BHUVANA: Journal of Global Studies

OVERHAULING THE MACHINE: BUREAUCRATIC REFORM AND FOREIGN POLICY MAKING IN POST-AUTHORITARIAN INDONESIA, 1998–2009

Reynaldo de Archellie — 2026-09-30

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.

THE RIPPLE AND WASHBACK EFFECTS OF WAR: AN ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACT OF THE GAZA WAR ON ISRAEL

Hasbi Aswar — 2026-09-30

Since October 2023, the Gaza War has not only triggered an escalation of violence in Palestine but has also produced a significant ripple effect on Israel across multiple sectors. Employing a ripple effect and washback of war framework, this paper analyzes how the war has generated cascading waves of impact affecting the material, economic, and political dimensions — both domestic and international — for Israel. This study adopts a qualitative method through data collection from Israeli government sources and academic journals related to the Israel-Gaza war since 2023. The findings reveal that the war has had a substantial impact on Israel, both domestically and internationally, encompassing economic disruption, shifts in Israeli public perception, and an increasingly critical change in global attitudes toward Israel, including among countries that have historically been pro-Israel. The contribution of this study lies in its attempt to examine the other side of the Israel-Gaza conflict, which has predominantly been portrayed through the lens of Gaza as the party suffering the greatest losses.

IMMIGRATION SURVEILLANCE CONTRADICTIONS: HUNGARY’S LABOR MARKET PRAGMATISM AND INDONESIA’S MIGRANT PROTECTION DIPLOMACY, 2020–2026

Mohammad Nashiir — 2026-10-27

This study analyzes the contradictions of global migration governance (2020–2026), where Hungary’s labor market pragmatism intersects with Indonesia’s proactive protection diplomacy. This study applies an integrated framework that elaborates on two core concepts, namely market-oriented surveillance that explains how host states operate borders as elastic economic filters to fulfill corporate labor needs amid anti-immigration politics, and sending-state protection diplomacy that describes the proactive interventions of the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Budapest and the Indonesian Migrant Workers Protection Agency in establishing formal state-backed protections. Utilizing a qualitative method, this study finds that Hungary’s strict borders did not deter Indonesia from successfully employing procedural agency to build enclaves for the protection of migrant workers. This study contributes to filling an academic gap on the under-researched Indonesia–Hungary corridor in South–North literature in Central Europe. This study empirically contributes by mapping the capacities and limitations of Indonesia’s protection diplomacy vis-à-vis exploitation risks.