Featured Article 4 - Indonesia at Melbourne

Prabowo’s managed coercion is reshaping Indonesia’s political-economic order

Prabowo’s regime has demonstrated that the state retains a latent, potent capacity to dictate the terms of economic accumulation. But this does not imply the erasure of Indonesia’s elite networks, but rather a structural rearticulation of their relationship with the state. While the oligarchs are currently forced to adapt to these centralising arrangements, their compliance should not be mistaken for permanent submission.

Indonesia’s economic centralisation under Prabowo

Analysis, Economy, Highlights

The question for Indonesia today is whether Prabowo’s unbridled centralisation will deliver the sustained economic growth that it promises, or merely build new institutions that distort the coordinating work of markets. Economic centralisation certainly offers more command over the nation’s wealth and a stronger hand in bargaining with the world, but any policy is only as good as the hands that work it.

From founder to prisoner: is Nadiem's verdict the end of regulatory trust?

Analysis, Economy, Law, Policies

No one should be surprised if, slowly but surely, Indonesia keeps sliding off the shortlists of major allocators - not because its market has shrunk, but because its institutions have stopped underwriting it.

Talking Indonesia: environmental activism, the law and SLAPP

Environment, Law, Talking Indonesia

Indonesia is home to some of the largest stretches of tropical rainforest left on Earth — and to a growing community of people willing to put themselves on the line to defend it. But across the archipelago, environmental activists are increasingly finding that the sharpest threat they face isn't out in the field. It's in the courtroom.

What the New Order's failed clove monopoly tells us about Prabowo's single-door export policy

Analysis, Economy

On 20 May 2026, addressing a House of Representatives (DPR) plenary in Jakarta, President Prabowo Subianto announced that exports of strategic natural resource commodities - palm oil, coal, and ferroalloys - would now be handled through a single door: the state-owned enterprise PT Danantara Sumberdaya Indonesia (DSI).

A China-Russia showdown? New great power tensions brewing in Indonesia’s North Natuna Sea

Analysis, Law, Policies, Politics, Security

The recent developments in the North Natuna Sea are very important, given recent geopolitical shifts that have severely disrupted the global economy. Energy self-reliance has become increasingly vital due to the Hormuz crisis, so how Indonesia deals with the Tuna Block will inevitably send geopolitical signals about its positioning as regards the great powers.

Is Jakarta turning into Gotham? How viral crime panics become pretext for expanding military visibility

Analysis, Highlights, Security, Society

Moments of crime anxiety in Indonesia routinely trigger authoritarian nostalgia for Petrus‑style ‘shock therapy’. This is a reference to the early‑1980s ‘mysterious shootings’ campaign in which security forces carried out extrajudicial killings of thousands of alleged criminals as a projection of state authority.

Talking Indonesia: Indonesian ghosts and ghost stories

Culture, Talking Indonesia

In this special episode of Talking Indonesia, co-hosts Tito Ambyo and Jamie Edmonds sit down together not as interviewer and guest, but as co-editors who have spent months immersed in a collection of essays on ghosts and haunting in Indonesia. The result is something that is a bit different from the usual podcast interview: two scholars thinking aloud about what the ghostly has done to them.

Whitewashing military responsibility: disappointing verdicts in Andrie Yunus acid attack trial

Analysis, Human Rights, Politics, Security

In our view, military courts should not have jurisdiction to try members of the military and security forces for human rights violations. Military courts in Indonesia often lack the impartiality, independence, and transparency required under international legal standards for a fair trial. This case is a perfect example of the problem.

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