Publication

This analysis examines the durability of Indonesia’s ‘resource nationalism’, which focuses on acquiring greater national control and wealth from natural resources sectors, often at the expense of foreign capital. The text’s author specifically concludes that 1) although market cycle theories argue that resource-rich countries will roll back nationalist interventions when commodity prices fall, this hasn’t been the case in Indonesia; 2) an expanding domestic capitalist class and the imperatives of popular politics have given rise to a particularly durable brand of resource nationalism in Indonesia (in fact, it has become a permanent feature of the country’s political economy); and 3) despite this state of affairs, ambiguity still exists about the country’s economic policy regime – i.e., it has not become hopelessly nationalistic.