Digital Diplomacy in Indonesia’s Foreign Policy
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This policy review analyzes the international cooperation experienced in Indonesia during the COVID‐19 pandemic, specifically concerning vaccine cooperation. It examines the policy debates of vaccine cooperation within Indonesia from the government, parliament, religious organizations, civil society, and mass media. Although some feel pessimistic about vaccine cooperation, the results found that vaccine cooperation has a positive impact on Indonesia. This is because gradually after the highest COVID‐19 cases in July 2021, the government continued to increase the vaccination rate and by the end of September 2021, Indonesia finally reached the lowest case numbers. Therefore, the vaccine cooperation between Indonesia and other countries proved to be effective in reducing the COVID‐19 cases in Indonesia. International cooperation is necessary in times of crisis.
By the mid of June 2021, after an almost 1.5-year-long COVID-19 pandemic that has significantly affected the world in multiple ways, various vaccines against COVID-19 have arrived and started worldwide. Yet, economic, (geo)political, and socio-cultural factors may influence its uptake at individual and country levels. Several issues will (and already have been reported in media) revolve around this vaccination regarding its accessibility, affordability, and acceptability at an individual level and a country level. Given that in this commentary, we provoke a discussion: Who—a country as well as the individuals—would have access to it, and who would economically afford it, and who would accept it? Centering these intriguing questions, we revisit the body of literature that explicates vaccine hesitancy, refusal, and resistance, and we also draw on the current literature and media reports about vaccination against COVID-19. We suggest that these backdrops need essential attention so that everyone can afford, accept, and have access to it. Otherwise, the current risk in the face of a year-old pandemic will continue.
Following atrocities against the minority Muslim Rohingya population by the Myanmar military, several states have imposed sanctions and deployed international justice strategies against the Myanmar government. In contrast, Indonesia has used an alternative ‘quiet diplomacy’ approach, focused on aid delivery to affected communities and cooperation with Myanmar. The paper presents one of the first empirical examinations of Indonesia’s role, and considers Indonesia’s approach from a realpolitik perspective to show why Indonesia has avoided R2P measures. The paper identifies three factors that shaped Indonesia’s approach: Islamic humanitarianism, Indonesia’s own experience of managing civil–military relations during a contested democratic transition, and its continued commitment to core asean principles. The paper also contributes to wider debates by identifying some of the limitations of R2P, especially in terms of how R2P can be sidelined by national and regional diplomatic priorities, in this case manifested in the quiet diplomacy approach.
Under the authority of the Burmese military, the Rohingya have long been subjected to discrimination and segregation in systemic attacks linked to their identity. In 2017, the Burmese security forces launched a series of attacks resulting in nearly a million Rohingya refugees fleeing to camps in Bangladesh. What causes the other people in Myanmar to turn a blind eye towards the dire situation of the Rohingya? Using very similar rhetorical devices to those seen in Central Europe in connection to refugees, influential Burmese monks and army officers spread hateful, exclusionary images and commentaries on social media representing Islam as a threat to Buddhism, ‘traditional values’ and national security. While the vast majority of international media criticize the Burmese government for its actions and present the Rohingya as a persecuted minority, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar depicts them as a homogenous group of perpetrators threatening national peace and stability. Through the textual analysis of the outputs of this state-run media outlet, light is shed on the ways in which the situation in Rakhine State has been mis-framed by the state.
This article seeks to analyze the social situation in Indonesia, where the conflict that occurred overseas manifested into violent actions against person or group within the country, who is considered to have a similar identity with overseas perpetrators. This pattern of violence is perpetrated against minority groups in Indonesia who have no involvement in conflict abroad. Some impacts of the Rohingya crisis in Indonesia are ranging from forced closure threat to Vihara in Medan, a demonstration on Buddhist religious symbols, beating against a Buddhist monk, and even bomb terror in Vihara. In social psychology theory, this violence is part of Freud's Defense Mechanism theory called Displacement. Furthermore, to answer why this displaced aggression can occur in Indonesia, I use Social Identity theory that the reductionist view of singular affiliation creates a gap in understanding of 'Self' and 'Other.' It then creates an intergroup bias when individuals tend to prioritize their group (in-group) compared to other groups (out-group). At last, this situation also reaffirms the concept of imagined community by Benedict Anderson.
The aim of this essay is to discuss and assess the effects of the 2020 COVID -19 pandemic on small state diplomacy. The essay identifies the characteristics of successful small state crisis diplomacy and unpacks the implications for small state diplomacy in general. Small states crave stability and predictability and seek shelter from international institutions and great powers. International crises are understood as particularly acute for small states because the limited capacity and capabilities of these states leave them with a small margin of time and error and vulnerable to risks and threats. However, small state diplomacy in the spring 2020 corona crisis illustrates the potential of activist small state diplomacy using smart and entrepreneurial policies to forge plurilateralist small- and middle-power co-operation.
Sejalan dengan ide mengenai pentingnya penggunaan teknologi digital pada pratek diplomasi maka Kementrian Luar Negeri melalui Direktorat Informasi dan Diplomasi Publik menginiasi upaya untuk menyelenggarakan praktis diplomasi publik melalui sejumlah media sosial termasuk facebook. Artikel ini menyoal pemaknaan diplomasi digital oleh Kementrian Luar Negeri Indonesia melalui Facebook yang sudah mulai diselenggarakan semenjak tahun 2010. Melalui metode intepretif atas berita unggahan pada facebook Kementrian Luar Negeri antara tahun 2018-2019 dan dan respon yang diberikan atas komentar netizen, maka artikel ini mengajukan asumsi bahwa Kementrian Luar Negeri masih memaknai diplomasi digital sebagai alat diplomasi yang sederhana, yaitu sebagai diseminasi informasi publik. Tujuan diplomasi digital sebagai bagian dari diplomasi publik guna memengaruhi persepsi publik belum sepenuhnya diakomodasi.
A Rohingya young boy with the diplomat magazine 2014, named Mohammad rafique said that Burmese view to them simply, as-animals,‖-non-human‖ or-aliens.‖ Many inflammatory Burmese politicians and authors refer to the Rohingya as a-virus.‖ Ordinary Burmese people view us as-Illegal Bengali‖. Actually there have been decades of propaganda and brainwashing of the general public against Rohingya by various government and non-government organizations. History witnesses that they are being persecuted long after day by Burmese military. Rohingya often faces deadly discrimination since 1962. The Myanmar government treats with them as a ugly animals. Despite world authority's evocation, they are driving persecution bulldozer on Rohingya minor community. Recently united nation has defined this killing as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing. Whatever, this paper focuses the conflict and Massacre which is running on Rohingya Muslims community. It also examines the origin and emergence of this crisis and current situation of Rohingya dearth. It discuss about ongoing military campaign against Rohingya ethnic community. This paper illustrates how Myanmar government implicating ethnic cleansing day after day .It also analyzes international response to protect Rohingya Muslims .This paper describe major clash between Myanmar and Rohingya group since 1962.
Indonesia is known as a country whose people massively use social media. It is currentlyone of the largest internet users in the world, especially social media. President of Indonesia,Joko Widodo, (famously called ‘Jokowi’) also tries to ‘fit in’ to the trend of social media acrossIndonesia. Jokowi has several social media accounts, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,and YouTube. He even publishes a lot of his works, including his meeting agenda with otherstates’ leaders. Jokowi sometimes uploads some video blogs or ‘vlogs’ which some of them arecollaborations with leaders of powerful countries, such as King Salman Abdul Aziz of SaudiArabia, Emmanuel Macron of France, and many others. Therefore, the authors consider thisas a great opportunity for Indonesia to start digital diplomacy. Through literature study,the authors will provide a broader analysis of prospect and challenge of Indonesia’s digitaldiplomacy. The findings showed that digital diplomacy implemented by Jokowi has a goodprospect albeit many challenges. Moreover, it was also discovered that this type of diplomacycould bring some threats to Indonesia.
ABSTRAKRohingya conflict in Myanmar has been a crucial issue in the midst of global society. Having been rolling since the British colonial era in Myanmar, concrete actions are needed in resolving conflicts, which involving Rohingya Muslims and Buddhist Rakhine. This conflict has spread to sectarian conflicts and therefore must be resolved immediately. This article is written to see national interest of Indonesia and Indonesian way of diplomacy as a country with largest Muslim population in the world, also as a fellow ASEAN countries, in ending the Rohingya conflict. Researcher will observe Indonesia’s national interest in this issue using the paradigm of realism, one of the theories in the study of International Relations. Realist thought is based on the search for power and domination. The research will use qualitative methods conducted by doing a literature study. The results of research from various source, show that in achieving national interests, Indonesia must use Indonesian style diplomacy summarized in a free and active foreign policy.Keywords: Conflict, Rohingya, Indonesia, Myanmar, National Interest, Diplomacy, RealismKonflik Rohingya di Myanmar, sudah sekian lama menjadi isu yang krusial di tengah-tengah masyarakat global. Telah bergulir sejak era penjajahan Inggris di Myanmar, diperlukan langkah-langkah konkrit dalam penyelesaian konflik yang melibatkan kaum Muslim Rohingya dan Rakhine yang beragama Buddha. Konflik ini telah merambah menuju konflik sektarian dan oleh karena itu harus segera diselesaikan. Artikel ini bertujuan untuk melihat kepentingan nasional Indonesia dan cara Indonesia berdiplomasi sebagai negara dengan jumlah penduduk Muslim terbesar di dunia dan juga sebagai sesama negara ASEAN, dalam penyelesaian konflik Rohingnya. Peneliti akan mengamati kepentingan nasional Indonesia dalam isu ini dengan menggunakan paradigma realisme, salah satu teori dalam studi Hubungan Internasional. Pemikiran kaum realis sendiri berlandaskan pada pencarian kekuasaan dan dominasi. Penelitian akan menggunakan metode kualitatif yang dilakukan dengan cara melakukan studi literatur. Hasil penelitian dari berbagai sumber, menunjukkan bahwa di dalam mencapai kepentingan nasional, Indonesia harus menggunakan diplomasi ala Indonesia yang terangkum dalam kebijakan politik luar negeri bebas aktif. Kata-Kata Kunci: Konflik, Rohingya, Indonesia, Myanmar, Kepentingan Nasional, Diplomasi, Realisme
Indonesia memegang peranan penting dalam industri minyak sawit dunia, seiring dengan keberhasilan pembangunan perkebunan sawit baik oleh Negara, perusahaan besar swasta, dan oleh perkebunan rakyat yang berkembang secara revolusioner hingga membawa Indonesia menjadi Negara produsen minyak sawit (CPO = Crude Palm Oil) terbesar di dunia. Proses perkembangan tersebut telah membawa dampak yang luas dalam pembangunan, baik pembangunan daerah, pengurangan kemiskinan, serta keberhasilan komoditas ini menjadi komoditas strategis dan memberikan kontribusi yang besar dalam perolehan devisa Negara serta membantu mengatasi besarnya defisit neraca perdagangan Indonesia. Di samping itu dari sudut agribisnis pengembangan komoditas ini membawa dampak yang sangat luas baik ke industri hulu hingga ke industri hilir serta berkembangnya industri oleo food, oleo chemical, hingga ke biodiesel.
Di samping kemajuan di atas, industri minyak sawit Indonesia juga berupaya memenuhi standar pasar global khususnya untuk menjawab isu sustainability dalam tata kelola perkebunan sawit Indonesia. Hal ini sekaligus mendorong industri ini tumbuh dengan baik dengan membenahi kekurangan-kekurangan yang terdapat dalam industri ini, yang tercermin dalam berbagai kritik dan masukan untuk lebih menyempurnakan perkembangan industri strategis ini ke masa yang akan datang.
Buku ini dibagi dalam dua bagian yakni Bagian I Industri Sawit dalam Pembangunan Daerah (Provinsi Riau, Sumatra Selatan, Kalimantan Timur, Kalimantan Tengah) dan Bagian II Industri Minyak Sawit dalam Isu Nasional baik menyangkut biodiesel, isu sustainabilitas, isu replanting dan isu penting lainnya.
Since the end of January 2020, in response to the growing COVID-19 epidemic, 55 countries have repatriated over 8000 citizens from Wuhan City, China. In addition to quarantine measures for returning citizens, many countries implemented PCR screening to test for infection regardless of symptoms. These flights therefore give estimates of infection prevalence in Wuhan over time. Between 30 th January and 1 st February (close to the peak of the epidemic in Wuhan), infection prevalence was 0.87% (95% CI: 0.32%-1.89%). As countries now start to repatriate citizens from Iran and northern Italy, information from repatriated citizens could help inform the level of response necessary to help control the outbreaks unfolding in newly affected areas.
The name Rohingya denotes an ethnoreligious identity of Muslims in North Rakhine
State, Myanmar (formerly Burma). The term became part of public discourse in the late
1950s and spread widely following reports on human rights violations against Muslims in
North Rakhine State during the 1990s, and again after 2012. Claims for regional Muslim
autonomy emerged during World War II and led to the rise of a Rohingya ethnonationalist
movement that drew on the local Muslim imaginaire, as well as regional history and
archaeology.
Artikel ini menjelaskan tentang diplomasi ekonomi dalam politik luar negeri Republik Indonesia di bawah Presiden Joko Widodo pada tahun 2015-2018 sebagai sebuah konsep dan kebijakan. Diplomasi ekonomi bukan sekadar satu dari arah kebijakan luar negeri tetapi lebih daripada itu diplomasi ekonomi telah menjadi corak dan gaya diplomasi Indonesia pada periode yang sama. Dari analisis kualitatif berbasis data-data sekuder berupa dokumen kebijakan, laporan resmi pemerintah dan pemberitaan media massa, studi ini mendapati bahwa politik luar negeri Indonesia di bawah Presiden Joko Widodo dilaksanakan untuk mendukung program pembangunan nasional. Dengn kata lain, politik luar negeri Presiden Joko Widodo adalah politik luar negeri untuk mengejar keperluan-keperluan dalam negeri. Oleh karenanya, corak diplomasi yang diterapkan adalah diplomasi ekonomi yang memang dibutuhkan untuk mendukung agenda pembangunan nasional, terutama penyelesaian program infrastruktur dan lainnya. Diplomasi ekonomi baru dalam terminologi tetapi sesungguhnya adalah revitalisasi diplomasi non-politik yang pernah dilaksanakan oleh Indonesia sebelumnya.Kata-kata kunci: politik luar negeri, diplomasi ekonomi, Indonesia, kemitraan ekonomi. This article explains the concept of economic diplomacy of Indonesian foreign policy under President Joko Widodo in 2015-2018. Economic Diplomacy is not only one of the Indonesian foreign policy directions under Joko Widodo but it was more as the most important characteristic and reference of Indonesian diplomacy of the period. Using a qualitative study that rellied upon the secondary data of policy documents, government reports, and media reporting from Kompas daily newspaper, this study concluded that the Indonesian foreign policy under President Joko Widodo was conducted to support the national development program, or foreign policy for domestic needs. Economic diplomacy was needed to support this national agenda of mega projects infrastructure and other development programs. This economic diplomacy was new in terminology but it was only a variant of non-political diplomacy which had been done by the ministry for foreign affairs of Indonesia in the previous administrations. Keywords: foreign policy, economic diplomacy, Indonesia, economic partnership.
Indonesia has taken a leadership role within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in drafting a common outlook on the Indo-Pacific concept. The widening of Indonesia's geostrategic canvas from the Asia–Pacific to the Indo-Pacific is in line with President Joko Widodo's intent to make Indonesia a Global Maritime Fulcrum (GMF). In view of the rivalry between the US and China and the emergence of various Indo-Pacific initiatives from other countries, Indonesia believes that ASEAN must try to maintain its centrality. The draft of Indonesia's perspective for an ASEAN outlook on the Indo-Pacific: towards a peaceful, prosperous, and inclusive region was submitted for considerations by ASEAN, and after 18 months of intensive lobbying by Indonesia the concept was finally adopted at the ASEAN Summit in June 2019. The ASEAN outlook promotes the principles of openness, inclusiveness, transparency, respect for international law and ASEAN centrality in the Indo-Pacific region. It proposes a building-block approach, seeking commonalities between existing regional initiatives in which ASEAN-led mechanisms will act as a fulcrum for both norm-setting and concrete cooperation. Rather than creating a new regional architecture, the East Asia Summit (EAS) is proposed as the platform for advancing the Indo-Pacific discourse and cooperation. Indonesia's ASEAN outlook on the Indo-Pacific marks its renewed foreign policy activism as a middle power and underlines the continuing importance that Indonesia places on ASEAN as the cornerstone of its foreign policy, emphasising ASEAN's centrality as the primary vehicle for managing relations with the major powers in the Indo-Pacific region.
Myanmar is a resource-rich country especially in oil and gas. The country is involved in ethnic conflicts since its independence in 1948. Recently violation of human rights against the Rohingya Muslims become severs. The main cause of Rohingya crisis is a question about its origin. Rakhine (or Arakan) is a State located in the west coast of Myanmar. The population of Arakan State is largely agrarian and more than 43.5% live below the poverty line. The Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority group in Rakhine, consider as the most persecuted, vulnerable, and oppressed minorities around the globe. Recently, the persecution on Rohingya Muslims has increased due to Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar. Rohingyas are continued to suffer from several forms of restrictions and human rights violations in Myanmar due to deny Myanmar citizenship. They are victim of various oppressions, such as, arbitrary taxation, land confiscation, destruction of mosques, torture and ill-treatment, extrajudicial executions, restrictions on movements, forced eviction and house destruction, forced laborers on roads and at military camps, and financial restrictions on marriage. Oppression on Rohingya started since 1962, when General Ne Win took power of Myanmar after a coup. Since the 1970s, a number of crackdowns on the Rohingya in Rakhine have forced hundreds of thousands to flee to neighboring countries. Sever Rohingya oppression took place in 2017 and 2018. More than one million Rohingya have migrated in Kutupalong-Balukhali, and Nayapara refugee camps, respectively, in Ukhia, and Teknaaf of Cox’s Bazar district of Bangladesh. This article deals with the origin of Rohingyas and their citizenship in the Rakhine State of Myanmar.
Regarding Southeast Asia as a multi-ethnics region, this paper attempts to examine about why Buddhist Community turns into religious violence against Rohingyas in the State of Rakhine (formerly known as Arakan). Through understanding the triggers of conflicts, this paper applies historical perspective to analyze why ethnic-religious conflict occur nowadays between Buddhist and Rohingya in Myanmar. This paper also discusses how the influence of history has constructed the government’s policy under military regime to exclude Rohingya. However, the ethno-religious conflict is either an indication of a weak state or failure state in managing diversity.
Key words: Ethnic-
In Soesilo Bambang Yudhoyono administration, the shift/ dynamics occurred in Indonesia foreign policy. In contrast to the exclusion and rejection of Islam as identity in official statement in Old and New Order, Indonesia actively promote moderate Islam in international relations. Using qualitative method, this document- based research argue that promotion of moderate Islam in Indonesia foreign policy was constructed by Islamic norm, Islam rahmatan lil alamin norm. This norm can be found by tracing the emergence process as mentioned by Finnemore and Sikkink’s Norms Life Cycle Model. The finding suggested some conformity to the model and some deviation especially in term of state actor and their motivation.
This paper explains the recent development of Indonesia’s digital diplomacy—which Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) has conducted—in responding to the growing challenges of information, communication, and technology (ICT) towards its national interest. The use of the internet and its social media has definitely changed the practices of diplomacy among sovereign states, including Indonesia. Analyzing the issue within the interplay between internet and diplomacy, this paper looks at the way Indonesia’s MOFA and its diplomats have kept up with the rapid development of the ICT by mastering the use of internet in winning people’s hearts and minds. Tracing back the MOFA’s policies and implementations of digital diplomacy through its website and other platforms of social media reveals its strong commitment in using digital diplomacy in managing its foreign relations in the recent internet era. Digital diplomacy has presented several benefits for having direct and interactive communication with foreign audiences. In addition, Indonesia’s digital diplomacy has also had to deal with various problems which are closely related to the increasing use of internet among states and non-state actors—both in domestic and international levels—which may put risk to state-to-state relations. Therefore, this paper argues that the response of Indonesia’s MOFA and its diplomats towards the increasing use of digital diplomacy would determine its capability in managing various problems and challenges of international relations in the recent internet era.
This book addresses how digitalization has influenced the institutions, practitioners and audiences of diplomacy. Throughout, the author argues that terms such as ‘digitalized public diplomacy’ or ‘digital public diplomacy’ are misleading, as they suggest that Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs) are either digital or non-digital, when in fact digitalization should be conceptualized as a long-term process in which the values, norms, working procedures and goals of public diplomacy are challenged and re-defined. Subsequently, through case study examination, this book also argues that different MFAs are at different stages of the digitalization process. By adopting the term ‘the digitalization of public diplomacy’, this book will offer a new conceptual framework for investigating the impact of digitalization on the practice of public diplomacy.
Ilan Manor is Researcher at the University of Oxford, UK, studying the use of digital diplomacy in times of crisis.
he situation analysis primarily focuses on oil palm in the context of biodiversity conservation based on literature published before 31 January 2018, and aims to provide a constructive pathway to addressing sustainability challenges in the palm oil industry. This report does not assess the social and economic implications of palm oil production and expansion but will refer to these when they are likely to have an impact on biodiversity conservation. Through identification of key knowledge gaps, the situation analysis will also provide direction to the Oil Palm Task Force in terms of seeking to address these knowledge gaps in the remainder of the 2017-2020 Quadrennium.
Fundamental transformations in the distribution of power among nations have re-focused the attention of the International Relations (IR) subfield on how to understand change and power transitions. I add to this larger literature by presenting a typology of change drawn from comparative politics that incorporates attention to incremental or slow moving change, and path-dependence as a theoretical tool to explain discontinuous change such as wars, and the fall of the former Soviet Union. I offer a distinction between process of change and its outcome. Change may be incremental or disruptive and could lead to continuity with existing institutions or their transformation. This typology allows us to explore the process of change and develop theories of change in a new way. In essence, I argue for broadening our conceptions of change to account for endogenous sources of change (internal to the system), and incremental yet significant change.
Electronic diplomacy (E-diplomacy) is the use of technology by nations to define and establish diplomatic goals and objectives and to efficiently carry out the functions of diplomats. These functions include representation and promotion of the home nation, establishing both bilateral and multilateral relations, consular services and social engagement. It encapsulates the adoption of multiple ICT tools over the Internet to support a nation's interests in other countries while ensuring that foreign relations are improved between the countries. Given its embryonic nature, little scholarly research has been undertaken to study its influence on diplomatic functions and the various factors that influence its implementation. This paper applies the Interpretative Structural Modelling (ISM) methodological approach to identify factors that impact the implementation of e-diplomacy and to determine their causal relationship and rankings. This study applies the ISM methodology to the subject of e-diplomacy. The ISM-based model provides a framework for practitioners to aid decision-making and manage the implementation of e-diplomacy.
The aim of the study is to deepen understanding the role of palm oil on Indonesian economy, poverty elevation and to investigate the positive and negative impacts of oil palm expansion, due to the burden of GHG emissions; and prospect to be more sustainable palm oil industry. The statistics show that average rural poverty tends to be lower and Gross Regional Product tends to be higher in provinces which have greater levels of oil palm cultivation. Indonesian oil palm will grow from 10.6 in 2013 to 13.7 million ha by 2020. This will release 135.59 million tons of CO2 if nothing is done to mitigate BAU emissions. Unless there are sustained efforts to redirect development and expansion of oil palm, plantation growth will continue to encroach on intact forest and peat land.. In fact Indonesia has large areas of degraded land, an estimated total 19,144,000 ha is available for planting oil palm and other crops. A large-scale expansion program driven by estate companies needs to be accompanied by effective smallholder development program in order to achieve the best outcome for local farmers and avoid the conflicts.
Since 2012, Southeast Asia has witnessed the human rights tragedy of the Rohingya people of Myanmar. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have been displaced from their homes and traveled to refugee facilities in Myanmar and Bangladesh, while others have been stranded on the Andaman Sea. The Rohingya crisis is perhaps the most horrific human rights tragedy after the crisis in Vietnam in the 1970s. As the crisis has developed, international communities, including ASEAN and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), have responded to the crisis. As the main regional organization, ASEAN has been hoped to elucidate the crisis tactically through peaceful means. OIC, meanwhile, has been expected to join humanitarian action using a diplomatic approach to other international humanitarian bodies, including the UNHCR. However, it is obvious that ASEAN's response to the crisis has been limited to diplomatic oration and failed to prevent a wider crisis. For OIC, its humanitarian solidarity has lacked access to the target community. Therefore, this paper would like to attempt a comparative analysis to describe the central inquiry; how have ASEAN and OIC responded to the Rohingya crisis? This analysis involves studying ASEAN and OIC publications and related references. The initial argument of this paper is that both organizations have given reasonable responses to the crisis, but have been unable to halt its advance.
With the resignation of President Soeharto in 1998 and subsequent democratization, Indonesia's foreign policy underwent major changes. More stakeholders than under Soeharto's New Order regime are now participating in foreign-policy making. The country seemed to make democracy promotion a hallmark of its foreign policy, especially under the presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (2004–2014). This raises the questions of whether and, if so, to what extent Indonesian democratization changed the country's established foreign-policy role conceptions and how much impact Indonesia's democratization had on the democratization of regional governance. The paper seeks to answer these questions by developing a theoretical framework based on a constructivist version of role theory. On the basis of speeches held by Indonesian political leaders in the United Nations General Assembly and major domestic foreign-policy pronouncements, it documents changes in Indonesia's foreign-policy role concepts. It shows that, indeed, in the Era Reformasi , democracy became a major component in the country's foreign-policy role concept, although many elements of the role concept such as development orientation, Third Worldism, peace orientation, and a mediator's role remained constant. However, the litmus test for a democracy-oriented foreign policy, that is, the democratization of regional governance in Southeast Asia, remains ambiguous, and concrete policy initiatives often declaratory.
What is digital diplomacy? How can it best be defined? This is a vexing question given the myriad of ways in which digitalization has impacted the practice of diplomacy. Arriving at such a definition becomes even more elusive when taking into account that scholars and practitioners also use the terms net diplomacy, social media diplomacy, diplomacy 2.0 and cyber diplomacy .This article aims to offer a definition of digital diplomacy. To do so, it first identifies certain events and processes that led to the emergence of digital diplomacy. Next, it demonstrates the manner in which digital diplomacy enables diplomats to overcome many of the limitations of traditional diplomacy. The article also explores the challenges of practicing digital diplomacy before ending with a definition of the term.
The Internet revolution has affected all aspects of life, including International relations. Diplomacy as a tool of foreign policy has also being transformed by this revolution. This paper examines the concept of digital diplomacy, focusing on the use of digital media in the field of diplomacy and how countries are utilizing these tools in the pursuit of their foreign policies. It examines the opportunities and challenges these media offer for diplomatic activities, and argues that countries cannot afford to be left behind in this era of digital diplomacy as they can greatly benefit from these emerging diplomatic trends. Digital diplomacy and Internet activities as a whole can greatly assist in projecting a state’s foreign policy positions to domestic and foreign audiences.
Palm oil is the most widely traded vegetable oil globally, with demand projected to increase substantially in the future. Almost all oil palm grows in areas that were once tropical moist forests, some of them quite recently. The conversion to date, and future expansion, threatens biodiversity and increases greenhouse gas emissions. Today, consumer pressure is pushing companies toward deforestation-free sources of palm oil. To guide interventions aimed at reducing tropical deforestation due to oil palm, we analysed recent expansions and modelled likely future ones. We assessed sample areas to find where oil palm plantations have recently replaced forests in 20 countries, using a combination of high-resolution imagery from Google Earth and Landsat. We then compared these trends to countrywide trends in FAO data for oil palm planted area. Finally, we assessed which forests have high agricultural suitability for future oil palm development, which we refer to as vulnerable forests, and identified critical areas for biodiversity that oil palm expansion threatens. Our analysis reveals regional trends in deforestation associated with oil palm agriculture. In Southeast Asia, 45% of sampled oil palm plantations came from areas that were forests in 1989. For South America, the percentage was 31%. By contrast, in Mesoamerica and Africa, we observed only 2% and 7% of oil palm plantations coming from areas that were forest in 1989. The largest areas of vulnerable forest are in Africa and South America. Vulnerable forests in all four regions of production contain globally high concentrations of mammal and bird species at risk of extinction. However, priority areas for biodiversity conservation differ based on taxa and criteria used. Government regulation and voluntary market interventions can help incentivize the expansion of oil palm plantations in ways that protect biodiversity-rich ecosystems.
One facet of information and communication technology in diplomacy is how and to what extent states implement digital tools in their diplomatic practices. This article focuses on the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) and argues that it has performed the early stages of digital diplomacy, during which it is carried out for information dissemination purposes and is mainly influenced by the domestic agenda. The research finds that Indonesian digital diplomacy is affected by various factors that have a substantial effect on the MoFA’s digital diplomacy plan of action. This article is a qualitative study supported mainly by primary data from interviews with Indonesian diplomats, high-ranking officials in the Indonesian MoFA, and Indonesian scholars and citizens. The focus is on the social media activity of the Indonesian MoFA on Twitter (@Kemlu_RI), Facebook (Kementerian Luar Negeri RI) and Instagram (kemlu_ri) from 2020 to April 2022.
Middle countries are considered to be more vulnerable in crisis management because of their marginal position in the international politics. In the pandemic, middle power diplomacy is expected to fill the void left by developed countries so that they focus on multilateral efforts. This paper argues that Indonesia exercised middle power diplomacy in 2020. This diplomacy is carried out with a commitment to encourage global cooperation in resolving the pandemic through multilateral efforts. The multilateral initiatives are carried out as part of ‘good international citizenship’, and also serves as the mechanism to voice Indonesian aspirations, aspirations related to humanity, efforts to create global norms, and efforts to reach international treaties. This paper is a qualitative research, which is based on a literature study in the form of an official statement from the Government of Indonesia through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is supported by secondary sources.
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk membedah strategi pembentukan wacana solidaritas muslim Indonesia dalam kasus mulim Rohingya oleh media massa Indonesia. Untuk melakukan hal tersebut dimanfaatkan teori analisis wacana Theo Van Leeuwen. Metode yang digunakan adalah analisis isi. Sumber data penelitian adalah tujuh teks berita daring dari media massa viva.co.id. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan konstruksi wacana yang dibangun cenderung mengedepankan citra Indonesia sebagai bangsa dengan umat muslim terbesar di dunia sebagai pahlawan kemanusiaan. Motif penggambaran wacana kemanusiaan dibangun melalui isu agama dan kemanusiaan. Konstruksi tersebut berdampak terhadap pemarjinalan kelompok lain. Pemerintah Myanmar justru lebih digambarkan dengan beragam citra negatif, begitu juga dengan para pengungsi Rohingya yang selalu digambarkan sebagai kelompok yang benar-benar sedang kesusahan dan benar-benar membutuhkan bantuan. Terdapat bobot pemberitaan yang tidak seimbang yang dilakukan oleh media viva.co.id yang berdampak pada pemarjinalan kelompok ini.
This paper argues that the increasing use of internet and its social media in Indonesia’s diplomacy has inevitably promoted the role of the state in enhancing public diplomacy (PD). On the one hand, Indonesia’s PD had found new ‘vehicles’ to reach society through various internet-based applications. These tendencies are in line with the serious effort of involving people or non-state actors in diplomacy. On the other hands, Indonesia’s PD has also had to deal with several problems and threats of the internet’s use, which have inevitably provoked governments’ authority in order to manage and coordinate responses and policies. This paper seeks to discuss to what extent the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA)or Kementerian Luar Negeri (Kemlu) has responded to manage the growing use of internet in PD for achieving national interest.Therefore, an analysis on the way the MOFA has maximized social media and digital diplomacy platforms and integrated them into Indonesia’s diplomatic practices is of importance.
The debate over the gap between theory and practice in international relations has been neglected by the vast majority of scholars. This paper is aimed to examine whether or not constructivist consideration has a place within ASEAN policy-making process regarding the Rohingya crisis. The absence of ASEAN’s role in managing Rohingya’s refugee crisis post-sectarian conflict in Myanmar has raised criticism on its effectiveness in dealing with regional problems. Despite the fact that ASEAN has already had a number of human rights instruments such as the ASEAN Charter, ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights and ASEAN Declaration of Human Rights, the organization arguably, did not do much to intervene in and try to overcome the Rohingya crisis. This paper offers possible contributions of constructivism in diagnosing and providing policy recommendations for ASEAN to solve such problem. From the constructivists’ standpoint, ASEAN did not do much intervention due to the lack of collective identity among its member states. As a consequence, there has not been enough “institutional commitment” to carry out collective action. Furthermore, constructivists’ perspectives may also provide strategic measures by suggesting that all member states should give priority to the process of collective identity building before any institutional arrangements are made.
The paper challenges the theoretical and empirical orthodoxy surrounding the debate on international military intervention and mass atrocity endings, via an evidence-based analysis of the situation in East Timor in 1999. By combining existing but under-explored data on mass atrocities with eyewitness accounts, new key informant interviews, and a detailed review of secondary sources, we demonstrate that the wave of militia-perpetrated violence in September 1999 was extinguished prior to the arrival of international military forces. We demonstrate the unique effect of national political factors, which, with the pressures of international diplomacy, combined to end mass atrocities in this particular case. We find that the Indonesian regime was not a uniformly recalcitrant regime opposed to ending the atrocities, and demonstrate how factors operating across the national and sub-national levels combined to force the Indonesian leadership to bring the militia perpetrators of this brutal episode of violence under control. Through our new empirical analysis, and the alternative explanation we present to explain endings of mass atrocities in this case, we challenge the tendency to focus on international military intervention as the means by which mass atrocities come to an end.
Social media is increasingly used as a means of communication between states. Diplomats and political leaders are ever more relying on Twitter in their daily practice to communicate with their counterparts. These exchanges occur in view of a global audience, providing an added level of scrutiny that is unique to this form of communication. Twitter arguably challenges traditional notions of diplomacy according to which it is conducted through formal channels of communication and informal face-to-face social engagement. Yet we must ask how instrumental social media is as a tool for signalling intentions, and whether this medium can be an effective platform for dialogue and trust development when traditional face-to-face diplomacy is limited. Social media posts by state representatives reflect and frame state identity and how a state wishes to be recognized by others. If we are attuned to these dynamics, shifts in representational patterns communicated through social media during high-level negotiations allow realizations of political possibilities for change. Key here is the surprising nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 that analysts and policy-makers have struggled to explain. I argue that the role of Twitter as a key part of negotiation strategy is a crucial demonstration of how social media can shape the struggle for recognition, and thereby legitimize political possibilities for change. Understanding the increasingly prominent and powerful, yet largely unknown, variable of social media as a tool of diplomatic practice provides insight into the recurrent question of how diplomats affect change beyond upholding the status quo in the international order.
As tropical country, Indonesia is rich with potential biomass that can be utilized as bioenergy feedstock. Crude palm oil (CPO) is currently the main feedstock used to commercially produce biodiesel in Indonesia. In addition to CPO, various agricultural crops can be utilized as bioenergy feedstocks, such as coconut, jatropha, sugarcane, sago, etc. In order to determine the type of plant potential after oil palm as bioenergy feedstock in Indonesia, an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) was conducted based on seven criteria including 1) food crop with surplus production, 2) plant productivity, 3) yield of biofuel, 4) multipurpose energy plant, 5) plant development readiness, 6) government policy, and 7) uncompetitive land use for food crop/easiness to grow in marginal land. Results of AHP analysis showed that palm oil was the most potential plant for biodiesel feedstock (0.237) followed by coconut (0.179), reutealis (0.147), calophyllum (0.120), pongamia (0.119), jatropha (0.100), and rubber (0.095). It was also shown that sugarcane (0.222) was the most potential feedstock to produce ethanol, followed by sorghum (0.174), sago (0.167), sugar palm (0.152), maize (0.143), and cassava (0.141).
Indonesian foreign policy has changed substantially since the fall of Suharto in 1998. Early post-Suharto governments were preoccupied with the business of democratic transition—establishing democratic institutions, withdrawing the military from politics, and resisting the various threats to reform. In more recent years, however, foreign policy has become a higher priority; the government has tried to improve Indonesia’s international image, and to enhance its role in Southeast Asia and in the world. Its foreign policy goals emphasize peace, prosperity and stability—in both the immediate region and globally—and Indonesia’s role in pursuing these goals. What explains the evolution of Indonesia’s foreign policy?