This paper attempts to understand the progressivity of economic regionalism in Southeast Asia. Unlike previous researches, this paper will explain how the complexity of Southeast Asia region affecting liberalism in ASEAN. This can be seen from how the mega-regional competition between TPP and RCEP hinders ASEAN centrality, signified by the fact that Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, and Brunei chose to participate in both cooperation, despite knowing that RCEP should be part of ASEAN centrality agenda. This paper will pay attention on two types of condition: (1) understanding the transformation into mega-regional partnership in Asia-Pacific; (2) understanding the decision of four ASEAN countries who choose to participate in both mega-regional models. The theory which will be used in this paper will be the ‘new trade strategy’ developed by Aggarwal and Lee (2011). In the end, this paper finds that there is a renewal in perception, interest, and domestic institution in the creation of RCEP and TPP. Meanwhile, the decision of Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei to participate in both RCEP and TPP is the result of rational calculation in terms of economic advantage, political economy, domestic structure improvement, and security. These four calculations can be seen in all country, especially those who utilize greater economic liberalization.
This paper discusses the possibility of strengthening the theory of regionness through the concept of social capital. The urgency for this topic arises from stagnating trend of regionalism project across the globe and the lack of discussions in the role of social aspect in regionalism. According to Björn Hettne and Fredrik Söderbaum’s theory on regionness, the intensification of social interaction at the grassroot level will pave a way for the creation of a new entity they referred to as the ‘regional state’. However, the theory’s fallacy came from its reliance on an assumption that social interaction will always lead to convergence. As has been proven by the case of Brexit, sometimes social interaction can also cause divergence and the collapse of the regionalism project itself. This paper employs literature review method to argue that the concept of social capital can complement this theory. It argues that social capital, which is an immaterial resources created through social interactions, will be able to increase the degree of regionness in one region. Furthermore, this paper will also open up a possibility to include sociology study, namely the theory of social understanding, in complementing the theory of regionness and social capital. This paper concludes that regionness is a social capital brought to the regional level as part of a joint effort to create a new governance system unimagined by any individuals alone.
This paper will discuss about problems surrounding discourse on the role of local government or ‘city’ in global environmental governance. Many scholars, such as Acuto (2013), Betsill & Bulkeley (2010) and Fraser (2014) have argued that city might be the missing actor that global environmental governance needs to make it work. However, this paper believes that the argument is riddled with fallacy, most notably with the way they did not take into account the existence of growth-based development ideology that can prevent local government from truly preserving the environment. This paper argues that city is not the panacea that will solve all environmental problems since it favors utilitarianism approach over deep ecology. However, this paper acknowledges that city could be the new norm entrepreneur that can strengthen international norm on environmental preservation.Keyword: City, Environment, Norm, Utilitarianism
This paper explains why domestic workers (PRT) remain not considered as formal workers in Indonesia. This problem becomes very urgent as PRT covers 76% of the national labor population and there has been considerable pressure from transnational community. This question is answered by applying Agamben's theory of state of exception. This paper deploysdiscourse analysis method to examine a number of texts related to the Government of Indonesian's stance and the advocacy for PRT's rights in Indonesia. This study finds that the Government of Indonesia has established a state of exception allowing to ignore PRT's rights as workers under existing law. The study, then, concludes that the Government of Indonesian cannot be expected to meet PRT's rights. Consequently, the strategy of advocacy should be directed to encourage other countries to push Indonesia so as to meet PRT's rights.
In general, there are two assumptions often associated with the Indonesian labor movement in the Reformation Era: (1) the labor movement inhibits the production process and the investment climate by conducting demonstrations and/or strikes and (2) the labor movement constantly makes unreasonable demands, generally attributed to wage increases demands. This paper attempts to position these assumptions as irrelevant and also potentially lead to backward thinking in seeing how the labor movement struggles to achieve prosperity for all Indonesian workers. Through biopolitical analysis, this paper tries to explain that giving workers the right to association will not threaten national security, as long as freedom of association can be regulated and directed to ensure the survival of labor, the condusive social relations of production and the improvement of the living conditions of society in order to sustain the economic system. The analysis in this paper has led to the finding that the demands provided by the labor movement are part of the corrective mechanisms of the production system in Indonesia, and the freedom of labor to associate is an essential factor that can guarantee the economic and political security as well as the sovereignty of the Indonesian state.
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