The Perils and Challenges of Advancing Economic Governance Reform in Indonesia: An Endeavor by the Technocrats in the New Order Era

摘要

After the tumultuous Soekarno government in the late 1960's, the army chief General Suharto emerged as a new leader with the primary task to repair Indonesia's economic growth and restore the international community's confidence in Indonesia's economy. To carry out this tremendous challenge, Suharto appointed a group of talented economist from the University of Indonesia who mostly were graduated from the United States best known as the Technocrats. The Technocrats were able to assist Suharto in restoring and even delivering an unprecedented economic growth of more than 5% with full support from the international community during the late 1960s to the early 1990s. However, In the next stage, the Technocrats had to face even more challenges as they confronted vested interest groups when they tried to push for substantial economic governance reform, like the so called 'financial generals', conglomerates and nationalist bureaucrats. This article will provide an analysis on the political aspects of the Technocrats embarking on this economic governance reform and identifying the extent of the progress of this reform. This article reveals how the Technocrats were eventually overwhelmed by their political adversary, thus was only able to deliver limited economic governance reform. This article utilizes primary sources including diplomatic correspondence, memos, reports from the United Kingdom (UK) Foreign Commonwealth Office and the Australia Department of Foreign Affairs as well as Indonesian and international mass media articles. To complement the documents, interviews with more than 30 relevant resource persons who mainly served or were indirectly Involved in Suharto's government.