Title: Networks of Power and Business: Indonesia’s Political Economy
Speaker: Wahyu Prasetyawan (Associate Professor at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN) in Jakarta / Visiting Research Scholar, CSEAS)
Abstract: This study employs network analysis to explore Indonesia’s political economy with a focus on the intricate interconnections between political and business actors and how they influenced policy decisions over the past two decades. By mapping these relationships, this research reveals how power is contested and help us understand policy-making processes. This study focuses on three key sectors: palm oil, mining, and information technology. Through this lens, it presents an alternative conceptualisation of power, defined by the dynamic relationships among actors. In this framework, actors with extensive connections serve as central hubs within the network. Actors are categorised as businesspersons, officials, businessperson-politicians, and politicians. The findings of this study show that, in the palm oil and mining sectors, hubs are predominantly businessperson-politicians, followed by politicians. Yet in contrast, the information technology sector is characterised by hubs occupied by businesspersons with technological expertise, independent of political influence. This study contends that relationships between political and business actors are deeply shaped by intertwining political and economic interests offering fresh insights on Indonesia’s evolving policy-making processes.
Bio: Dr Wahyu Prasetyawan is an Associate Professor at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN) in Jakarta. Since 2007, he has also served as a visiting Professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in Tokyo, Japan. He holds an MA in Development Studies from the University of Leeds, UK, and a PhD in Political Economy from Kyoto University, Japan. Dr Prasetyawan has published numerous articles in leading academic journals and authored the book Networked: Business and Politics in Decentralizing Indonesia 1998-2004, which was published by NUS and Kyoto University Press in 2018. This work was awarded the 36th Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize in 2019 for a book in the social sciences. He is also one of the editors of Local Governance of Peatland Restoration in Riau, Indonesia (Springer, 2023) and Standing Firm for Indonesia’s Democracy: An Oral History of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (World Publishing, 2024). His research focuses on the political economy of natural resources, economic growth, democratisation, and identity politics.
