OVERHAULING THE MACHINE: BUREAUCRATIC REFORM AND FOREIGN POLICY MAKING IN POST-AUTHORITARIAN INDONESIA, 1998–2009
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59314/bjgs.v4i2.295Keywords:
Bureaucratic Reform, Foreign Policy, Post-Authoritarian Indonesia, Structurist Methodology, DemocratizationAbstract
This article examines how the post-1998 reform of Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reshaped the state’s capacity to formulate and conduct foreign policy. Studies of Indonesian foreign policy have tended to explain change through either individual leaders or systemic pressures, leaving the bureaucratic institutions that mediate between the two relatively underexplored. Focusing on Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda’s systematic overhaul (2001–2009), the article argues that this overhaul was a structuring process driven by the interplay between reformist agents and the conditions of post-authoritarian democratization. Drawing on primary sources including ministerial interviews and a bilateral treaty database, it advances three findings: the reform reasserted professional civilian control over foreign policy formulation; generated new institutional capacity to conduct and diversify bilateral relations; and enabled the revitalization of Indonesia–Russia relation. The article contributes to the historiography of Indonesian diplomacy and to the broader study of how democratization reshapes the institutional architecture of foreign policy.
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