new economy through the construction of “innovation diplomacy.” This research finds that the existing economic diplomacy is strongly directed to “conventional” commercial diplomacy, while it gives insufficient space for a new economy to develop significantly, due to the absence of concept supporting the operation of innovation-focused economic diplomacy. Consequently, it is suggested that Jakarta urgently has to reconceptualize its economic diplomacy more strategically in order to achieve “diplomatic sophistication,” by way of constructing “innovation diplomacy” as a subset of economic diplomacy.
Democracy decline undermines optimism for the expansion of world’s democracy as it occurred in established democracies. The decline from democratic to autocratic regime or “autocratization” is being experienced by India (the world’s largest democracy), Hungary (the established democracy in the European Union), and Turkey (the influential democracy in the Muslim world). Although they have different views of the main causes of the democracy decline, experts agree that authoritarian tendency driven by autocratic leaders erodes democratic values. The autocratization in the above three democracies is strongly related to “authoritarian populism” adopted by the incumbents and reflected on their antagonistic attitudes towards democracy. This article compares the role of anti-democratic populism in India, Hungary, and Turkey in the process of autocratizing democracies in the last decade. Autocratization in which authoritarian populism plays a significant role occurs through the “autocratization stages” as follows: the politicization of people’s disappointment, social polarization based on cultural narratives, weakening of democratic institutions, control of alternative information, and repression of opposition and critics. The article concludes that as seen in the cases of India, Hungary and Turkey, autocratization is highly dependent on the incumbents' skill in exploiting populist rhetoric to legitimize the regime's authoritarian actions.
The negative impact of globalization affects the very existence of cultural identities including local languages. Indonesia, multilingual state with more than 700 local languages, encounters such impact where a number of its languages are increasingly endangered, even some of them already dead. This paper is intended to identify some issues faced by the government and its policies to preserve its vernacular languages. In the final section, we suggest the concept of glocalization as important understanding to expand actors' viewpoint in preserving local languages from endangerment and extinction, as well as attempts to contribute some of the ideas substantiating the preservation effort.
As competitiveness gains currency, it compels many governments' concerns in achieving economic resilience to avoid the Middle-income Trap. Indonesia has focused on promoting industrialization and economic diversification as a response to the probability of being trapped. However, it has been shown that the performance of the manufacturing sector in Indonesia has been unsatisfying due to the inability to enhance human and technological competences and managing the transition from labor- and resource-intensive to capital- and technology-intensive industries. This situation signifies the importance of industrial revitalization in Indonesia by strengthening the weakest links, innovation, and human capital through the adoption of capability-focused industrial policy on innovation and technology. This paper examines factors that challenge Indonesia to develop innovation and technological capabilities in the industrial sector and analyze the role of the state in organizing industrial policy based on the adoption of the capabilities-focused strategy within re-industrialization in the democratic setting. Employing Thee Kian Wie’s conditions for industrial technology development and Dani Rodrik’s industrial policy, this study reveals vital factors challenging Indonesia’s efforts on innovation and technological development in manufacturing industries. It also found two ideational factors affecting the Orde-Baru bureaucratic culture and practice remain intact in the policy formulation and implementation, in which those are ultimately obstructing the current industrial policy to achieve the policy goals and right institutional setting.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.