| dc.description.abstract | ABSTRACT
As a nation that gained its independence with the involvement of people power, Indonesian
nationalism was awakened by the spirit of populism. In the limited capacity of post-independence
economic and military, various implementation of Indonesia’s foreign policies also be welcomed
and got strong support from the power of the masses. But in the course of history, due to elitism
in the Soeharto era, made foreign policy to be elitisized. Influence from people muted. The
policies were run almost personally by President Suharto so that Indonesia's foreign policy
becomes uninstitutionalized. Changes of political system in the Reformasi era (reforms) since the
fall of President Suharto created opportunities to reformulate and institutionalize of Indonesia’s
foreign policy.
Meanwhile, during the first decade of Reform era in Indonesia (1998-2008) world political scene
has undergone many changes and dynamics that presents opportunities and challenges toward
Indonesia’s foreign policy, particularly the transformation of economic globalization and
international issues. Ambiguity of Indonesia’s foreign policy profile at the beginning of the
Reformasi era became an intellectual challenge, namely how to explain the "profile" that often be
simplified as just "no-profile". Reforms provides an opportunity to the spirit of populism to back in,
however the implementation of Indonesia's foreign policy sometimes seems elitist. It’s a
challenge for scientific analysis. Therefore, this work also specifically describes the factors
forming the profile of implementation of RI's foreign policy in the era of the Reform.
Three frames of analysis that will be used in this work namely the balance of threat theory,
balance of interest argument, and political mobilization model. The three approaches are referred
to as neoclassical realism approach that tries to improve the structural realism approach. Based
on the frame of analysis, it formulates two independent variables namely the intensity of
international pressure and alignment between the interests of domestic elites and the
public. Based on this argument, a typology can be constructed which shows the four
variants of PLNRI profile, namely active populism, reactive populism, pseudo populism,
and non-populism.
Using text and discourse analysis methods, this work will proof that such two variables
influence to RI’s foreign policy implementation. In the strong international pressure, the
less aligned the interests of elites and masses, the foreign policy increasingly populist,
and in a weak international pressure, the less aligned the interests of elites and masses,
the populism increasingly apparent.
Keywords: free-and-active foreign policy, neoclassical realism, elitism, populism,
international pressure, domestic alignment. | en_US |
